A plan conceived more than 20 years ago to remake Oklahoma City for the 21st century has achieved a series of successes with a revitalized downtown amid a generally robust economy. It's a familiar local story.

The dynamic downtown, revived riverfront and other public improvements have energized a city that some left for dead after the oil bust of the 1980s.

Oklahoma City is home to some of the nation's largest energy companies, and community leaders have lured other corporate heavyweights, including G.E. and Boeing.

But there is a threat to the long-range plan's success: A shortage of the highly trained workers needed to fill those high-paying jobs. It's an issue that has the attention of many local employers — from manufacturers to research labs to defense contractors.

Local business and civic leaders have touted the benefits of preparing a workforce with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) skills, but results are lacking.

The state is expected to produce about 6,700 STEM-related job openings in each of the next 10 years. In that same period, more than half of the current STEM workforce is expected to retire or leave the state. But just 5,300 STEM students graduated from state colleges in 2011.

“We simply aren't producing enough workers who have those skills to do those jobs,” Bob Funk said of information technology positions. The comments of Funk, a 50-year veteran of the staffing industry, are echoed by Oklahoma employers seeking workers with a variety of skills.

Business leaders and policymakers agree that a failure to fill this “skills gap” will lead to jobs, employers and investments leaving Oklahoma.

New jobs, new skills

At one end of the Mills Machine Co. shop in downtown Shawnee sits a row of massive 1960s-era lathes, each about the size of a Honda Civic and weighing a few tons.

Today, most of the manufacturing work at the drilling manufacturer's plant is done on the other side of the room on even bigger, computerized lathes. Each machine looks like a small, boxy spaceship with lots of windows. Inside, steel machine parts are fabricated by entering a set of instructions and measurements on an attached computer.

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When Mills Machine President Chuck Mills' grandfather founded the business in 1908, most workers didn't even have to have a high school diploma, but times have changed.

“Machinists need to know trigonometry, advanced math — they're running automated computerized equipment and they do the programming for the machines,” Mills said. “Even welders are calculating angles and degrees to do cuts and welds.”

Mills would like Oklahoma schools to prepare kids better for entering the workforce by teaching them not only math skills, but also how they can apply those skills on the job.

Many members of the business community agree with Mills' assessment. Oklahoma's education system simply isn't producing a workforce armed with the skills needed today by employers.

Oklahoma's skills gap

Oklahoma consistently falls short in teaching students math. In 2013, only 31 percent of Oklahoma eighth-graders were proficient in math, according to National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. About 41 percent of Oklahoma eighth-graders were proficient in reading in 2013.

One of the first things employers want to know when looking at expanding in the state is whether there will be enough workers with the skills they need, said Scott Smith, manager of government and economic development partnerships for Oklahoma's CareerTech system.

Alternatively, they want to know whether the workforce is at least “trainable” and has the basic reading, math and “soft skills” that include the ability to show up to work on time and follow instructions.

“They want to know we are able to provide them with a trained workforce,” Smith said. “That is a question of the skills gap, really, and it's something we have to address at the beginning, in kindergarten, really.”

Future shortages

Oklahoma faces future shortages of workers not only in careers like engineering and health care, but in manufacturing and information technology. Projections show that Oklahoma is not producing enough workers with college degrees and professional certifications to meet future demand.

“If we don't close that skills gap, all of our children will have a hard time finding jobs,” Gov. Mary Fallin said at a recent meeting on workforce issues as part of the Oklahoma Works initiative. “A lot of companies will look outside of the state.”

By 2020, 64 percent of Oklahoma jobs will require post-secondary education, according to a study issued earlier this year by the Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative, a nonprofit formed by the State Chamber of Oklahoma to spearhead the issue.

U.S. Census data from 2011 shows that only 33 percent of Oklahoma adults have such degrees. By 2020, only about 37 percent of Oklahoma adults are projected to have some level of post-secondary education, leaving a roughly 27 percentage-point gap between available jobs and the number of skilled workers, according to the Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative.

“We're talking about very basic skills. For whatever reason, we are not teaching our students even the very basic skills,” said Jennifer Monies, executive director of the Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative. “There's a gap there. We're losing kids and they don't even have the basic skills to go to college.”

Workforce training

The state is in the process of writing new math and English language arts standards for common education after the Legislature passed a bill in 2014 that repealed Common Core standards. Fallin signed the bill into law, calling Common Core standards “divisive,” a move that was criticized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, among others.

In a White House briefing in February, Duncan took aim at Oklahoma's education system.

“So in Oklahoma, about 40 percent of high school graduates — these are not the dropouts — 40 percent of high school graduates have to take remedial classes when they go to college,” Duncan said. “Why? Because they weren't ready — 40 percent. About 25 percent of Oklahoma's eighth-graders in math are proficient — 25 percent. And other states locally are out-educating Oklahoma.”

Cindy Koss, deputy superintendent for academic affairs and planning for the Oklahoma State Department of Education, is in charge of the process of writing the new Oklahoma standards, which includes meeting with stakeholders across the state, including the business community.

There also are advisory committees on the standards that include employers from across the state, she said.

“We are reaching out to make sure that we hear voices from across Oklahoma,” Koss said. “We've been very transparent because these standards are for Oklahomans and by Oklahomans, so we need Oklahoman input.”

Vested interest

As part of its legislative agenda, the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber has supported raising curriculum standards for the state and taking an active role in the development of the new Oklahoma standards.

Oklahoma's business community has a vested interest in making sure Oklahoma schools prepare students for the workforce, said Drew Dugan, who oversees education and workforce development for the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber.

“We want to see higher expectations in math and science,” Dugan said.

“Science is very important to every economy and you need to be able to do higher math working at Boeing, designing airplane engines, or at an oil and gas company. You also have to have pretty high level math skills if you are going to be a machine operator.”