K-12 Education Archives

Announcing a Regional Agreement to Solve Early Literacy Crisis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Grand Rapids, MI (February 10, 2025) — An alliance of business, K-12 and teaching-college leaders today announced an unprecedented agreement to increase...

Work-Based Learning: The Key to Next-Generation Talent

Before joining Mercantile Bank a decade ago, Misti Stanton worked in education for 25 years. Today, as Mercantile’s Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion,...

New Low for 3rd Grade Reading Shows Why We’re Taking Action

Six out of 10 fourth graders in Michigan went back to school this year unprepared to read at grade level. In announcing the results from...

New Employer Toolkit Tackles Crisis of K12 Absenteeism

As students head back to school across Michigan, too many classrooms will have empty seats and too many young learners will not be present when...

We Can’t Afford To Miss This One-Time Chance To Improve Adult Ed

TalentFirst members are at the forefront of driving improvements in Michigan’s adult education system. As employers, they recognize the critical role that adult ed plays...

Announcing the first winners of the Talent First Literacy Leader Awards

NEWS RELEASE: TalentFirst today named five West Michigan elementary schools as the first recipients of its Literacy Leader Award, recognizing excellence in early literacy instruction...

Some Promising Attention to Michigan’s Early Literacy Crisis

The alarm bell is still ringing, but we are seeing signs that communities are waking up to the early literacy crisis that has been building...

Industry Highlight: ABC/WMC Addresses Construction’s Labor Shortage (Part 2)

In our most recent blog post, the Associated Builders and Contractors Western Michigan Chapter’s (ABC/WMC) explained how the labor shortage is impacting the construction sector....

New Dashboard Provides Tools to Tackle Michigan’s Early Literacy Crisis

With tests showing a continuing decline in early literacy in Michigan, TalentFirst has published an interactive dashboard documenting third-grade reading scores for nearly every elementary...

Employers go all-in on student success as investment in our future

In our efforts to make to make Michigan a leader for talent, we know exactly where to find the group with the greatest potential to...