By Lisa Le Fevre and Joy Lewis

This blog post highlights how key interest holders embraced and acted on recommendations from a regional education and workforce analysis in Illinois and Iowa.

Effective research provides key interest holders with actionable information and recommendations. Rather than sit on proverbial shelves where they can be forgotten, relevant studies drive solutions to problems, highlight evidence-based promising practices, and uncover opportunities. WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility took this understanding to heart when conducting a regional education and workforce analysis of the Quad Cities region in Illinois and Iowa.  Findings from the report helped shape the workforce initiatives of Grow Quad Cities.

Alignment of Education Systems With Workforce Demand: A Regional Workforce Analysis

The Illinois Board of Higher Education (IBHE) contracted with WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility to conduct a comprehensive, mixed-methods regional education and workforce analysis of the Quad Cities’ workforce talent and pathways. The Thrive Quad Cities analysis (PDF, 5.6MB) examined the bistate region’s labor market demand, education pathways, and equity gaps to inform coordinated, cross-sector strategies that align K–12 and postsecondary programs with high-demand careers.

The study was guided by a central question: “How can higher education in the Quad Cities region be both responsive to and proactive in supporting industry and community needs?” The resulting findings built a shared understanding of regional labor market demand and economic trends, identified priority sectors and occupations, surfaced insights into training and workforce opportunities, and offered actionable recommendations for improving aligned pathways and coordination. The work combined three core components:

  • key interest holder engagement with workforce, education, and community organizations to surface qualitative insights about regional priorities and systems-level challenges
  • quantitative data analysis of labor market and economic data to identify the Quad Cities region’s high-demand industries, occupational clusters, and specialized skill needs, which were then paired with education and demographic data to examine participation, completion, and gaps across postsecondary pathways
  • applied synthesis with recommendations focused on strengthening career awareness, expanding work-based learning and apprenticeships, improving cross-segment coordination, and supporting wraparound services for learners and workers

These efforts resulted in a model regional analysis and a replication toolkit (appended to the study’s final report [PDF, 5.6 MB]) to inform state strategic planning; clear, data-driven priorities for program expansion and investment; and strategies for improving alignment across education and workforce systems.

Participant Engagement Led to Initiative Leadership

Christine Caves, vice president of business retention, expansion, and workforce with Grow Quad Cities, participated in the work’s engagement activities. She served on the study’s advisory committee, which was composed of regional education and workforce leaders and champions. The group met regularly during the project year (2023–2024) to offer their perspectives on local training and occupation needs, support outreach, and provide feedback on findings. Committee members also shared Quad Cities education and program models, discussed strategies that could be tapped into to address local needs, and conferred on the feasibility of carrying forth the analysis report’s findings and recommendations.

Key findings from the work highlighted challenges regionally in attracting and retaining talent; strengthening career awareness among students and job seekers; and coordinating across
K–12, adult education, and workforce systems. The analysis also identified specialized skill gaps in high-demand fields like engineering, healthcare, and manufacturing, along with a need for expanded work-based learning and wraparound supports such as child care and transportation. Recommendations included the following:

  • building cross-segment career awareness campaigns aligned with regional high-wage, high-demand careers
  • expanding work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities
  • increasing meaningful connections between employers and education partners
  • supporting wraparound services to help workers get to and stay at work

See the full report for the complete list of findings and recommendations.

For Caves, the Thrive Quad Cities analysis and findings activated a series of aligned efforts. She and her colleague Bill Polley, senior director of business intelligence at Grow Quad Cities, felt strongly about not just having another workforce analysis done in the region but also about realizing the recommendations.

“It was important for us to not just have another workforce study done for the region and let it collect dust on the shelf but to also be intentional and actionize the recommendations in the report. It really helped set pretty much everything we have done since then in motion.”

—Christine Caves, Grow Quad Cities

The two colleagues identified an interest in further understanding the credential gap analysis in the region and set a new venture in motion. Caves noted that the Thrive Quad Cities report was a “solid framework” that provided actionable recommendations.

Grow Quad Cities: A Full-Service Initiative

Grow Quad Cities is a full-service regional economic development organization focused on building business information, growth, and expansion; workforce partnerships and programs to foster skilled talent; and quality of place (e.g., entertainment, retail, mixed-use) development. The focus on these efforts has resulted in numerous achievements to date. Those that stemmed from or were influenced by Thrive Quad Cities have included the creation of a regional job priority report, new training programs, and a work-based learning directory.

100 High-Priority Jobs Report

Building on the labor market analysis and top five sector findings produced by Thrive Quad Cities, Grow Quad Cities developed a companion inventory tracking regional graduates, majors, and enrollment against local job demand. Caves called it their “North Star,” a way to replace assumption-driven hiring conversations with hard data on engineering supply and demand. The report has since been shared with United Way, school superintendents, and area colleges, prompting at least two institutions to convene faculty and adjust programming in response.

New Training Programs

Acting on the Thrive Quad Cities recommendation to expand training aligned with high-demand occupations, Grow Quad Cities worked with regional partners to launch new programming. Eastern Iowa Community Colleges, for example, introduced robotics, automation, and programming courses that have been at capacity since they began.

Work-Based Learning Directory

Responding directly to the report’s call to expand work-based learning and strengthen convening among partners, Grow Quad Cities launched CareerLink QC, bringing together work-based learning coordinators from every Quad Cities high school for regular monthly meetings. Using separate grant funding, the team also built a work-based learning inventory—an effort informed by IBHE’s existing model.

The Horizon of Grow Quad Cities

The journey from Thrive Quad Cities to Grow Quad Cities shows what’s possible when regional research is designed to be used, not shelved. What began as a mixed-methods analysis of the region’s labor market and education pathways became a shared framework that Grow Quad Cities could act on quickly and feasibly.

“In this rapidly changing labor market, it is vital that communities understand which occupations are in high demand and pay livable wages. Ours is a data-driven approach designed to track these trends over time.”

—Bill Polley, Grow Quad Cities

Grow Quad Cities turned data into a job priority report, recommendations into new training programs, and a call for coordination into a standing network of work-based learning partners. The result is a set of initiatives that are still growing today and a model for how analysis can move from insight to impact.

To learn more about the ongoing work of Grow Quad Cities, visit GrowQuadCities.com. To read the full Thrive Quad Cities report and learn more about WestEd’s Center for Economic Mobility, visit the project page.

Lisa Le Fevre coordinates research, evaluation, and technical assistance of workforce development, systems improvement, and education initiatives. She explores innovation and collaboration for students’ academic and career success. Her skills include qualitative research design, data collection and analysis, and project implementation and outcomes support. Lisa has extensive experience evaluating federally funded grantee projects, including Strengthening Community Colleges training grants. She managed grantee monitoring on a U.S. Department of Labor H-1B Technical Skills Training Grant and led qualitative analysis on evaluations of two Workforce Innovation Grants. She has a PhD in applied anthropology from Columbia University.

Joy Lewis focuses on program implementation and structural reform of postsecondary institutions, regions, states, and school districts. Over the past 20 years, Joy’s work has centered on K-16 policy, large-scale assessment, accountability, curriculum alignment, early childhood education, and implementation of state and local data systems. She bridges gaps between policy and practice, advocating for equitable access and sustainable reforms in postsecondary systems, ultimately empowering students and educators with impactful education solutions. Joy holds a BA in sociology from University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an MA in education policy and administration from Stanford University.