History

The Private Industry Council was founded in 1979 by banker and education advocate William Edgerly (then chairman of State Street Bank) as a business-led intermediary organization that partners with the Boston Public Schools, higher education, labor, the community, and government to provide set strategic priorities for public job training funding.

Early in its formation, the PIC Board determined that education reform and youth employment are critical elements to creating a skilled workforce in Boston. Therefore, much of the organization's history, reputation, and capacity are focused on connecting youth in Boston's high schools with paid work and learning opportunities.

Timeline

1979 Banker and education advocate William Edgerly, together with other business leaders, founds the Boston Private Industry Council to organize private sector job training strategies in Boston.

1982 City leaders sign the Boston Compact, the first collaborative school-improvement agreement between business, higher education and a school system in the United States. Compact partners organize the first Boston Summer Jobs Campaign.

1987 The second Boston Compact, signed with Ferdinand "Moose" Colloredo-Mansfeld as PIC chair, creates the context for a new agreement between the Boston Public Schools and the Boston Teachers Union, establishing school-based management and shared decision making at the school level. This agreement gives new authority to individual schools.

1991 Responding to a projected shortage of health care employees, the PIC and area hospitals create ProTech, a groundbreaking school-to-career initiative. The impact of this student apprenticeship program is recognized nationwide and replicated in school districts across the country.

1993 Mayor Thomas M. Menino brings Compact partners together in his office to sign the third Boston Compact , one week after his inaugural address. This Compact calls upon employers to add school-year internships to their traditional summer jobs commitments. The agreement outlines a joint labor-management commitment to pilot schools, an extension of the school-based management concept that rivals charter schools in granting individual school autonomy.

1994 The federal government enacts the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, creating a joint effort of the US Departments of Education and Labor to dramatically expand the number of career specialists connecting high school students to the workplace.

1996 The Boston PIC charters The Work Place, the first One-Stop Career Center in Boston. Within a year, Boston Career Link and JobNet also open to serve Boston residents seeking employment and training services.

Launched jointly by the PIC and the Boston Public Schools, Groundhog Job Shadow Day is established to introduce Boston students to the world of work.

1997 President Clinton signs welfare legislation; the PIC organizes 14 partnerships between employers and community-based organizations to transition former recipients of public assistance into work.

1999 The PIC receives a $1 million federal grant to upgrade skills of 400 entry-level health care workers in acute, primary and long-term care settings.

The PIC pilots Classroom at the Workplace with the Federal Reserve Bank, Bell Atlantic, and Gillette to provide academic support as part of a summer job.

2000 Mayor Thomas M. Menino and eight other business, education and community leaders sign the fourth Boston Compact, committing all partners to meet the "High Standards Challenge." The Boston Summer Jobs Campaign results in 5151 jobs for young people.

2001 The Boston Youth Opportunity Center – a joint project of the Mayor’s Office, the PIC and the Boston Police Department– opens to provide opportunities for chronically court-involved, truant and other at-risk youth. The Center is supported by a five-year, $24 million grant from the US Department of Labor.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts funds the Extended Care Career Ladders Initiative (ECCLI) based on the US Department of Labor supported Incumbent Health Care Workers model piloted by the PIC in 1999.

The Boston PIC, using US Department of Labor Skill Shortages grant to address skill shortages in health care, develops outreach and recruitment tools and a loan forgiveness program for medical imaging and pharmacy technician programs.

2002 The Massachusetts Department of Education funds "Classroom at the Workplace" MCAS remediation programs, piloted by the PIC from 1999 to 2001 with funding from local businesses. A second state grant identifies and supports students in high school and maintains contact as they move into adult education and skill training systems.

Six financial services institutions and banks work with the PIC to develop and implement a Commonwealth of Massachusetts supported initiative to improve basic skills for employees in account management, data processing and retail banking.

2003 Boston is selected as one of the four regions in Massachusetts to take part in the federal Nursing Career Ladder Initiative (NUCLI). Through this initiative, the PIC develops and delivers nurse career coaching services, establishes a pilot RN scholarship/forgivable loan pool program, conductsan inventory of metropolitan Boston nurse preparation programs and publishesa guide to financial support resources.

2004 The PIC, with a consortia of six community based organizations, the City of Boston and one state agency, receives an award to provide employment and housing services to the chronically homeless. This award from the U.S. Department of Labor is designed to encourage and enhance coordinated service delivery among agencies and across service systems.

2005 Launched by Mayor Menino the previous fall, the PIC convenes the Youth Transitions Task Force, a broad cross-section of organizations, including the Boston Public Schools, community organizations, city departments and state agencies, to reduce the high school dropout rate. The Youth Transitions Funders Group, a coalition of national foundations, providesfinancial support as part of national campaign to bring struggling students and dropouts to the center of high school reform.

2006 At the annual meeting, the PIC releases Too Big to Be Seen: The Invisible Dropout Crisis in Boston and America, a report that reveals the scale of the dropout crisis. As part of the Youth Transitions effort, the PIC hires two "dropout recovery specialists" to reach out to dropouts, re-enroll them in school or education programs, and document their experiences as part of an action research project.

The PIC also launches a pilot program to provide college and career coaching to Boston Public Schools graduates attending local colleges in pursuit of careers in health care and financial services.

2007 The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University issues research that details the enormous social and fiscal costs of the dropout crisis. The public discourse intensifies with newspaper editorials and major public events. The Dropout Prevention and Recovery Act, based in part on the Youth Transitions recommendations, research, and organizing model, is filed and later reported out of the legislature's Joint Committee on Education.