The Wisconsin Education Business Roundtable (WEBR) is dedicated to the promotion of a world-class educational infrastructure in Wisconsin capable of providing Wisconsin’s students, citizens, governments and businesses with the educational, research and developmental resources they need to secure Wisconsin’s economic vitality and sustain its unique quality of life.

VISION

WEBR was founded on the belief that Wisconsin economic and social prospects could be improved if the business, economic development, educational and policy-making communities collaborated more effectively and strategically. Its central operating premise has been that timely, relevant and accurate information was essential to the strategic collaboration process. Neither of those core beliefs has changed.

What has changed is the urgency with which Wisconsin needs to achieve significant enhancements in strategic collaborative ability among these critical communities so that Wisconsin’s educational infrastructure can equip students with the knowledge and educational skills they need to prosper and achieve their individual goals in today’s and tomorrow’s rapidly changing world. The urgency and importance of creating a more informed, nimble and meaningful relationship between Wisconsin’s (America’s) employers and educators has increased because: 1) the speed and complexity with which technological and scientific advances and changes in global demand impact the rate of change in the work and market places is increasing exponentially; and 2) as academics and educators rethink how to organize, fund, execute and sustain their educational responsibilities, it is increasingly clear that the long-term sustainable strategies required to address these issues benefit from an informed, broad collaborative effort that includes civic and business leaders as well as policy makers and elected officials. Both of these factors are important because there is an inevitability to the patterns and speed of change driving both phenomena and because while more people recognize the inevitability every day, efforts to develop systemic plans (as opposed to programs) to address the challenges and seize the opportunities are just now beginning to appear on the horizon. As the need for systemic change becomes evident so too will the need for major strategic collaborations dedicated to developing approaches that address both the need to revitalize the interaction between the educational, business and economic development infrastructures and to inform and empower state and local action.