Five years from now, Iowa could have 150,000 more jobs than workers. This forecast from the Iowa Works Campaign offers several attractive options:

• Panic like it’s another ice storm.

• Assume that they don’t know what they’re talking about.

• Start taking it easy, secure in the knowledge that any mope will be able to stick to a payroll from now on. (Note: this option is open only to employees, not employers.)

Then there’s the mature, more challenging approach, which is to actually do something about this issue. That’s the path being taken by people like businessman Marvin Pomerantz, attorney Doug Gross and former University of Northern Iowa president Robert Koob. You know – people who tend to take things seriously.

They’re part of the Institute for Tomorrow’s Workforce, which was created by the state Legislature two years ago to figure out how to improve our educational system. That’s not going to make the state’s population grow any faster – unless they’re planning radical changes in the biology homework requirements – but it might produce students who are more qualified to handle the jobs available.

We talked to Koob after an ITW meeting last week, and he said, “Parents no longer believe students have equal access to quality education across the state. We want to make certain that every district understands what is expected, professionalize the teaching career and make certain all districts are using tax dollars effectively.”

It’s an enormous undertaking. ITW says, “Iowa has failed when most young people graduate high school with only minimal competence,” which really makes you question the decision to feature education on our state quarter.

Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is getting the students on board. You can redefine the classes and boost the teachers’ pay, but the results will be limited if kids look at school as a place to rest up for work, sports and parties.

However, Koob won’t be drawn into spreading blame among parents, cultural influences and so forth. “Life’s a lot more complicated now,” he said. “I think it has become less clear what success means.”

He’s pretty sure, however, that students in the 21st century need to learn how to “think on their feet, understand what business is about and act creatively.” Success from now on will require “learning to be adaptive as tools change.”

ITW says “some Iowans are suggesting” that we “replace (accumulation of credits in a classroom) with career pathway preparation where learning occurs anytime, anyplace, and ‘demonstrations’ of proficiency count toward college admission.”

Sounds OK, but hard to measure and really easy to gloss over.

Then there’s the matter of teacher pay. Gov. Culver wants to jack up the salaries right away, and ITW agrees wholeheartedly. It recommends a career ladder system that leads each teacher through a series of higher-paying classifications, the same system used in most professions. If you follow along with your calculator, you find “advanced” teachers making $92,000.

Where are we going to find the money? “The same place we find it now,” Koob said. “Some teachers will not move up the ladder, while a few will be exemplary” and hit the highest level, resulting in an average we can afford.

That seems questionable. But you can’t argue with the value of incentives.

“I started as a teacher,” Koob said, “and at the end of the first year, I asked about next year, and they said, it will be the same as this year. Then why should I work hard to get a lot better? A normal human being wants to be recognized in terms of rank and salary.”