Join us in the Journal Sentinel’s Ideas Lab

Welcome to the Ideas Lab.

The Journal Sentinel is taking another step today in our journey away from the partisan divide toward problem-solving conversations.

In the Ideas Lab, we’ll kick the tires on ideas meant to solve problems. We’ll report on and evaluate these ideas based on independent evidence. We’ll search for the best practices out there.

We started down this road last fall. Today, we’re renaming our pages in print and online and committing ourselves to doing even more.

A few recent examples of this kind of solutionsfocused work:

Would a less restrictive immigration policy help Wisconsin fill jobs in the coming years as the baby boomers age out of the workforce? Possibly, we found, and the evidence suggests there would be little impact on existing workers who had a high school diploma.

With all the concern over Milwaukee’s next police chief, we wondered if it might be even more important for people in the city to organize their blocks to keep an eye on things. The facts show that block clubs do tamp down crime.

Is the Iowa model for creating new legislative districts every 10 years a better approach to provide citizens representative government than the highly politicized method used in Wisconsin? The evidence suggests it is.

We’ve launched a new Facebook group called Solutions for Wisconsin to get more input from our community. We have launched regular community forums (often with our partner, WUWM (89.7-FM). We’re listing all of our sources and other evidence we consult at the end of each major Ideas Lab reporting project to show exactly how we came to report what we reported.

Here’s what you can expect as we move forward:

Reported articles focused on solving problems. We plan a special focus in the coming months on the potential for Foxconn’s huge Racine County factory to get people who have been out of the labor force back on the job. This is a statewide issue and therefore bipartisan, increasing the potential for solutions. Rock County is as bad off as the city of Milwaukee on measures of childhood trauma, and it’s mainly due to the economic earthquake that has shocked our region. Racine’s own minority community could miss out if nothing extra is done to treat addiction, mend trauma.

“Field Notes,” a weekly newsletter on what Wisconsin researchers are doing to solve problems in the state. Sent to your inbox each Tuesday morning.

Community events where we can gather problem solvers and people interested in learning more.

Expert, solutions-focused essays on issues the community cares about, by people who have shown success in addressing the problem at hand.

You’ll see less traditional commentary and political opinion writing — and only rarely editorials. We’ll publish editorials when we have unique authority on a topic (such as public records) or when the topic is so compelling that the Editorial Board must weigh in.

We aim to report on and evaluate the best ideas to solve the region’s most pressing problems. Here’s how you can help:

Join our Facebook group: www.facebook.com/ groups/SolutionsWis.

Sign up for our newsletter.

Come to an event.

The Ideas Lab is open.

David D. Haynes is the editor of the Journal Sentinel’s Ideas Lab. Email: david.haynes@jrn.com. Twitter: @DavidDHaynes