ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, December 6, 1996 TAG: 9612060018
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
185 BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT representatives are holding a two-day conference to develop a statewide plan to upgrade skills, expand tourism and improve infrastructure.
With feelings of job security shaky and take-home pay slipping, the American worker sports the image of an unhappy soul.
An employment expert in Roanoke affirmed Thursday what politicians, academics and think tanks have said is a broad answer to the problem: Training.
More skill "is the only way out of here," said Anthony Carnevale, an author, former federal policy analyst and officer at the Educational Testing Service, the Princeton, N.J., firm that administers the Scholastic Assessment Test, or SAT.
Carnevale spoke at the Virginia Economic Leadership Conference, a two-day event at Hotel Roanoke staged by Virginia Tech and state economic leaders. The event was paid for with part of $200,000 given Virginia Tech by tobacco and food processor Philip Morris Cos.
The 185 business and government representatives attending the conference are working on a statewide strategy to upgrade skills, expand tourism and improve roads, the communication system and other infrastructure. The strategy will be presented to state lawmakers at the start of the General Assembly session that begins next month. The event continues today.
At a session on improving skills, an academic recommended schools start career counseling in the third grade. By the time a student is a high school sophomore, he or she should have chosen a "career major," said James Hoerner, a vocational education professor at Tech.
Schools must get students ready to work and companies should help, he said. "We must stop practicing education as if there are two worlds: education and work," Hoerner said.
Deere & Co., a Moline, Ill., manufacturer of heavy equipment, is an example of a company that has a taken a role in education.
Two years ago, the company's combine plant in East Moline, helped set up a community college program for people who wanted to work at the plant. As at many factories, brain power replaced brawn years ago and the need for highly trained workers is growing. Combines now come with computers in the cab that tell farmers where to spray pesticides and fertilizers.
In devising the program, the company agreed workers would do some of the teaching. The result was a two-year course that equipped high school graduates for $25-an-hour jobs and gave John Deere a supply of new employees to replace its aging work force.
"It's unbelievable what can be done if, in essence, business and industry work together with education," said Gordon Kinkead, Deere's corporate training director.
Carnevale said the push for skills is needed to reverse stagnant or falling productivity. The United States was the world productivity leader from after World War II until the early 1970s. After that, the progress slowed and even went backward in some areas.
Had productivity kept rising during the past 25 years as fast as it did the previous two decades, the economy would have grown by $17 trillion, or enough to pay for a house for every man, woman and child in the United States, Carnevale said.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB