THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 21, 1996 TAG: 9604200018
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SERIES: THE STATE OF THE SOUTH
Part Three
LENGTH: Medium: 65 lines
``The economic landscape Southerners find in 1996 is uneven,'' according to a report titled ``The State of the South.'' It's by MDC Inc., a 29-year-old non-profit research firm.
In words that ring true, the report continues: ``Good news swirls into bad. Layoffs are announced on the same newspaper page as entrepreneurial miracles.''
When good news is swirling into bad, the report makes clear, every worker needs training.
Here are eight worthy recommendations for Southern schools, taken from the MDC report:
1. ``Middle schools and high schools need to steer students, all students, toward post-secondary education, as well as give them serious exposure to a variety of careers.'' The report notes, ``A worker armed only with a high-school diploma today has fewer prospects than a dropout a generation ago.''
2. Schools from elementary through college should adapt to meet the needs of young and old students confronting an ever-changing economy. The institutions' convenience and traditions are less important that the students' needs.
3. States should give their universities and community colleges financial incentives to apply their expertise and research to the development of their communities and regions.
4. Increases in tuitions and decreases in student aid must be reversed. Education must be affordable.
5. Universities and community colleges need a clear sense of mission, ``explicitly including service to society.'' A state should base funding for a college on its success in fulfilling its mission, not on the number of students.
6. ``The South must preserve and enrich its quality research and doctorate universities.'' As the report says, ``. . . a dynamic economy needs the spark of economically valuable new ideas.''
7. Community and technical colleges must organize to meet the education needs of business and industry and ``the 8 million additional citizens, age 45 to 65, who will carry the economy of the South during the first decade of the new century.''
8. Colleges should receive funding to aggressively ``identify, recruit, counsel, support, educate and place into jobs or further education all who need their services.''
Education is useful for its own sake, of course, but it is the lifeblood of tomorrow's economy. High-school graduates must see before them affordable paths of training that lead to good jobs. Older workers must be provided similar paths to better lives. Schools and businesses must cooperate to ensure that the paths get built.
The people we fail to train, whatever their ages, will be drags on the economy - maybe in prison, maybe on welfare.
State officials should heed the MDC report's suggestions, and this headline from it should be drummed into every student's head: ``Know more, earn more.'' That sounds crass, but it's a tough world, with no guarantees. by CNB