Boost Education for Economic Change

We have overused and overheard the word stimulus. In fact, I am tired of it already. What I want is for my retirement account to regain its losses and for people to go back to work. But what I really want is for us to understand as a nation that we will never get where we want to go--stimulus or not--if we don't invest in education and brain power here. Courtland Milloy wrote a powerful article this morning about education and its impact on social and economic freedom. He cites statistics related to the African American workforce. There are 17 million African Americans working today but another 2.2 million unemployed. For black men ages 20 to 24 without a high school diploma, the unemployment rate is 55 percent; the percentage for women is 30. While these are tough economic times no matter your educational level, not having a high school diploma is almost a death knell to getting a job. With dropout rates for African Americans approaching 50 percent in some high schools the situation going forward is pretty grim. Just do the math.

I know times are tight all around but we cannot lose our focus on preparing young people for jobs, entrepreneurship, and innovation. We need to educate and train the next round of businesspeople and inventors and we need to provide the supports, the excellent teaching, and the opportunities to create a pathway to success. If we wring our hands on this one, we could lose a generation.

Comments

[Dan Bassill]

If we reach out to private sector donors, businesses, individuals who are lucky enough not to live in high poverty, these people can be a private sector stimulus package to support non profits who work with inner city youth and families.

I wrote about this on my blog today at http://tutormentor.blogspot.com/2009/02/stimulus-package-for-volunteer-based.html I hope others will read the article and pass it on through their own personal and professional networks.

It's not a government bail out that will change things, but what people who are still working will do to make sure these non profits have the funds to keep people employed, and have the new funds that create jobs for those who are now unemployed.

If we focus this stimulus on programs that help kids stay in school and prepare for jobs and careers we can solve many problems with one set of actions.