ftth:
Re your reference to: ?"Vote For Those Who Will See To It That We Can Make Change
informationweek.com;
While it is true that the modern educational system has gone into a self referential tail spin of new
programs failing so they create new programs to deal with that, and which also fail, I am by nature
an optimist and have a different take on the story about inadequate education.
Here, in Connecticut, at the beginning of the decade past
we had the wealthiest state with the richest county in the US; we also had three
of the top ten poorest cities in the US. We are the absolute perfect target for those, particularly
Europeans, who criticize income disparity in the US.
However, As we increased the economy from the late 1980's to 2000, with a minor pause under an
incompetent governor in the early 90's, the number of jobless people decreased.
When new start up companies popped up all over the very expensive region, there was only
one place to get non-professional low level staff - those 3 poor cities: Hartford, New Haven, and
Bridgeport. The people there, embedded for generations in low paying jobs and welfare, started to
get hired by high tech and service firms.
First the receptionists would be hired. I had several long conversations with people who had the
first job in their family- in fact, we often talked about the idea of going to a job every day as being
very strange to them. I guess this was the first thing that had to be 'taught', and the weekly paycheck
and benefits were immediately effective in securing the lesson. Since the only source of fairly low
level entry jobs were the 3 poor cities and often minority people, they were hired. Buss routes now
run from the inner city to the 'silicon parkway' out in the expensive suburbs.
Then some of these people moved into higher job function- finance, operations, and more were
hired to take their place.
The bottom line is that many of the 'uneducated' workers have been hired, and business is training them,
because there is a severe staffing shortage. This is well recognized by HR staff in the area, who now
offer remedial training as a normal part of their business.
I am very happy about this. And it happened without much government help, without quotas, and
without much central control. It happened because companies needed people and just hired them.
Now, I have trouble understating some of the accents and dialects in Fast Food restaurants, and I
do think we should be able to count change and write decent English as part of our common
education, but hey, on the job training is fine if everyone gets a job. I'll live with the reduced
level of service if it gets everyone working, and self interest is the best way to learn in many cases.
I just hope the recovery continues until at least one generation of the formerly embedded poor are
into the job market. |
