Meet State's Workforce Development Need
by Randy Ewing - Shreveport Times (excerpt)

Our governor and the legislature are currently seeking solutions to Louisiana's shortage of a viable workforce, They are to be congratulated for addressing this most serious need. Most employers lack the qualified workers to carry on or expand their business. Recent reports indicate that there are 100,000 unfilled jobs in our state.

It appears that most emphasis is being placed on restructuring and redefining the mission of vocational-technical training and community colleges. These are key components to workforce development and hopefully the goal will be to furnish practical training to eligible high school or GED students in fields such as nursing, auto mechanics, construction, machine operation, plumbing, welding and electrical work, to name a few. These are a large percentage of the unfilled jobs.

An approach that focuses only on students already engaged in the education process will not solve the problem. The crisis is the 16-year-old eighth-grader who drops out of school. This young person is ineligible to enter vocational-technical community colleges and lacks the ability to enter the workforce. Only half of the students who enter the ninth grade graduate from high school in Louisiana. Over recent years, this has created an unemployable population of 750,000.

Our current system of education fails to get enough of our young people to a point of high school graduation. This must be corrected if we are ever to have a viable workforce, grow our economy, and address our serious social problems, such as crime and poverty.

If we are to have a strong economy and the workforce on which to build it, we must have a goal to prepare all of our children to have meaningful and productive lives and to enjoy the feeling of self-worth that comes with having a job.