Education and jobs
Last Updated on 10/16/2008
Published on 6/19/2008
Today's newspaper contains two stories about education. One originated from a Business-Education-Economic Development Forum held at Coastal Carolina University on Wednesday that said education is the key to the future. Without a better educated workforce, high-tech jobs will not come to the Waccamaw region of Georgetown, Horry and Williamsburg counties.
Three hundred and forty-nine people participated in workshops in the three counties to identify gaps between education, business and industry and suggest ways of closing them.
Developing a better-educated workforce is one of the most important challenges facing Georgetown -- and any county in South Carolina.
"If we can not get a more educated workforce, we cannot get high-tech jobs," said Coastal Carolina Provost Rob Sheehan.
To begin solving the problem, South Carolina established the Economic and Educational Development Act, establishing 16 career clusters for students to consider as early as elementary school. The program Personal Pathways to Success guides students toward a career.
"When you ask people today where they want to be in 10 years, they don't know," Sheehan said.
The system is broken and, frankly, there are few young people trained to do high-tech work.
The second story about education is even more troubling. The Georgetown County Board of Education cut $6.4 million from its budget because of state funding shortfalls due to sagging sales tax figures.
The state sought tax relief for homeowners by implementing an additional one-cent sales tax last year. Now that those funds are coming up short, schools have to choose between curriculum and services to students.
Dr. Randy Dozier, superintendent, says he is hesitant to use money from reserves -- but it's a possibility.
"What you are looking at is a minimal education," Dr. Dozier said. "You're not going above and beyond, not with the formula we've got."
If our schools can't go above and beyond, the workforce of the future is not going high-tech.
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Concerned Parent has hit the nail on the head. We are one of the ten wealthiest districts in the state and we are substandard in so many ways. Incompetent people at the District office are hurting our students to keep their "pie" jobs. Posted by Sick & Tired on 7/6/2008
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If the school district is short of money, why doesn't Dr. Dozier cut some of those "deadwood" jobs from the district office? Incompetent former school administrators who are given jobs at the district level because they couldn't do the job in a school should be fired for their incompetence, not rewarded with a salary ranging from $60,000 to $70,000 a year. Posted by A Concerned Parent on 6/30/2008
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