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NOVEMBER 2007
It
is time to invest in our future
by Rick S. Bender, President of
the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO
It
is time to invest in our future.
Last year in Seattle City
Light more than doubled its overtime spending as line workers put their
health and safety at risk working both day and night shifts. There are 180
positions on the line force and 42 of them are vacant. During last
winter’s storms we ended up calling in workers from other states and
sending them home with fistfuls of dollars to spend in other states’
economies. Our lack of foresight in training and recruiting workers to
fulfill our own needs ended up costing the public utility 25 million
dollars.
Educating and investing
in our workforce is the answer to this problem. Last year Governor
Gregoire created the “Washington Learns” program to strengthen our education system and
prepare our future workforce for the emerging global economy. She
commissioned the Higher Education Coordinating Board to set goals for
education in the next ten years. Their draft report includes an
astonishing revelation: today’s young adults have, on average, less
education than their parents, the baby boomers. They also report the high
school drop out rate at 25%. This is unacceptable and we must make
dramatic changes to help our young people and ourselves.
One bright light is the
passage of the Simple Majority resolution in this past election. It was
not an easy fight to pass this measure that would require school bonds to
get a 50% majority vote instead of the 60% passage required for the past
six decades. For many days it looked like the voters were going to reject
the measure. Pundits declared that the public turned it down because it
would eventually mean more taxes if school bonds passed. But Simple
Majority did pass and voters proved that education does mean something to
them, that investing in our children is worth the extra effort.
So let’s make sure we
put the necessary resources into our children’s education. We already
know that we must prepare them better in math, science and reading. But
that doesn’t mean we only prepare them to take tests,
which is what the current fad, and as the “No Child Left Behind
Act” does. This federal mandate, which was never fully funded, is now up
for reauthorization and there is a lot of heated discussion over whether
or not it is a good way to measure our children’s success. The way I see
it is that the measurements required by No Child Left Behind are all about
the school; they totally disregard the individual students. The Act has
shifted the focus of education away from the states and their needs and
toward a national standardization – and that is not in the best interest
of
Our teachers are so busy
preparing the children for the WASL test; they are unable to sneak in the
time to engage in the conversations that expose kids to other options.
What if the child really is not college material? There are very few
options for them to explore in either middle school or at the high school
level. Technical and vocational education has all but disappeared.
A survey conducted by the
Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board showed that nearly one
out of every three employers in Washington State reported difficulty
finding qualified workers. Almost twice as many firms are seeking
employees with vocational training than ones looking for staff with
college degrees. Young people need more exposure in the K through 12
system to the job opportunities that an AA degree, apprenticeship or
vocational/technical certificate can provide.
Education will play a big
part in the upcoming legislative session in
Rick Bender is President of the
Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO,
the largest labor organization in the state.
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Copyright © 2007 Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO