Another conversation on education
I found reading the Jan. 13 Observer-Reporter editorial, “Community college plan a conversation starter” rather interesting.
We were enlightened paragraph after paragraph about all the doom and gloom Georgia experienced with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the country. It told us President Obama’s plan to make a two-year, community college education tuition-free to all students could aid in fixing Georgia and other states’ problems with unemployment.
What I did not read is, since its inception, the state lottery in Georgia has already been investing lottery revenues into their youth’s continued education, unlike Pennsylvania that doles it out to senior citizens.
Georgia has spent $15.7 billion on, according to the lottery website, “one of the most successful education initiatives in Georgia history, the lottery-funded HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally) Scholarship Program currently provides Georgia students with financial assistance for attendance at eligible Georgia colleges, universities, or technical colleges. Students may be eligible for the Zell Miller Scholarship, the HOPE Scholarship, or the HOPE Grant.”
I, therefore, view the editorial’s use of the information from The Atlantic magazine article on Georgia’s unemployment problem as a moot point when it speaks approvingly of handing out tuition-free education as a solution to Georgia’s unemployment crisis. According to the data cited in the editorial, Georgia’s support and effort towards educating their high school graduates would appear to have been proven unsuccessful if we are to believe an undereducated workforce is the main cause of the unemployment rates in Georgia and across our country.
Instead, why not offer to teach community college, two-year courses during the junior and senior years of a student’s high school education?
Most school districts already have vo-tech schools in place that could expand, offering additional courses of study.
To present our children with an opportunity to attain a solid career upon high school graduation, the conversation should be about revamping our state’s 12-year education program requirements in order to meet the demands of our 21st century workforce through offering our high school students additional individual educational choices.
Since we, the taxpayers, already pay for that education, the students could then be graduating with certifications qualifying them with the skills required to meet the demands of the jobs that are now being created.
Rebecca L. Simpson
Washington