The Norfolk Foundation and the Economics Club of Hampton Roads hosted a Community Matters Luncheon on October 28th with Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), also a Hampton University graduate.
Dr. Hrabowski:
The business community understands and appreciates the connection with pre K-20 education and success as a region.
Thomas Friedman, of “Hot, Flat and Crowded” book fame, recently spoke at UMBC and drove home these points: global warming is real, we’re in an energy crisis and demographics is an even bigger issue. And, then he asked, how do we find the resources to deal with this?
At the base of each of these issues is quality education. We measure progress in higher education attainment in ten-year time spans, and every ten years, we are making progress. However, still today, 70% of whites, 80% of blacks, and 90% of Hispanics, the fastest growing demographic in the U.S., do not have a college degree.
Historically, there have been plenty of jobs available for people without degrees. But, with technological advances today and in the future, we’re not prepared. Americans (39%) and Canadians (41%) are the most educated people in the world today in the 35-65 age group. However, in the 25-35 age group, the U.S. has dropped from #2 in the world to #7. China, India and other developing countries have focused their emphasis on education to build their economies.
Case in point, there are: 1.3 Billion Chinese, 1.1 Billion Indians, totaling 2.4 Billion. Using simple math, they have almost more geniuses (top 10% of their population equates to 240 Million) than the U.S. has people (300 Million).
The U.S. needs innovation in education that seeds critical thinking in students. There is a stark achievement gap between our best students and the best in other countries. We must knock down boundaries, discuss the problems and build trust to lead people to ask the right questions.
Instead of asking your child, “What did you learn in school today?” ask, “Did you ask a good question today?”
We are at a crossroads in this country. Unhealthy communities have schools that are heavily minority, poor white and not doing well in addition to middle to upper middle class schools that are doing well. Healthy communities attack the problems by not placing blame and treating all schools equally.
Emphasize to your kids to read, and to read critically! Even math involves solving word problems. Children need to develop a “sense of self.” We must instill value in wanting to be smart. Our culture today reinforces to kids that it’s not cool to be smart, unlike the countries that are bypassing us on the educational front.
Without an education, regardless of sex, race or social status, the future is not very bright for a child today. We must prepare our kids to “know what they know they don’t know.”
If we’re not careful, technology will rule us, rather than we rule technology.
Chicago’s O’Hare Airport is a metaphor for the 21st century. If you can’t read well, follow complex directions and problem solve, you are lost.
To do what we must do to succeed, we must develop and engage in problem-solving both sides of the brain. The book, “A Whole New Mind,” emphasizes this dilemma. Left brain thinking got us to the technology-based world we live in today. And, our future will rely on right brain thinking, too.
We are an instant gratification culture; we want solutions at the snap of a finger. And, that’s not always possible. Sometimes you have to think about the solution, offering this word problem as an example:
This is a 6th grade classroom.
There are 29 kids.
There are 20 dogs and 15 cats owned.
How many kids have both a cat and a dog?
The most important math for high school students is not calculus, it is statistics and probability. Perhaps if we’d been teaching that, we might not have had our recent home financing problems.
Virginia has a great strength in its deep sense of education that’s hundreds of years old. The challenge today is to believe in our children and have them believe in themselves. Kids need to see the relationship between goals and expectations. They’re bored in today’s classrooms. We’re in a 21st century technology-driven world, and we have an educational system developed around a 19th century world. We need to bring dynamics to the classroom with more emphasis on and more infusion of creativity to get kids to “connect.”
On the other hand, too much blame is placed on teachers for “teaching to the test.” They’ve not been trained any differently, and parents are not spending enough time teaching their own kids by working on homework with them. Children must be taught to think, to get beyond routine problems in order to deal with life, not just math.
Hampton Roads, I leave you with this challenge: Build on your strengths and create excitement for the idea of education. Say something good every day about this place and to a child.
Thoughts become words.
Words become actions.
Actions become habits.
Habits become character.
Character becomes your destiny.
See Angelica Light, The Norfolk Foundation President and CEO, interview Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, before the event:
1 comment
HR Partnership says:
November 9, 2009 at 12:32 pm (UTC -4 )
From Inside Business http://www.insidebiz.com
Issue Date: Week of November 09 2009, Posted On: 11/6/2009 2:20:00 PM
Education council wants to avoid a train wreck
by MICHAEL SCHWARTZ – Staff Writer
The Virginia Business Higher Education Council came through town on Oct. 29 with its Grow By Degrees campaign touting the results of a study that measured the economic impact of the state’s institutions of higher education.
For every dollar spent on higher education, $13.31 in economic activity is generated.
Not a bad return, the group’s supporters argue.
But the campaign wasn’t in town merely to celebrate those figures, produced by the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at the University of Virginia’s Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
The other side of its message was a call to action.
If increased, targeted, high-impact investments and innovations aren’t made in the state’s higher education system, those precious dollars might disappear.
That call to action was backed up by a video that began with words on the screen, “An economy in distress … how do we respond?” and news clips about rampant unemployment.
“Our economy in Virginia and the growth of our economy are fundamentally tied to higher education,” W. Heywood Frelin, CEO, Medical Facilities of America, said in the video.
Part of the group’s fear stems from a trend in state funding.
Over the past decade, the study found, per capita funding of college and university students in the state has continued to shrink. It’s what the program calls “a decade of disinvestment.”
Since 2000, per-student funding from the state has dropped 40 percent at four-year colleges and 30 percent at community colleges.
With less of the cost covered by the state, the burden falls to the students, typically in the form of tuition increases and increased student debt.
That is a trend that must end, argued James Murray Jr., managing director of Court Square Ventures in Charlottesville.
“We cannot send our young people out into the world burdened by tens or even hundreds of thousands in debt,” Murray said. “We are setting our students and our state up for failure.”
John “Dubby” Wynne, former chairman of Landmark Communications, discussed data that showed the state’s 25-to-34-year old population has a lower percentile of higher education degrees than either of the previous two decades.
“That’s predicting a train wreck if we don’t do something about it,” Wynne said.
Today, only 35 percent of eligible citizens enroll in community college or four-year institutions. Forty-two percent of the workforce today has one of those degrees.
To counter that downward trend, VBHEC is pushing for an additional 70,000 degrees to be awarded out of the state’s higher ed institutions by 2020. Such an effort would produce $18 billion toward Virginia’s gross domestic product.
Highlighting the benefits an educated and skilled workforce can have on the region, the group interviewed Michael Rencheck, president and CEO of Areva NP, a company now building a huge manufacturing facility in Newport News to the tune of $360 million. It will bring 500 new jobs.
“One of the primary reasons we made an investment in Newport News was the availability of a well-trained, well-educated workforce in the area,” Rencheck said.
Wynne, however, showed a figure illustrating the fact that more of Virginia’s workforce comes from other states, a trend he doesn’t believe is good for the long term.
“We’re making a living by people moving here from other states,” Wynne said. “That’s not sustainable. Every state is going to fight like mad” for those jobs, particularly during and coming out of a recession.
Virginia’s higher education system is made up of 39 public institutions, including 15 four-year institutions, one junior college and 23 community colleges.
The economic impact of that system is measured in terms of expenditures made by the institutions, their students, their foundations and visitors. What the study calls “human capital improvements” are also factored in as measured by increased productivity and earnings of graduates who enter and are retained in the state workforce.
The total economic footprint attributable to one year of higher education operations is $23.976 billion in GDP, the study found. Public higher education operations account for 144,550 total Virginia jobs.
Hampton Roads’ higher education institutions contribute $4.38 billion or 18 percent of the state’s annual GDP. A total of 22,291 jobs are created by the region’s higher education operations.
Other intangibles that the study could not measure are seen as beneficial impacts of higher education.
They include the economic impact of the creation of new technological innovations and business spinoffs, as well as improving the entrepreneurial abilities and productivity of firms. The study said a healthy higher education system also improves the health of citizens, decreases their reliance on social services and welfare, and decreases the likelihood of committing crimes, which translates to real costs in the criminal justice system.
Wynne recognized that asking the state for more money for education is not a simple task. The decrease in higher ed funding is directly related to state funds going elsewhere because of budget shortfalls.
Nevertheless, the effort must be made, he urged.
“It’s time for us to get active,” Wynne said. “Our children and grandchildren cannot wait. So shame on us if we don’t deal with it.
“This is building the ultimate infrastructure, the platform for long-term sustainable growth.”