Time for the Community College System to Move Forward
Helen Hammons wrote this for the Political Parlor.
While both of the state’s main political parties, politicians from both sides, statewide organizations and/or their leaders and others argue over who’s to blame for the ills that have plagued Alabama’s two-year college system in the past and who should control that system now and in the future, something very important is getting lost amid all the posturing and, at times, nonsensical debate.
According to analysis of the most recent census data by the University of Alabama Center for Business and Economic Research, 2.8 million of the state’s citizens are age 25 and older; and, of those, 75% are in need of services provided by the Alabama Community College System, that in academic year 2006-2007 provided education and training in some form to almost 300,000 students. That number, unfortunately, is nowhere near the number of adults that are in need of the system’s services.
If Alabama’s economic development and growth is to continue, citizens who have not been reached by the state’s community college system, but need the system’s services, are going to be vital to the state’s ability to maintain that economic growth and development.
According to a January 2007 study by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) entitled Poverty in America: Economic Research Shows Adverse Impacts on Health Status and Other Social Conditions as well as the Economic Growth Rate (available here in pdf format), “[r]esearch shows that poverty can negatively affect economic growth by affecting the accumulation of human capital and rates of crime and social unrest. Economic theory has long suggested that human capital – that is, the education, work experience, training, and health of the workforce – is considered one of the fundamental drivers of economic growth.”
A recent report Bridging the Gap (pdf) from the Arise Citizens’ Policy Project (ACPP) says
- More than one-third of all working families in Alabama are low-income, earning less than 200 percent of the federal poverty threshold
- Though employment opportunities are increasing, the majority of jobs available to working Alabamians are in low-wage sectors
- Alabama’s public policies have failed to make available to low-income workers the education, skills certification or training necessary to compete in a 21st century economy
- Alabama’s budgeting and taxation processes have failed to provide the resources to support policies that can assist workers in meeting their families’ needs and place a disproportionate tax burden on low income workers.
Citing a report from the “Education Statistics Quarterly” entitled College Access and Affordability by Susan Choy, the GAO report says across the United States, “Those with less than a high school degree have unemployment rates almost three times greater than those with a college degree, 7.6 percent compared to 2.6 percent in 2005. And the percentage of low-income students who attend college immediately after high school is significantly lower than for their wealthier counterparts: 49 percent compared to 78 percent.”
National data from the 2000 Census shows among southeastern states, Alabama has
- The fourth highest percentage of working age adults without a diploma
- The third highest percentage of adults that have completed some high school but do not have a diploma
- More than 570,000 Alabamians between the ages of 18 and 64 do not have a high school diploma
- 450,000 have completed some high school
Yet, according to the Bridging the Gap report, “only 4.6 percent of adults without a high school diploma or GED are enrolled in adult education, which places Alabama 47th among states;” and research conducted by the Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama shows that Alabama has the lowest enrollment rate in adult education programs among 10 southeastern states. Five of Alabama’s southeastern neighbors have reported participation rates that exceed the national average, this at a time when Alabama is faced with a growing demand for thousands and thousands more high-skilled workers.
The more than half a million adults without a high school diploma in the state are human capital the state cannot afford to throw away and leave behind if it hopes to continue to attract companies to the state with good, high-paying jobs. And for those adults, the opportunity to move from jobs paying less than $30,000 and usually with no benefits to jobs paying $50,000 or more with benefits changes their lives, the lives of their children and grandchildren, their neighborhoods, cities and the state. Bridging the Gap states, “Almost half a million Alabama workers over the age of18 hold low-wage jobs. In 2005 a low-wage job was defined as one with earnings of $9.59 an hour or less, adjusted to the state cost-of-living index. Frequently these low wage jobs fail to provide benefits to their employees.”
As the Arise Citizens’ Policy Project report states, “The fact remains that too few of Alabama’s workers have the skills and training necessary to compete in a changing economy. A shocking 57 percent of Alabamians over age 15 lack basic literacy, earning Alabama a ranking of 48th among states.”
The jobs being brought into the State of Alabama require special skills and more often than not education above the high school level. Without the adequate literacy skills, basic educational skills and training, workers cannot take advantage of the training needed for the highly technical new jobs coming into the state.
So what, you say. What sort of implications are there for leaving at least a third, if not more, of the state’s human capital behind?
More from the GAO report, “The conditions associated with poverty can work against this human capital development by limiting individuals’ ability to remain healthy and develop skills, in turn decreasing the potential to contribute talents, ideas, and even labor to the economy. An educated labor force, for example, is better at learning, creating and implementing new technologies.”
“Economic theory suggests that when poverty affects a significant portion of the population, these effects can extend to the society at large and produce slower rates of growth…Research has shown that accumulation of human capital is one of the fundamental drivers of economic growth… The accumulation of human capital is generally held to be a function of the education level, work experience, training, and healthiness of the workforce. Therefore, schooling at the secondary and higher levels is a key component for building an educated labor force that is better at learning, creating, and implementing new technologies.
And there’s another area in the state that needs to be addressed if the state is to take advantage of its unused human capital.
Again from the same 2007 GAO report, “Just as research has established a link between poverty and adverse health outcomes, evidence suggests a link between poverty and crime. In addition to the effects of poverty on human capital, some economic literature suggests that poverty can affect economic growth to the extent that it is associated with crime, violence, and social unrest.”
And, yes the two-year college system is working on a plan that will, in the long run, have a direct impact on this area of the state’s neglected human capital - those incarcerated in the many correctional institutions for minor crimes that with the proper education and training can take advantage of growing job opportunities, improve their lives and lower the state’s recidivism rate, and most important to some – save taxpayers money.
A recent review by the two-year college system will eventually result in a total overhaul of the disjointed prison education system in the state bringing together a myriad of state agencies and court representatives in a task force to develop a strategic plan to improve a problem-ridden, uncoordinated prison education system. The review cited a lack of centralized oversight, the lack of tracking of funds to determine what they were spent for, missing policies or guidelines pertinent to the determination of success of the current program, and lack of communication between state agencies among other issues. There were inmates not scheduled for release for 10-15 years enrolled in training programs intended to benefit those inmates with release dates in the near future.
The review recommends that effective October 1, 2009 the Department of Postsecondary Education “should serve as the responsible agency for oversight and accountability of Prison Education Programs. The first step of implementation should begin with a full fiscal audit and the creation of accountability measures for colleges to implement during the 2008-2009 fiscal year.”
Two-year system Chancellor Bradley Byrne said the following during his budget hearing presentation to a joint legislative committee in January:
“Prison education has been undervalued by our state and by our system. And I’ll be honest with you, I was a skeptic. I thought – they’ve gotten in trouble; they got arrested; we sent them to prison and that’s the end of that. I have toured our prison education sites. Every one of the people that complete our prison education training program is employed – every one of them, the recidivism rate is effectively zero.”
“So, I figured it out. If we get them some workforce training, they get out of jail and get a job; they don’t come back. That’s good not only because we don’t want them to come back, but it’s also good because we don’t have to continue to pay for them. More than half of our prisoners are there for low-level drug crimes and low-level property theft crimes. Most of them have not had three meals a day, ever, in their life when they come to prison.”
“They’ve never had healthcare, never had any structure in their life and when we finally get them through that…Those prisoners, once we get them in the training program, they’re great students. I’ve talked to the employers. I said how good of employees are these folks. They are wonderful employees. They show up for work every day. They pass their drug test when they’re drug tested. And they’re trained at the highest level that industry expects and industry wants these ex-prisoners we have completed training with in their business and industry. We have not taken that seriously enough.”
So while supporters and opponents of Governor Riley, Byrne and the two-year system continue their seemingly never-ending diatribe and invective against each other over who’s at fault, who did or didn’t do what in the past, who’s trying to control, who should control and a host of other issues, the system has work to do. All of the actors in the drama claim to have the best interests of Alabama’s citizens at heart. All claim to want to make the lives of people in this state better, give people the opportunity to make their lives better, give businesses the trained quality workers they need. Isn’t it time all the playground drama ended and people from all sides came together to truly do what’s in the best interest of Alabama’s citizens, particularly those in danger of being left behind without education and training to prepare them for the future? Everyone in the state should want the two-year college system to implement fiscal accountability measures and do the job it is uniquely in place to do. In the end does it matter who gets the credit?
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