Education vital for economy
By ED KEMMICK
Of The Gazette
Staff From the global level down to next month's school levy
election, a succession of speakers talked Tuesday about the need to
develop a high-quality work force geared to the needs of a changing
economy.
John Cech, dean of the College of Technology, set
the stage for the breakfast presentation by pointing out that China
is investing in the development of 50 universities the size of the
University of California at Berkeley.
Meanwhile, according to
Larry Swanson, director of the O'Connor Center for the Rocky
Mountain West at the University of Montana, funding for the College
of Technology has barely increased since 1992 and has actually
declined for Montana State University-Billings. He said Montana "is
systematically disinvesting in education."
The main speaker
at the presentation, sponsored by Celebrate Billings and the
Foundation for Community Vitality, gave some advice for building
partnerships aimed at creating a stronger educational system and a
better-trained work force.
Wes Jurey, president of the Arlington, Texas, Chamber of
Commerce, told his audience in the MSU-Billings ballroom that the
United States is competing in a global economy that is unequal,
unstable and unsustainable. Increasingly, he said, the world's
resources, capital and consumers are located outside the United
States.
To compete, he said, the United States needs to
continue being good at innovation. This country is still the most
innovative in the world, he said, but other countries are catching
up and have been doing so steadily since the Cold War ended and
nations were able to divert defense spending into education and
training.
To stay ahead, business and educational leaders
need to coordinate their efforts and create a system that rewards
innovation. The key elements in such a system are good public and
regulatory policy, access to capital, infrastructure and technology,
and a trained, globally competitive workforce, Jurey
said.
Jurey, who is also chairman of the board for the
Institute for a Competitive Workplace and chairman of Workforce
Development for the Chamber of Commerce Committee of 100, said 29
percent of jobs in the United States required technical or academic
degrees in 2000. That number is expected to rise to 42 percent by
2012, he said.
To build the work force for the future, he
said, employers and industry leaders need to work closely with
educators at every level to see that workers are being trained to
fill gaps in the current job market and to be prepared for new jobs
in the changing economy.
That kind of leadership is needed
because regionwide economies with common educational and training
needs are controlled by individual city councils, county
commissions, school boards and other groups that may not share a
larger vision, he said.
"Trust relationships really are at
the centerpiece of everything," he said, noting that Billings seems
to have gotten off to a good start with the Celebrate Billings
group, which is led by Billings Clinic, St. Vincent Healthcare,
MSU-Billings and The Billings Gazette.
Speaking after Jurey,
Swanson used a battery of statistics to paint a picture of the
evolving economy and work force in Montana. Swanson said the Montana
population is steadily aging because of the bulge of people in the
in baby boom generation and the inability to provide jobs for
younger people, who are leaving the state.
The drain of young
people can be remedied, he said, but the state needs time to work on
the problem, "and our lead time is evaporating." Swanson said that
while spending on Billings public schools has slowly increased in
inflation-adjusted dollars over the past 15 years, funding support
for schools as a percentage of personal income has declined, from 2
percent to 1.7 percent.
The third speaker, School District 2
Superintendent Jack Copps, said the district is facing a number of
big challenges. One of them is the sheer size of the district, which
has more students than do Kalispell, Bozeman, Whitefish and Miles
City combined, but in which only 19 percent of households have
children in school.
The difficulty is getting enough people
interested in the need to have high-quality schools, he said, noting
that Billings voters have not approved a school mill levy since
2002.
The district has been making spending reductions since
then, he said, starting with some relatively painless cuts in the
first year.
"It is now harsh," Copps said, "and it is now
time for us as a community to do something about that."
Copps
said he was concerned that only three people, all incumbents, have
filed to run for five openings on the District 2 Board of Trustees,
and he is concerned about how few people bother to vote in school
levy elections. He urged people at the presentation to do what they
could to promote the district and the importance of the May levy
election.
One encouraging sign, he said, was voter approval
last fall of the $12.5 million bond issue to build a new Cobb
Field.
He said the vote was "a sign that maybe this community
is coming together ... an indication that we are thinking of the
greater community."
Contact Ed Kemmick at ekemmick@billingsgazette.com
or 657-1293.
Published on Wednesday, April 04, 2007.
Last
modified on 4/4/2007 at 12:42 am
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