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 Education is the Key to Economic Success February 2, 2003 @ 11:30 AM on WVIZ Research indicates that if you had to look at one factor to predict economic growth in a region, it would be higher education. However, currently, Northeast Ohio is falling behind comparable regions. As of 2000, fewer than 30% of Northeast Ohioans had a bachelor’s degree or higher. Furthermore, Northeast Ohio’s K-12 education, the pump that needs to be primed for a healthy economy, faces major challenges. Today, one-third of our region’s children are educated in the Cleveland Public School System, a system with a 39% graduation rate. Cuyahoga County has a graduation rate of only 67%. Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO of the Cleveland Public Schools, and Mohsen Anvari, Dean of the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University, offer insight into how we can all work together to improve high school and college graduation rates and why we may need to reshape the way the think about education. Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO, Cleveland Municipal Schools. [Read Transcript]  Some people might ask “What does K-12 education have to do with economic development.” How do you respond? Barbara Byrd-Bennett, CEO, Cleveland Municipal Schools Oh I think it's very clear that without an educated workforce, there is no economic development. I mean it sounds terribly simplistic. That would mean we've got to prepare our young people for not just higher education, but young people for the new technologies, the new job market that is opening up. Education will not only help with preparation of technical skills and abilities, but also with civic responsibility. I mean, there's a whole ethos that education drives in terms of economic development. I don't know of any successful urban community where there is not an educated populace, and where education is not at the core priority. And lastly I would add that people do not move to a place where the education system is not doing well and where kids are not going to graduate and have options about going on to higher education or going into technical fields. I think it's at the foundation of the entire development. Mohsen Anvari, Dean, Weatherhead School of Management, Case Western Reserve University I think if you start looking at it in the larger perspective, there was a time in this country when we thought education up to the eighth grade was enough. Now we've gone K-12. Now maybe we should ask ourselves given the knowledge economy that we are in, maybe we shouldn't think of K-12, maybe we should think of K-16 and think about K-20 and make the relationships seamless. JH Mohsen, I had read that if you're going to look at one single factor for economic success, it's the number of people in your population who have graduated from college. Would you agree with that? MA I think the broader issue, and Barbara has spoken about that, is that if there's a lesson from the 90s that we take away about economic growth, is that the two factors that really propel a region's growth are an educated task force and innovation, that comes from R&D that's based in research and that ties into higher education. I think the numbers in terms of the kind of income that people can expect depending on the level of education are very clear, with the K-12 situation, we talk about a 40% difference in the kind of income people can have coming out of high school or not coming out of high school. The same kinds of numbers apply at the graduate degree and college degree level, post K-12. In terms of our region, and when you look at some of the statistics with college education, we're really, really behind. If you compare us, for instance, to San Francisco County, to have this same proportion of college graduates, we need to have another 200,000 people in the Greater Cleveland area to have bachelor's degrees. And again, while no one has a direct correlation between these and can prove these relationships with scientific certainty, it is very clear that education is key, it's the infrastructure of the knowledge economy, the same way that roads were and that canals were. If you want to succeed in the knowledge economy, the key is without a doubt education. JH So we need to boost the number of high school graduates, and then also the ones who are going on to attend college. What are the graduation rates right now. BBB The graduation rate is abysmally low. And we're not satisfied at all. It has moved about 6 percentage points since our administration. We're at 39% just about of our children graduating. MA And one cannot underestimate the importance of having healthy school systems, from K-12, in the city of Cleveland to attract the kind of talent that we want to bring in for our industry. It's phenomenal. And I think those who just simply think in terms of putting parcels of land together to put housing up, which is very important, those who think in terms of the convention center, which I think is critical, should also keep in mind that a key element in attracting the kind of talent we want to this region is really a healthy K-12 school system. We have an opportunity to physically fund the structures. But we've now got to think in terms of what goes on in those buildings and the investments that we make within those buildings so that younger talented people, highly educated people come here and look forward to sending their children to these schools. JH Let’s say that tomorrow everyone gets behind education, we're going to start investing in it, we're going to start working to make K-12 and higher education in Northeast Ohio the best it can be, realistically, how long before we can really see some of these changes, then, if we all got behind it tomorrow? BBB Well I think that most of us are the product of the Pepsi generation and we want to see it tomorrow. It simply doesn't happen that way. The research that I'm most familiar with is the research that says it takes minimally five years before you begin to go, “Hmm, things are changing.” Because it's deep rooted and sustainable change that you want, not a quick fix. You want not just a boom in graduation rates or a boom in people moving into the city and then leaving at the end of four years saying it just hasn't been sustained. So to answer the question, it's a long way of saying it's about process, it's about sustainability, and minimally somewhere between five and seven years before you begin to see it. Resources:
“Making Change: Reinventing Our Economy is produced in partnership with the Center for Regional Economic issues at the Weatherhead School of Management – the dynamic, innovative business school at Case Western Reserve University. Developing the next generation of leaders for businesses in Northeast Ohio and around the world. |
