Another call for government planning

I'm not sure Rutland Northeast Supervisory Union superintendent William Mathis is in the same league as Ellen David Friedman, but he argues that what Vermont needs is

a long-term economic plan

to deal with the aging population and poor job prospects.  A Five Year Plan, maybe?  I sure hope not.

Mr. Mathis, commenting on the same piece that I wrote about several weeks ago, takes issue with Bill Stenger's characterization that one-third of young Vermonters fall through the cracks in the education system.  Mr. Mathis comments on this quote from Mr. Stenger

One-third of high school students go to college, Stenger said. One third move into solid jobs. But one-third fall though the cracks and end up on the public dime.

"They are probably in the unemployment line this morning," Stenger told the gathering of board members, who represent business, education and service interests. The drifters might be receiving welfare checks or even sitting in a jail cell, he added.

Mr. Mathis' (partial) observation on this is

If our government and business leaders use phrases that bleach our young citizens in the gray haze of vagrants on the edges of criminality....

To which I say, "huh?"

Mr. Mathis tortures some Vermont Student Assistance Corp. data to claim that

the unemployment rate for recent Vermont high school graduates is 2.8 percent — a full point lower than the rate for the general population.

I won't go into the methodological reasons why this is not a valid conclusion.   Mr. Mathis argues, against Mr. Stenger, that Vermont's graduates are very well prepared for life after high school.  But  Mr. Mathis ignores some relevant data from the Vermont  Department of Education that finds that 15% of 9th grade students fail to graduate four years later.  That's a huge number of students for whom the education system is failing them and it's a prescription for their economic failure later in life.  It tells us that someone is not doing a good job--either schools or parents.

Mr. Mathis says students are well prepared.

Vermont has about 8,000 high school graduates each year — and they know how to do arithmetic.

Maybe.  But the state's own NECAP test results show that 17% of Vermont's students perform substantially below proficient in math, and another 20% are only partially proficient.  That means more than one out of three don't know how to do arithmetic, at least the way the state defines it. 

Mr. Mathis ought to talk to some business people who actually hire 18 and 19 year olds and ask them about young employees' technical skills, like math and reading, and their "soft skills," like showing up for work on time and getting along with co-workers.

Mr. Mathis puts the blame on youngsters leaving Vermont squarely on the back of the business community:

unless the business community steps up and creates jobs to match the talents of our youth, neither scholarships nor work force training programs will stem the outward flow.

Yes, it's those darned business people who just don't want to increase their sales and their profits by expanding and hiring more workers.

Mr. Mathis' solution? 

Certainly education and training are important for work-force creation and sustenance. But other factors are vital, as well. Courageous business leadership, transportation, government policy stability, cultural amenities and encouraging "economies of one" are ripe areas for exploration.

I'm not sure what courageous business leadership means in this context.  Stepping up to fight global warming?  Arguing for higher taxes?  Spending more money on schools?  Or maybe saying, like Mr. Stenger does, that too many students are falling through the cracks? 

And government policy stability?  Please explain.  Does that mean we shouldn't change policies, ever?  Or that only Mr. Mathis' favored policies are the good ones? 

Cultural amenities?  Does that mean more bars and nightclubs?  Maybe a courageous business leader will open some.

Finally, maybe Mr. Mathis can encourage "economies of one."  But first he'll have to tell me what that means.