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FLORIDA ECONOMICS 101

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By GREG McCOLM

Special to the Tribune

Published: March 8, 2009

Many Florida visionaries see this recession as an opportunity to bring Florida out of the Third World and into the 21st century. With the nation facing major challenges in jobs, energy, environment and health, Florida's old formula of growth, agriculture and tourism simply don't make the grade - especially with growth and tourism sounding increasingly like bad jokes.

The opportunity is President Barack Obama's stimulus. To boost the economy, the federal government will pay states to remake themselves. Those states with backward governments will rebuild the infrastructure of the previous century, which will be obsolete even before it is completed. Those states with farsighted governments will instead build for the coming century and make way for the future.

Hopefully, Florida's government will be among the farsighted. But there is a problem.

The economy of the 21st century will require workers with greater skills for an increasingly technical workplace, while public life will require citizens with greater skills for handling increasingly complex issues.

It would be ironic if we built for the future of Florida, but we didn't prepare the people of Florida for that future. Of course, we can always import the technicians, managers and professionals that Florida will need, but we would be better off if those technicians, managers and professionals were the Floridians and children of the Floridians who had built that future.

Education Sets Workers Apart

There is only one way to do this. We must strengthen our educational system.

An education is an opportunity, for it is the uneducated worker that is the last hired and first fired. The U.S. Department of Labor reported recently that the unemployment rate for people without high school diplomas was more than three times higher than that for people with a bachelor's degree.

Is it any wonder that when times are hard, people turn to college and adult education programs to go back to school? Is it any wonder that many people are going back to school right now? Or trying to ...

Worth The Investment

Florida's educational system is stretched beyond its limits just at the time that the schoolhouse door should be open. Yes, it will cost money to educate so many people who aren't employed now, but once they are back at work, at better jobs, building a better future for Florida, the investment will be worth it. And this is also the time - as the federal government provides money for such things - to build our educational system so the children of Floridians can get a good education the first time around.

For decades, visionaries dreamed of an Interstate 4 high-tech corridor, of making Florida a global center of commerce, of reaching into space and extending lives and of getting a shot at the big time. And this may be it. But if this chance is to mean anything to Floridians, it will have to include education.

Greg McColm is an associate professor of mathematics at the University of South Florida.

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