Building knowledge urged at State of the Region meeting
BYLINE: Dennis Seid, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Tupelo, Miss.
May 25--TUPELO -- For a region and its people to thrive, experts say, it must create wealth. And to do that, its people must become knowledgeable.
That theme -- that education is the key to opportunity and future success -- was the focus of CREATE Foundation's State of the Region meeting Thursday.
Hitting the topic hard were the featured speakers, including Jim Clinton, executive director of the Southern Growth Policies Board.
"One way to create more wealth in a region is getting a Toyota plant," Clinton said, but "building from within" is equally as important as recruiting from the outside.
Clinton said communities should view creating wealth as a matter of cash flow and profit.
"It is selling goods and services outside the 16 counties and importing cash into the region," he said.
"Let's talk about the concept of a 'Regional Gross Product.' The amount of wealth you create in a region has everything you do with the collective gross profit of the region.
"And you increase the gross profit by focusing on technology and innovation."
Powering those concepts is knowledge -- creating new knowledge, collecting and sharing it and applying it on all levels.
"We need to create a culture of learning, where knowledge is truly appreciated," Clinton said.
But that's where opportunity smacks into obstacles.
The state's dropout rate of almost 27 percent throws a stumbling block for future success -- and wealth creation.
State Superintendent of Education Hank Bounds, who has been spearheading the crusade to improve the dropout rate, said the problem must be faced not just regionally, but across the state and country.
"But schools alone can't improve the dropout rate," he said. "It's not just a school issue, it's a community issue..."
His ambitious plan is to lower the dropout rate by 50 percent in the next 5-7 years while narrowing the gaps in achievement between Mississippi students and the nation.
"There are some things we can't do in Mississippi, but we can educate our students," he said to applause.
We must think of high school as work force development centers, Bounds said, where students will be "capturing a skill set to capture a job for the future."
Keeping students in school is the focus of an anti-dropout media campaign developed by Robinson & Associates of Tupelo through a grant from Three Rivers Planning and Development District. The campaign, presented at the meeting by Tom Robinson, is currently running in regional media, which have donated $1 million in air time and space.
Gray Swoope, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority, sees the need for an educated work force. Without it, he said, the Toyotas of the future might look elsewhere.
"Relevance is a key in helping our young kids understand where they're going with education. It's critical with what we do," Swoope said.
David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the Tupelo-based Community Development Foundation, agreed.
"Our region is still rich with job opportunities, but we've got to continue to provide the vision for high school kids to understand that they can make a living here, they can choose to go off to Mississippi State or Ole Miss or wherever they choose to go and come back here," Rumbarger said. "That's our challenge."
With the region's heavy manufacturing base -- nearly a third of the jobs concentrated in the sector -- Rumbarger said employers now and in the future are looking for an educated, trainable work force.
"Manufacturing is here and will continue to be here ... but it very competitive, now more than ever," he said. "If we are to continue to add jobs, we're going to have to continue to succeed with our existing manufacturers. And they need good employees with skills and employees which will help them grow for the future."
Said Clinton: "If knowledge is important, we need to get serious about it."
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