Jobless New Yorkers Need 21st Century Skills

New York City’s labor market is changing. Time was that a high school graduate – or even someone leaving school without graduating – could find a decent paying job in a factory or on an assembly line. But manufacturing jobs in the city are now scarce. The local economy is moving toward service and technical jobs, which means that there are a shrinking number of jobs that do not need specialized training.

Our public schools have not responded to this shift in the economy. They are failing to properly educate many students, even those who manage to graduate from high school. The startling high jobless rate of the city’s black male population and the large number of young people disconnected from either school or the labor market are results of this failure.

Last week, the City Council provided $10 million in funding for the chronically unemployed, largely in response to research provided by the Community Service Society. The Council promised another $20 million next year. I hope that this is the beginning of a long-term commitment by the city to provide young New Yorkers with the job training and technical skilled-based education needed to secure family-sustaining jobs.

Outdated Curriculum

One of the first places to address this problem is the public schools’ outdated vocational education curriculum. The city’s Department of Education has begun reaching out to the enormous number of dropouts – nearly half of all high school students drop out before graduation. But what will their experience be if they go back into the classroom?

We need to invest in vocational courses that reflect the realities of the changing economy. Vocational instruction should be integrated into an academic curriculum - there should be no separate track for vocational students. Training should include after-school and summer jobs to acquaint students with real work and strengthen connections to employers. A good example is the school system of Newark, New Jersey, where fully 60 percent of students enrolled in vocational education go on to college. They see the benefits of combining technical skills with higher education.

At present, even many of our high school graduates are not adequately educated to take their place in the labor market. In effect, these young people have been shortchanged by their education system. As a result, over 170,000 mostly black and Latino youths find themselves out of school and out of work, drifting aimlessly. Effective technical and vocational education is a resource that could help save many young people who are unprepared for most jobs in the new economy.

City is dependant on
an educated workforce

This means teaching new skills. For instance, almost every job today requires workers to be computer literate. All of this will cost money. Because of a lawsuit brought by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, the city school system will receive billions more in state funding than it had under the old, politically driven funding formula. Will those funds be used where they are most needed – in underserved neighborhoods - to enhance the quality of education? Already we are seeing that an attempt by the Department of Education to shift funds to the neediest schools is being met with stonewalling.

The 170,000 young New Yorkers outside of either the educational system or the economic system undermine the future of the city. Our economic well-being is heavily dependant on an educated workforce. Without it, businesses are likely to look elsewhere, especially in the age of the Internet.

Jobs Available

There are jobs in this economy for young people if they can get the training required for them. The city needs to address the dropout crisis – a chief cause of joblessness – by remaking its out-of-date vocational education into an effective career and technical curriculum. If a high school degree would lead to decent jobs, more students not bound for college would have a reason to stay in school. The city should also address the lack of a real “second chance” for those who have been failed by the schools, are jobless, and need new skills to find a job.

A recent story in City Limits, based on CSS’s report of youths disconnected from both school and work, reported on an initiative of the Department of Education: “Curricula are still being developed, and will blend work readiness and job skills with courses leading to a diploma or GED.” This is a beginning. But given the magnitude of the problem, it is important that the scale and scope of this plan is large enough to make a real difference.

From the New York Amsterdam News
May 19 - 25, 2005