The Workforce Training and Education Coordinating Board (Workforce Board) recently released a report which found that, “even in the midst of a recession, among Washington state employers attempting to hire, 45 percent had difficulty finding qualified job applicants in 2003.

Extrapolated from the survey results, the shortage affected some 56,000 employers in the state, negatively impacting their productivity, sales, quality and service.” The report was based on a survey of Washington employers. (In a stroke of irony, this report was released the same day State Superintendent Terry Bergeson was heaping praise on Washington students for their performance on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.)

Gov. Gary Locke used this bit of news to “emphasize the importance of the state’s workforce training and retraining efforts.” However, what it really points to is the basic failures of the K-12 system in this state.

Of particular interest in the state’s POG (priorities of government) report on workforce improvement, is the bottom of page 2, under context, which reads in part:

“In addition many of our high school graduates are:

1. Not prepared for entry level work;
2. Not aware of the skills required by employers and;
3. Not aware of the variety of employment opportunities that are available to them.

   In 2002-03, Washington spent $9,195,419,356 on education. The state’s general fund education spending increased almost three times faster than inflation over the last decade, up 31.9 percent in real dollars and 13.1 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars. Yet only 56 to 68 percent of the students who enter 9th grade in our state even graduate from high school. Only 33 percent of African-American students manage to to do so. Clearly, money is not the answer.

As the workforce survey clearly illustrates, of those students that do manage to graduate, most are wholly unprepared to enter the job market.

This is not a “chicken or the egg” problem. So what’s all the clucking about? Fix K-12, and the workforce training problem will fix itself.

Booker T. Stallworth
Communications Director
Evergreen Freedom Foundation
Olympia