>the Ridgewood blog Editors Note : when we saw this article we thought it was written 30 years ago
NJ schools fail to prepare future workers
Saturday, September 25, 2010
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
The Record
STAFF WRITER
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/103772604_Schools_urged_to_better_prepare_future_workers.htm
EAST RUTHERFORD — New Jersey’s school system is failing to prepare people for the workforce, a panel of college-level educators told a workforce summit Friday.
Students come out of high school lacking in basic skills and an understanding of how to hold down a job, and are unaware of the demands of the workplace, said the educators at the summit, organized by the Meadowlands Regional Chamber.
Richard Garcia, a vice president at Lakeland Bank in Oak Ridge and chairman of the state’s Higher Education Student Assistance Authority, said only about one-third of the applicants seeking a teller position at his bank — which pays about $10 to $15 an hour — pass the math test on their first try.
“We are graduating students that can’t read, can’t write and can’t put a sentence together,” he said. “Then they go to a bank and apply for a job and they want to earn $100,000. They can’t pass the basic math test.”
The comments came in a wide-ranging five-hour discussion at the summit, the chamber’s first, which drew about 60 educators, government workforce development administrators and business representatives.
Jim Kirkos, the chamber president and chief executive officer, said the idea of the summit grew out of the organization’s belief that creating a better-trained and educated workforce is crucial to economic development.
“I want us to set the bar as high as possible,” Kirkos told the gathering, before he suggested they set a goal of “achieving the most educated workforce in the nation” – the subtitle of the conference.
Yet several speakers said the educational community would need to work far more closely with the business world to make headway toward that goal.
full story :
https://www.northjersey.com/news/bergen/103772604_Schools_urged_to_better_prepare_future_workers.htm
