LETTERS 12|06

COMMUNITY COLLEGES RESPOND

In (the October 2006 "Momentum" special sponsored section), Dr. Karla Jones, State Director for Career and Technical Education, characterized higher education as "mediocre" and Hawaii's community colleges as being resistant to change and lacking innovation. Dr. Jones is wrong on both counts. Students completing their community college programs in nursing, radiologic technician, new media arts, automotive mechanics, culinary arts, business, and dozens of other fields are consistently well-prepared and ready to contribute to our economy. Students transferring to baccalaureate programs perform as well or better than non-transfer students in both grade point average and in graduation rates. Faculty are constantly seeking ways to improve these successes through improvements in teaching and counseling.

Is everything perfect? Of course not. The main challenge we face is not that the programs are mediocre but rather that we are not able to move enough students through to completion. There are many contributing factors to this lack of success are lack of basic skills, financial barriers, competition between school, family, and jobs, motivation ¬and our challenge, and one to which we are deeply committed, is to reduce or eliminate those barriers. Indeed, we must do so if Hawaii's economy is to continue to grow and diversify.

We strongly support Dr. Jones' initiatives on career pathways. Smoothing the transition from high school to college to work will help to improve student preparedness, student motivation, and ultimately reduce the cost of education to the student and to the public.

Dr. Jones is also absolutely correct in her invitation to the business community to be involved. We look to the business community to help us ensure that our curricula stay current and that we anticipate trends rather than just react to them. All career and technical programs have community advisory committees that help steer the programs and these committees provide a good opportunity for engagement with the business community.

Together, the business community, the Department of Education, the Office of Career and Technical Education, and the community colleges can make not a mediocre system good but a good system even better.

John Morton
Interim Vice-President for Community Colleges
University of Hawaii
Via email

JA BUILDS RELEVANCE

As President of Junior Achievement of Hawaii, I was most interested to read your (November 2006 "Editor's Desktop") and could not agree more with the observations. Immediately after I attended high school, and before and in between college semesters, I was most appreciative to have an excellent paying job in construction, as a member of the AFL-CIO in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, which paid all of my way through college. Those experiences, situations and mentoring relationships remain with me to this day and are still vivid in my memory. These "on hands" "real life" work experiences are invaluable in shaping a total person, as Ron Taketa states in your editorial.

It is worth noting that Junior Achievement Worldwide has recently announced a partnership to support local programs to teach 11th and 12th graders about the numerous career opportunities available to them in the construction industry, and to help prepare them to pursue postsecondary education options or enter the workforce. Junior Achievement of Hawaii, founded in 1957, is now currently working with volunteers from Building Industry Association of Hawaii who are presently visiting local classrooms to teach JA Success Skills, a work readiness program in conjunction with HBI's Business Ventures in Residential Construction Industry, which raises awareness of career opportunities in the home building industry. Last year JA Hawaii reached more than 6,000 students, through programs taught by over 300 local volunteers. In addition to these classroom courses JA also offers hands on experience of different businesses through our "Job Shadow" events each February, hosted by a variety of local Hawaii businesses.

M. Steven Grant
President, Junior Achievement Hawaii
Via email

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