With the average age of a scientist at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) at 50, the agency has begun looking for a new crop of scientists for its future. This week the agency hosted a "Day of Science" at the Knoxville Convention Center, a DOE
recruitment fair for students interested in careers at U.S. national
laboratories.
According to the Knoxville News Sentinel, "This year 1,400 students from 125 colleges and universities registered.
In particular, the Department of Energy reached out to black students. A third of
schools represented were historically black colleges and universities."
Sadly we also learn today that "Tennessee has had one of the largest growths in low-income
students in the last two decades, moreso than most other Southern
states and certainly most other states outside the South."(WPLN) This news comes from a new report done by the Southern Education Foundation, an organization that has examined trends in the region’s schools for 140 years.
How great it would be if we could fill jobs at ORNL with students from Tennessee. Unfortunately we're not doing a good job of helping low income students succeed. Instead we're declaring them "problem" students and shuttling them into common districts so test scores in other districts improve. Ignoring the problem won't make it go away.
“The South has a crisis of the first order of magnitude,” Lynn Huntley, SEF President said in a statement about the report. “The region is in the throes of a self-perpetuating, vicious cycle where poverty and low incomes are begetting a lack of education and, in turn, the lack of education is perpetuating and creating poverty and inequality.”
“If this new majority of students fails in school, an entire state will fail simply because there will be inadequate human capital to build good jobs, an enjoyable quality of life, and a well-informed democracy,” said Steve Suitts, SEF program coordinator and the report’s author.
Poverty does not equate to stupidity, but it does create additional challenges. If we are going to improve the quality of life not only for poor families, but for all of us,we must focus on education. The successful education of these children must be among our highest priorities.
We have the jobs. We have the students. Now we just need the political will to pull these resources together.
- Jim Grinstead
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