“We have a patient laying there
and blood is shooting to the ceiling. All in the world we can do is trim the
toenails. Blood is shooting to the ceiling. We’ve got to do something.”
Governor Jim
Justice
If the metaphors Governor Jim Justice unleashes on his
political detractors were supposed to turn and come yapping and snapping back at
him like an Ohio County poodle, this classic by West Virginia’s Metaphorist In
Chief would be perfect. West Virginia is depicted as a hemorrhaging patient
whose doctors (Justice’s detractors) prepare the soon-to-be corpse for burial
instead of stopping the bleeding and saving the patient’s life. This metaphor
would be very effective not for the fact that its creator, Jim Justice, is
offering only cosmetic improvements – better roads - instead of suturing the
wound.
West Virginia is not hemorrhaging jobs and population
because our roads are bad. West Virginia is losing jobs and people because the “outside
investment” that would infuse our state with life-saving jobs and tax revenue
will not come here until we have the STEM-educated, 21st century
workforce they need. This is a fact. How do I know? I know it is a fact because
governors and legislators have said so on talk radio shows for years yet all of
them are acting more like morticians than doctors.
Governor Justice, we all enjoy your vivid metaphors about
raccoons and poodles and patients whose blood is spurting to the ceiling, but
the next time you send one of your metaphors out to bite your political
opponents, make sure the metaphor can tell the difference between you and your
intended targets.
Governor Justice, I sent you a plan that gives “outside
investment” the STEM-educated workforce that will attract that outside
investment. If you haven’t read it, here it is again:
1.
Make the Promise Scholarship a STEM scholarship. Companies won’t come here for
our English majors, political science majors and communications majors, but
they will come here to gain access to our mathematicians,
software engineers, chemists and other STEM grads if we produce them in large
numbers.
2.
Require Promise Scholarship recipients to sign a contract with West Virginia
obligating them to stay in West Virginia for, say, 5 years after graduation.
Too many of West Virginia’s college grads are leaving with their degrees and
making some other state’s workforce magnetic to outside
investment. If they give us five years, they’ll marry, have children, build
houses, and make friends. Most will never leave. Maybe along the way they’ll
invent things and, who knows, maybe some of them will start the next Apple or
the next Google.
3. Expand the Promise Scholarship to fund tens of
thousands of students’ annually instead of the current 3,000 to 3,500 annually.
At its current size, the Promise Scholarship is the right medicine in a dosage
insufficient to heal the West Virginia economy.
4. Double the per-student annual scholarship award
from its current $4,750 to around $9,000 or $10,000 so students can carry full
loads and finish in 4 years.
5. Pay the college debt of STEM grads who want to come
to West Virginia and are willing to sign a contract requiring them to become
part of West Virginia’s workforce for at least five years.
6.
Pay for the above with a severance tax, an excise tax or the proceeds from the
state lottery or some combination of the aforementioned. For example, the
Tennessee Promise program provides 2 years of free technical or community
college to Tennessee high school grads at a cost of about $35 million annually
and is paid for by the state lottery.
7.
Finally, remove The Promise Scholarship from the Education department and put
it under Commerce where an economic development/workforce development tool
belongs.
--
Higginbotham At
Large neither reads nor publishes comments from pseudonymous or anonymous
commenters. No Ring of Gyges for you. I’ll be happy to publish opposing views
from clearly-identified submitters.
About Joseph
Higginbotham:
Joseph
Higginbotham is a former member of the West Virginia Region III Workforce Development
Board, a former executive and technical search consultant, a former general
manager and a former columnist and writer for newspapers, magazines and
journals such as Business Lexington, Rx HomeCare, Leadership, Drug Store
News, Campus Career Counselor, Home Health Care Dealer and more.
Higginbotham has spoken professionally at over 40 venues, served as an “expert
panelist” at jobseeker workshops and a guest on numerous talk radio shows.
--
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Corey Palumbo, Hoppy Kercheval, Mayor Danny Jones, Tom Roten, Jake Jarvis,
Ashton Marra, Scott Finn, #StruggleToStay, Butch Antolini, Grant Herring, Nick
Casey, Dave Hardy, Booth Goodwin, Ryan Ferns, Mike Hall
