<img class="left" src="/files/nmindependent/hows-new-mexico/train.bmp" width="152" height="263" alt="" title="" />Lt. Gov. Diane Denish sees New Mexico’s future depends on its "educonomy." That’s where education meets economic development, and it’s where the state has often fallen short of expectations, she said during a recent meeting with business and community leaders, educators and many youth from around the state.

"I’m tired of hearing that our best and brightest students had to leave the state to get the kinds of jobs they want," she said. "I’m tired of hearing from business leaders who say they can’t bring their type of industry to our state because there are not enough college graduates or trained workers to hire. We have to do something so that we are ready for the future."

Denish chairs the New Mexico Children’s Cabinet, which recently held a town hall meeting that brought together youths, business and community leaders and educators together to hash out details that will strengthen the state’s educonomy well into the future, Denish said.

The result is a report and a way to bridge the gap between education and a qualified workforce, said Betty Sparrow Doris, Secretary for the New Mexico Department for Workforce Solutions. Her goal for the town hall meeting was to engage youth in understanding they can and should be thinking about preparing for the jobs of tomorrow, such as in technical, health and in the ever-growing hospitality and tourism fields.

"The economy of the 21st century is going to be an economy based on what we know, what we think, what we can create and what we can do with information. So everyone is going to need a lot more education in the future than they had in the past."

New Mexico will have a ways to go in that department. The latest Kids Count data, by the Casey Foundation, suggests that 10 perdcent of the state’s high school seniors drop out of school, and other data suggests that overall about 38 percent of high schoolers drop out. About 12 percent of teens are not attending school and not working. About 26 percent of the state’s children live in poverty.

And on the higher education front, news is still grim. Only 20 percent of high school graduates age 25-29 have completed a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared to the national average of about 27 percent, according to the Kids Count report.

What Denish and educators want to do is change the tide by coming up with strategies that will make learning in schools more relevant to labor market requirements.

The push for a better trained workforce isn’t new to New Mexico, and certainly not to Denish and Gov. Bill Richardson. In 2005-2006, the Governor’s Workforce Coordination and Oversight Committee, working with business leaders and educators, came up with seven high-growth career clusters that would be the foundation for the state’s future economy.

They are: arts and entertainment; business; communications and information; energy and environmental 
technologies; engineering, construction, manufacturing and agriculture; health and biosciences; hospitality and tourism. 

The Children’s Cabinet will be refining the recommendations that came out of the town hall meeting on how to address the workforce training issues for all of those emerging markets. Those recommendations will be addressed during the January legislative session, Denish has said.

"It doesn’t get done overnight," Denish said. "But we know that if we don’t start soon, our best and our brightest will be leaving this state and those high-wage jobs will not be able to locate here. None of this is in the best interest of our state. It’s time to put a priority on our educonomy."