Invest in education programs we know work

Everyone seems to agree that the long-term solution to the crime and violence that afflict many communities in Delaware is an end to poverty. Unfortunately, that is easier said than done. Resources, as always, are limited and simply giving away money will not cure many of the ills that created the poverty in the first place.

Investment, however, will. More than any other step, steady, purposeful investment will first plant the seeds and then nurture the economic success needed to help low-income Delawareans move out of poverty and into a future their individual talents and ambitions can claim. Education is an obvious investment. The need for a high-quality education for all of our children is at the heart of the debate over underperforming schools and standardized testing. The methods may be debatable, but the goals are not.

So as a city, as a state, as a community, we should invest in education – education at all levels. As Mark Brainard, the president of Delaware Technical Community College, told a General Assembly panel earlier this week, his school is an important presence in Wilmington. For decades it has been a pathway to educational and economic success for thousands of Delawareans.

Economists around the nation repeatedly point out that community colleges have the flexibility needed to adapt to the changing business environment. Technological skills, whether in health care or engineering, must change with new advances as well as global competition. Delaware Tech has been among the most successful. President Obama proposed giving every qualified student free tuition to attend local community colleges. That may help in some parts of the country, but Delaware has an established tuition aid program that is quite successful. The need is not more tuition aid, but help in qualifying more students for the school's training in the first place and updating the classroom and lab facilities to train them in.

President Brainard made that case to the General Assembly. However, he also noted an important fact that relates directly to the crime and poverty problem in Wilmington. The Delaware Tech campus in Wilmington already houses a dental clinic and provides summer camps for city children. Many of the facilities are now more than 40 years old. Investment in Delaware Tech's aging facilities would make the Wilmington and other campuses all the more important in the economic and community life of their neighborhoods. "We simply cannot run first-class programs in third-rate facilities," he said.

Gov. Markell, the state Department of Labor, Delaware Tech several businesses and a number of state high schools have developed innovative programs to keep at-risk students in school, to give them a step up in acquiring technical certification and, soon, to provide them with apprenticeships that will give them deep training and move them into the workforce.

That is a long-term crime-fighting program. We should invest in it.