|
|
50th Anniversary June 1998
The report of President Franklin
Roosevelt’s National Emergency Council in 1938 was a
tale of social blight, educational deficiencies, health
problems and transportation difficulties — in short,
a tale of poverty. The report disclosed a “third
world” country within our borders. And President
Roosevelt was right: Progress begins with the recognition
of the problem, and 60 years ago the South was the
nation’s No. 1 economic problem.
What about today? Problems remain, to
be sure, but I believe that President Roosevelt would
marvel at the progress, strength, dynamism and vitality
the South possesses today. Certainly, he would concur
that, on the 50th anniversary of the Southern Regional
Education Board, it is appropriate to reflect on the
remarkable progress of the South, to assess how far we
have yet to travel and to recommit ourselves to focused,
long-term educational investments and improvements.
Today people are moving to the South in
record numbers. This dynamic growth means that early in
the next century half of the nation’s metropolitan
areas with more than 250,000 people will be in the SREB
states. More than half of America’s job growth in
the 1990s has been in the SREB region, as has been nearly
half of the nation’s growth in college enrollment.
The South is a new U.S. banking center. The SREB states
are leaders of education reforms.
The absence of attention to racial
issues in the 1938 report of the National Emergency
Council is notable. There are in the SREB states today
continuing challenges of racial inequities, along with
poverty, health, education, transportation and
environmental issues. But there is an optimism in the
South, an uncommon aptitude for facing problems and
working together to solve them, and an economic engine
that will permit these challenges to be faced, fought and
conquered.
|
1998“THE
SOUTH
IS A PLACE OF
REMARKABLE
PROGRESS AND
MOMENTUM.”
COMMISSION FOR
EDUCATIONAL QUALITY
|
Today, the South is a place of remarkable progress and
momentum. It will continue to be if we recognize that our
infrastructure now is as much intellectual as it is
physical and that our progress and momentum depend upon a
continuing commitment to sustained investment in the
“new infrastructure” of education,
transportation, communications and information
technologies. There is no better
goal for Southern leaders today than that of the
SREB’s Commission for Educational Quality: “We
want to make clear the connection between education and
economic growth, between education and sound progress,
between education and a responsible citizenry, and
between education and the future.”
Gerald L. Baliles
Chairman, SREB Commission for Educational Quality
|
Copyright © 1999-2009 Southern Regional Education Board. All rights
reserved. Terms and Conditions
