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My Position: In the interest of our national security, competitive standing in the world, and criminal justice system, it's imperative we rouse dialogue on an issue that implicates all three: Education. Recent numbers report that as few as one out of every two youngsters are not earning high school diplomas in our nation's biggest cities. For those of us from districts where the need is great, these numbers are far from new, let alone startling. But even as they inspired alarm in the wake of the report's release, they have failed to ignite a national conversation on an issue that demands action, not just today, but yesterday. That alarm has already, regrettably, been snuffed out. We remain, still, oddly hush-hush and complacent.

Many will make an argument of the heart, that to fail to equip these kids with the skills and knowledge they need to eschew poverty and criminality demonstrates an abominable lack of compassion. This is true. But allow me to also make an argument of the mind. These children cannot afford failure – and neither can we. As a nation, we drastically shrink our talent pool and our ability to compete on the global stage when we trade bodies in our college classrooms for bodies on the streets, in jails, even underground. We give way to the rise in influence of China and India and saddle the next generation with a workforce unfit for competition, perennially unemployed and underemployed.

The cost in human and economic capital is too much to bear. We should, instead, tap into the amazing reservoir of talent that is our youth, equipping them with the skills and experience that will strengthen our workforce and boost our competitiveness. We need to recruit and train particularly low-income youngsters for careers as scientists, technicians, mathematicians, and engineers. It would mean extra, capable hands at our ports, our hospitals, our schools, our senior citizen centers. America deserves to regain her beloved reputation and economic footing on the world stage.

Not only is America hurting; so are our kids. My home, New York City, graduates only 45.2 percent of its students. It has 200,000 disconnected youth on its streets, those kids ages 16 to 24 not in school and without employment. New York houses more kids in state prisons than it does on college campuses. That means we have families without fathers and young people who are unemployed and unemployable. That means we spend $80,000 per kid to incarcerate, instead of the $10,000 it takes to educate them. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined me in visiting P.S. 154 of my district last year, and although we disagree on many issues, she and I were in absolute lockstep on the idea, as she put it, that "education and opportunity are national security priorities. In fact, the absence of them would be a national security threat."

For years, I have sought ways to boost the representation of poor and minority students in the field of public service. The Public Service Center at City College of New York is an important step in achieving that goal. It will focus on recruiting and retaining minorities in graduate studies, offering them an array of internships, fellowships, seminars, and scholarships to prepare them for a career in public service. It will serve as the host location for service-related events, including presentations by experts in various fields of public policy, and ground-breaking research, drawing and enlisting the participation of the entire Harlem community.

My longtime message to the private sector that our greatest national priority is to improve the quality of education.encourage educational partnerships with corporate foundations by soliciting groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, the Economic Club of New York, and the New York Partnership, among others, to fund improvements in education.

We worked to secure $29 million in grants from the General Electric Foundation to improve middle school education in Upper Manhattan and to fund the New York City Department of Education. That included grants to Columbia University Teachers College to boost science and math education in Harlem and to Harlem Children's Zone, which focuses on improving academic achievement and community leadership.

Over the past few years alone, we have been able to secure nearly $1 million from the Boeing Corporation to draw minority youth to careers in engineering and to serve returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan with job training; half a million from the Pfizer Science Academy to invest in supplemental science education; and $1.5 million from the Beaumont Foundation of America to award computers to needy public schools and community-based organizations in Upper Manhattan.
 
I have been concerned with disparities in education all of my life, as someone, who through the GI Bill, was transformed from a high school dropout to a college graduate and lawyer. If critics took the time to visit my district – for even a day – they would know that the education gap is not just a problem. It's a crisis. ■