Dayton is Undereducated - Proof (Washington: middle-class, transplants, home)

[Ohioan58]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/us...pagewanted=all

Just 24 percent of the adult residents of metropolitan Dayton have four-year degrees, well below the average of 32 percent for American metro areas, and about half the rate of Washington, the country’s most educated metro area, according to a Brookings Institution analysis. Like many Rust Belt cities, it is a captive of its rich manufacturing past, when well-paying jobs were plentiful and landing one without a college degree was easy.

Educational attainment lagged as a result, even as it became more critical to success in the national economy. “We were so wealthy for so long that we got complacent,” said Jane L. Dockery, associate director of the Center for Urban and Public Affairs at Wright State University here. “We saw the writing on the wall, but we didn’t act.”

[CarpathianPeasant]

Well, I read the whole article and a few of the comments.

One important point often overlooked is that Dayton actually has a "stepping stone" reputation.

When companies think they are getting something better by hiring people from more distant areas, they are getting a dis-associated individual it's true (and that's okay, even good, in some respects). But, the place also has no hold on the individual beyond a place to be until something more to the liking is found. That's the real brain-drain.

There are few jobs in Dayton wherein a person motivated by career ambition alone will get the notion he/she has "arrived." And, the fault in that is the chasing after an already established position that is somewhere else.

[Ohioan58]

I made a remark in a past thread about the lack of a career ladder locally and the poor quality of technical workplaces in the Miami Valley. You said something smug and patronizing back to me in that thread about liking bright eyed, eager young graduates in the engineering dept. at UD that you worked in once as a secretary. You made the engineers of which you "approve" sound like prancing show dogs. You're lucky I didn't go on the attack verbally then.

The point is, I'm a degreed engineer with a family and much more than 25 years of experience, so it's insulting to read that I am being compared to a 22 year old.

Look - because I've lived with many local IT and engineering companies - I've witnessed more abysmal practices, abusive management and mass ignorance than in any other city in which I've lived.

My point is that this article says something that I already knew intuitively - Dayton is anti-intellectual and the local culture values just plain dumbness. I knew it growing up here and I found it out once again moving back. Dayton is quite literally one of the dumbest medium sized cities in the US and this has been quantified in terms of education achievement.

Dayton is the sort of place where someone with barely a 2 year associate's degree can bombast his way into being titled a "Principal Engineer", and someone else with a solid track record can be treated like a retarded untermenschen.

You're talking here about greener pastures syndrome with people starting their careers here. Sure, it is a factor. But there is nothing actually worth staying around here for, unless you are a kept, coddled apparatchnik of WPAFB or one of the very few decent local places like Lexis or Teradata. If a young person stays around here they are generally killing their career.

High tech doesn't do well as a business format in Dayton because of the undereducated briar workforce and the culture that this implies.

In fact, this explains Dayton's underperformance in many economic areas. Because Dayton is an uneducated place, professionals probably do not feel comfortable moving here. It's not a hip or desirable place, by definition.

[TomJones123]

^^ I lived in Dayton proper and agree totally. I found many of the locals standoffish, cliquish, and down right uneducated. Not to say that there aren't a lot of good folks around. But they never seemed to take kindly to transplants, yet they are bleeding population.

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/us...pagewanted=all

There's room for all types in this country. Diversity is a good thing. For everybody to have a degree devalues a degree and it goes the way of the high school diploma. Then what? Will everybody with just a bachelor's degree be "uneducated". Will people who want to "get ahead" have to at least have a graduate degree? (It's already becoming that way, but I'm illustrating my point.) Just what is the unemployment rate among recent college grads, really high? How about we (as a society) stop belittling people and improve the primary and secondary education system so that it serves students better and they actually have to *earn* a HS diploma so that it holds value and proves basic competence to employers and serves those who worked for it. Those who can't make it through? Tough. They can have the most basic jobs. Community college certificates and programs should be emphasized too, where needed. But I'm not buying everybody needing a bachelor's degree. How about our country reorient polices so that manufacturing jobs come back and actually provide jobs catering to the education of the people rather than absolutely everybody drowning themselves in student debt and taking so much time to get a degree? How about we provide these folks $15 per hour jobs so they can live humble lives and boost the middle ground between the poor and true "middle class". The market will cater to the working-class if it thrives. Contrary to what liberals seem to believe, not everybody needs to live an upper-middle class lifestyle. How about *they* stop suggesting people are too "undeducated" to get jobs and work on ensuring that even the most basic jobs with a little bit of time and effort will pay a decent wage and make for a career (fair organized labor and labor laws? can it work?). If you look to the South, where the political climate is more business friendly and more devoid of greedy unions, you'll see that an auto-manufacturing industry has been created from scratch in the past couple of decades. Foreign automakers have set up shop here! And those jobs pay well, with good benefits, without the companies being collared by greedy unions. Surely that can be replicated in other industries as well.

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by TomJones123

^^ I lived in Dayton proper and agree totally. I found many of the locals standoffish, cliquish, and down right uneducated. Not to say that there aren't a lot of good folks around. But they never seemed to take kindly to transplants, yet they are bleeding population.

In interacting with people, what is "uneducated"? It sounds like you didn't interact with the folks you speak of much, yet know so much about them.

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/31/us...pagewanted=all

Originally Posted by NY Times

Dayton sits on one side of a growing divide among American cities, in which a small number of metro areas vacuum up a large number of college graduates, and the rest struggle to keep those they have.

This is a problem in and of itself. Companies and highly educated inviduals segregate themselves from the rest of society. This is even true within individual metropolitan areas. It seems like a lot folks are lacking in humility and do everything they can to separate themselves from the masses. School districts and entire suburbs are bled of upper demographics that leave everybody else behind. It's a shame because of the loss of social influence and because those high-paying jobs provide trickle-down economic activity to those who are suited for more humble jobs. Increasing socio-economic segregation, or middle-class flight, has replaced white-flight it seems. Here's anther NY Time's article that touches base on that subject, which attributes said scenario to the income gap, but I think there's more to it than that:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/us...ort-finds.html

By the way, shame on the snotty-looking girl in the article and others like her for not staying in her home community and improving it. I'm sure there are teaching jobs to be had in Dayton.

[TomJones123]

Originally Posted by MOKAN

In interacting with people, what is "uneducated"? It sounds like you didn't interact with the folks you speak of much, yet know so much about them.

Just sharing my personal experiences trying to get on in the Gem City. Don't really need your interpretation of my experiences.

Are you that intuitive from just a few words on a forum post?

Or that opinionated?

[MOKAN]

Originally Posted by TomJones123

Just sharing my personal experiences trying to get on in the Gem City. Don't really need your interpretation of my experiences.

Are you that intuitive from just a few words on a forum post?

Or that opinionated?

I'm just asking about what you said. You failed to answer.

[CarpathianPeasant]

Originally Posted by Ohioan58

I made a remark in a past thread about the lack of a career ladder locally and the poor quality of technical workplaces in the Miami Valley. You said something smug and patronizing back to me in that thread about liking bright eyed, eager young graduates in the engineering dept. at UD that you worked in once as a secretary. You made the engineers of which you "approve" sound like prancing show dogs. You're lucky I didn't go on the attack verbally then.

The point is, I'm a degreed engineer with a family and much more than 25 years of experience, so it's insulting to read that I am being compared to a 22 year old.

I'm not sure what word I used without finding the actual posting, but I doubt if it was "graduate" as you have said, since what first comes to mind is a couple of professors.

What you have been compared to was a couple of department heads. I guess you weren't in their classes or none of it rubbed off.

If you don't think much of "secretaries," student aide might be equally correct apart from job duties.

And, if you don't like "briars," I'm a born and bred Daytonian with a good dash of Hoosier tossed in for flavoring. If you happen to have a reason to go to D.C., you might also skip any visiting to the U.S. Senate. I think presently it's mostly being run by a briar.