Coordinating Efforts

The examples cited in this chapter carry an important message: We ought to invest in human capital with the same entrepreneurial spirit and concern for long-range payoffs that venture capitalists bring to investments in new enterprises. No sensible investor expects every initiative to succeed or every investment to pan out. But if we are to have a viable economy and society, we simply cannot afford to write off a major chunk of the coming adult generation.

Clearly, we must also bring better management techniques and quality control to efforts aimed at preparing youth for the world of work. At present, responsibility for addressing needs among the huge and growing number of young people who lack the educational and occupational skills that are required to become productive citizens is—to put it mildly—unfocused. The tendency has been to isolate self-contained "problems"—educational deficiency, teen pregnancy, joblessness, family disorders, and so on—then to fund isolated programs run by self-contained agencies. As a result, efforts to deal with adolescents at risk of failure are typically piecemeal, dominated by short time frames, inadequately funded, and uncoordinated. A realistic policy is possible, but Federal, state, and local levels of government should be responsible for coordinating the various programs.

Efforts to help disadvantaged adolescents may draw upon many Federal programs, including the Job Training Partnership Act (jtpa), the Job Corps, summer jobs programs, Chapter 1 of the 1981 Education Consolidation and Improvement Act, and the Magnet Schools Assistance Program. Chapter 1 offers funding for educational services to disadvantaged students and the handicapped. Funding should be increased to restore the real value of previous commitments in the Chapter 1 program. The growth of private-sector initiatives and public-private partnerships is no excuse for failing to fund federal programs adequately. Far from being incompatible, a community-level approach and sustained national funding are necessary to each other. We believe that efforts to slash funding for Federal programs aiding disadvantaged adolescents should be resisted.

State governments are potentially in an excellent position to advocate coordinated approaches and proven practices because they generally have the legal and regulatory powers to guide local programs in education, child-welfare services,