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Quality schools are crucial for our children and for our work
force. Anchorage must be in a superior competitive position in
today’s
changing global markets.
The University of Alaska Anchorage continues
to be under funded and Alaskan’s will face a price too dear to
pay if we rob our young and fail to retrain adults who need a
quality education. The foundations for a successful college education
lies not only in the institution and its faculty, but also in
the successful education of their future students.
Equally important are our elementary and secondary schools. Education
research has shown that children decide what careers they are
NOT interested in by fourth grade. During the following years
they begin to focus on fields they would consider. Our schools
must encourage this exploration and preparation. When our students
graduate from high school they must be ready to excel in the
training/or careers of their own choice. Our district will
continue to be the core of health careers, and our neighborhood youth
(or retrained adults) can take the best of those jobs if we
demand that our schools provide education equal to that challenge.
Health providers report a shortage of workers that are trained for technical
jobs (nursing is only one of the many health care specialties that are
available,) these jobs are well paid, with good benefits. Providers
must pay huge bonuses and inflated wages for traveling professionals,
or seek workers from the lower states…or other countries. The
shortage of local trained workers is one of the factors driving increased
cost of care.
All of the Colleges and Universities in our U/Med area are expanding their
health care training. We must be willing to support investing in this growth.
Sharon Cissna continues to win funding for programs such as
the UAA Nursing Department and for construction of the Consortium
Library and Science Complex. These are improvements that are
essential to our state's only public university system, but
not sufficient to the needs of our health system with hundreds
of vacant health jobs.
PAID FOR BY FRIENDS TO RE-ELECT SHARON CISSNA, STATE HOUSE P.O. BOX 141892, ANCHORAGE, ALASKA 99514
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