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FUTURE STUDIES
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Focusing on Public Education
What is the role of public education in the community? The short answer, from a growth coalition perspective, is as a mechanism for economic development. The local community college’s advertisement campaign is a poignant reminder of this. Billboards and printed advertisements around the city promote the following equation: Job > Community College > Career. The message is obvious, that the community college is the path between dead-end jobs and rewarding careers.
Although this is not new terrain, studies that enhance our knowledge of the linkages between institutions of public education and economic development organizations continue to be needed. Institutions of higher education are increasing their efforts to forge ties to the local business community, as is evidenced by the internships and externships they create, promote, and fund.
From a growth machine perspective, however, the economic development departments and foundations of universities and colleges serve as additional points of coordination for local growth coalitions and public educators. For the sake of the strength of our civil society, are these linkages adversely impacting the citizenship enhancing capacities of public education for the sake of narrow economic development (industrial recruitment) efforts? The central location of public education institutions in many of the issue networks and the overall interorganizational structure of the community substantiates this concern.