THE JOB CORPS
At the 1968
Olympic Games in Mexico City, the 6-foot 3-inch, 218-pound Foreman won the gold
medal in the heavyweight boxing competition. He continued to win. George won
all 40 of his professional bouts, including a sequence of 24 consecutive
knockouts. He finally fell to Muhammad Ali in eight rounds in the “Rumble in
the Jungle” in Kinshasa, Zaire in 1974. He subsequently retired from the ring
and became an Evangelist, then in 1995 a number of products, including an
eponymous home grill was introduced; it earned him more money and more fame
than his boxing career.
A recent study backs up what George Foreman always
said, The Job Corps works."
When the Job
Corps, an original antipoverty program from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, was
on the ropes and facing deep budget cuts in the mid-1990, George came to its
defense. "Job Corps took me from the mean streets and out of a nightmare
lifestyle into a mode where the most incredible of dreams come true,”
More scientific
evidence is in a study by Mathematical Policy Research quietly released last
week. The study finds that the Job Corps measurably improves the education and
job prospects of disadvantaged youth. It also offers clues as to why. The Job
Corps is one of the most intensive and expensive of the dwindling government
programs for disadvantaged youth. The $1.3 billion cost last year amounts to
about $20,000 for each participant. Although critics, mistakenly, argue that
the Job Corps is as expensive as a year at Harvard, and even ignoring public subsidy and endowment
spending, the true cost for each student is well above $50,000 a year.
Education costs are high. The stakes are high.
Each year, the
program serves more than 60,000 mostly poor, urban high school dropouts who are
16 to 24 years old. A third of the male participants had been arrested at least
once before joining the program; two-thirds of participants had never held a
full-time job. If the Job Corps does not improve the prospects of disadvantaged
youths, then less-intensive programs are unlikely to help either. The Job Corps
is expensive because 90 percent of students are sent from their neighborhoods
to one of 116 residential campuses in 46 states. There they stay for academic
education, vocational training, counseling, health education and job placement
assistance. Students train for jobs in the new and old economy, from Wal-Mart
to Skydiving.
I was picked to
be George Foreman's dentist for the 3 years he was at the Weber Basin Job Corp
Center, located at the mouth of Ogden Canyon. My secretary Janette Dalton
called him, "Her young nice looking boy."
Dr. KARL WALLACE D.D.S.
To read more karl
wallace stories go to: Karlwallaceblog.blogspot.com
