It is September again and we would like for you to think about literacy.

Have you read a good book during the past month? Literacy is a lifetime commitment.

Have you read to your children or your grandchildren lately? If not, the local libraries have excellent reading programs for children and adults. These programs for adults and children need you to be a tutor for them.

Do you as businessmen or industrial managers offer incentives to your employees for completing high school or college courses by paying for completed courses and a small raise for receiving a GED certificate or college degree? A 2- or 3-percent raise, $10 to $20, is a small price to pay for a more productive, more content and better citizen for Polk County.

Here are some reasons we must ask ourselves these questions. According to the Aug. 23, 2004 Georgia Power Community Economic Profile of Polk County’s adult population (ages 25 and older), 36.7 percent have not completed high school.

According to the State of Georgia, Polk County’s dropout rate is 32 percent. The adult education programs have an average of 100 people who pass the General Educational Development (GED) test annually from all programs.

According to the 2005 national breakdown of the available jobs, 15 percent require no special skills; 65 percent require a high school diploma and some technical skills; and 20 percent require a college degree. We in Polk County are not meeting these standards.

We, as citizens of Polk County, need complete support for and use of the following organizations to help be better prepared for this future: Northwestern Technical College, The Department of Adult Education, Early Childhood Initiative, the Office of Adult Literacy, Polk Family Connections, English as a Second Language and the local libraries with their adult and children reading programs.

Also providing support is the Rockmart/Polk Rotary Education Fund, which supports a paid tutor system in partnership with the office of the Polk School District Superintendent. In addition, the fund helps students to pay for GED testing.

Our goal for partnership with these organizations is to reduce the high school dropout rate by 10 percent within the next 10 years, and to increase the number of students taking the GED test by 20 percent.

If we do not embrace and solve these problems locally, we can expect more government involvement, less high tech industry and more housing without enough money to provide for essential services and infrastructure.

The lack of education results in more crime, drugs and unrest. According to the U.S. Report on Prisons, 67 percent of the people incarcerated do not have a high school education. Is this the type of community you want? We will need your action, time and money to resolve these problems.

James Toole is a volunteer with Polk County Adult Education.