I recently reviewed an Educational Testing Service report entitled America’s Perfect Storm in which researchers discuss the premise that America is in the midst of a perfect storm.

Originally, “perfect storm” comes from a 1991 meteorological event when three separate storm fronts converged on the Eastern seaboard to create a catastrophic weather phenomenon. Now, three socioeconomic forces are converging that may threaten our country. These forces, if ignored, could destabilize our country because of a growing inequity in literacy and wealth and an increasing social and political polarization.

According to ETS researchers, these three powerful socioeconomic forces are

1. A wide disparity in reading and math skills among our school age and adult populations.

2. Changes of seismic proportions that are widening the wage gaps resulting from new sources of wealth, atypical patterns of international trade and the shift in balance between capital and power.

3. Demographic changes that will see the U.S. grow to 360 million by 2030 with an increasingly older, more diverse population, with immigration having a profound effect on the workforce and general population’s composition.

Educational reform has not resolved the problem. National testing shows scores are flat and achievement gaps have continued to grow over the past 20 years. Hope for a better life with decent jobs and livable wages could disappear if we do not take action.

We must do our part to achieve higher learning levels, increase students’ reading and math skills and narrow the existing achievement gaps that contribute to fewer students graduating each year.

Riverland Community College is well poised to deal with many of the challenges we face. We have numerous programs in place to deal with the changing demographics and challenges facing our school districts, businesses and industries. Some key examples include:

 Riverland offers a variety of classes for English as Second Language students in partnership with local school districts. In fact, Riverland has the only intensely concentrated English program in southeastern Minnesota.

Riverland’s Be Your Best College Prep Academy provides traditionally underserved and underrepresented students a program that has increased high school graduation rates, increased access to higher education and improved academic skills.

Since 1999, Riverland Community College has operated Viracon University to teach developmental and academic, including supervisory management, college classes to diverse employees at the Viracon facility.

The Riverland Writing Center enlists community volunteers to serve as mentors to help students improve their writing skills.

Riverland, in partnership with The Minnesota Job Skills Partnership Board and McNeilus Truck and Manufacturing, are retraining MTM’s increasingly diverse workforce to meet changing industry needs.

These are a few examples of the opportunities Riverland offers in general and career-technical education to prepare our youth, our changing workforce and our communities growing in diversity for the perfect storm that is currently brewing in our nation. We seek to be part of the solution that will close the gaps and lead to future prosperity.

View the thought-provoking ETS America’s Perfect Storm video at www.riverland.edu/perfectstorm.

Terrence Leas is the president of Riverland Community College. His column appears monthly.