You don’t have to sell Jackie on the importance of education. He is living proof.

The youngest of four children, Jackie was raised by his mother in a small Texas town. She worked hard, but times were tough. Sometimes, bills weren’t paid on time and lights and phone service were cut off. When he was 16, Jackie took a job washing dishes in a nursing home to help out.

A less motivated teenager may have dropped out of school, but that possibility never crossed Jackie’s mind. He enjoyed playing on the high school basketball team, and he also knew, even then, that education was his only shot at success, his ladder up and out to a better life.

Jackie went to college and graduated this past May, becoming the first member of his family to achieve that goal. He plans to pursue a coaching career in the public schools.

“With education, you just open up a lot of doors,” he said. “If it weren’t for education, I don’t know what I would be doing now.”

Two of his high school buddies weren’t so driven. One dropped out. The other got into drugs, was expelled and never returned to school. Both young men wound up in prison. That happens all too often. Dropouts account for about 80 percent of our prison population, becoming tax consumers rather than taxpayers.

Jackie, now 24 and preparing for the teacher certification test, coordinates an after-school program at an Arlington elementary school . He helps the kids with homework and oversees activities designed to keep the youngsters engaged in the educational process.

Besides his mother, Jackie’s strongest mentors included his high school basketball coach, who advised him to be careful choosing his friends, and his eleventh grade chemistry teacher, who gave him a failing 68 for one grading period. He had missed a couple of assignments and because of the state’s no-pass, no-play law had to miss three basketball games.

“That was a wakeup call,” Jackie said. “I learned that even as an athlete I couldn’t expect someone to give me something I hadn’t earned, a passing grade or whatever. I would never forget that.”

Texas has hundreds of dedicated, talented teachers like Jackie’s coach and chemistry teacher who are making a difference, helping students find their ladders to success. Jackie soon will join them. But they need more help from state government in attacking a serious dropout problem and assuring that today’s kids are fully prepared after graduation to compete in a globalized economy.

Recently, Texas A&M University released a report warning that almost onequarter of this year’s high school sophomores in Texas may not graduate on time. Eventually, the study said, these dropouts could cost the state as much as $9.6 billion in expenses and lost revenue. According to the Census Bureau, our state is 51st (counting the District of Columbia) in the percentage of people older than 25 who have a high school diploma.

Texas is not a place that should be last in anything. We need to keep our kids in school. We need to start them in a learning environment sooner – when they are 3 or 4, not 5 or 6. We need to make the system fit the kid instead of trying to make the kid fit the system. We cannot give up on public education. It is the key to success for our children and our state.

Just ask Jackie.

Tom Schieffer of Fort Worth is a former United States Ambassador to Australia and Japan, former president of the Texas Rangers baseball team, former Democratic member of the Texas House and former trustee of Tarrant County College. He is a Democratic candidate for governor.