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It’s great to say, “I told you so.”

But even for the most vocal critics of corporate incentives, there will be no glee if Dell closes U.S. computer manufacturing plants, including the barely three-year-old Forsyth County operation, as a Wall Street Journal report hinted last week.

Yes, state and local officials threw too much money at Dell — a promise of $280 million over 15 years — to get the company to locate here with 1,300 jobs, and it’s not clear how much taxpayers recoup if Dell does leave. (The company isn’t commenting.)

But even if it turns out to be a sucker deal, it’s hard to question the motives, not when this is the way the recruitment game is played. And with textiles, furniture and tobacco dying out, what are leaders to do?

I was thinking about this the other day when my niece told us about her first day on the job as a music teacher in a nearby county — a county better off economically than Guilford. Her trial by fire: to be left solo in charge of a class of almost 30 kindergartners.

Couldn’t the classroom teacher’s aide have come to help? I wondered.

“He doesn’t have one,” she said.

Certainly an extreme example, but if this is the value we put on education at the beginning — in a county that can still afford to hire music teachers — what sort of outcome are we looking for at the end?

And perhaps this is simplistic, but what if we took that $1.2 billion a year the state gives in tax breaks and put it back into boosting graduation rates statewide, reducing class sizes and yes, hiring teachers’ aides?

A headline in today’s paper — if you read past the one about economic incentive recipient RJR cutting 570 jobs — suggests that sometimes, obvious solutions do work.

In this case, it’s the governor’s “Learn and Earn” program, based on the revolutionary idea that students who are better prepared for college and careers will make more money.

Given that the quality of schools and the educational level of the work force are the two top incentives for every employer looking to relocate, maybe companies would start recruiting us, for a change. Maybe they would like the idea of not having to train employees in remedial English or basic math.

And as our high school and college graduates weigh job offers right here in Guilford County, and not somewhere better off, we can all say, with glee, “I told you so.”

A party to help furry friends

But back in the real world, our friends at the Triad’s Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals still have tickets on sale for their popular “Fur Ball” bash Sept. 27.

The elegant evening black-tie buffet at the Empire Room raised $27,000 last year to save 600 dogs and cats for adoption in Guilford County — animals that otherwise would likely have been euthanized.

The money also paid for the acclaimed “New Leash on Life” dog training program with prison inmates at Camp Burton and helped defray pet food and vet costs for indigent families. In tight economic times, notes SPCA President Brenda Overman, some pet owners are forced to turn in their animals because they cannot feed them or afford care.

Details: call 852-8445 or send an e-mail to boverman@bellsouth.net.

Contact Lorraine Ahearn at 373-7334 or lorraine.ahearn@news-record.com