text: DURHAM, N.C. (AP) - The South's increasingly diverse homegrown talent won't share in the region's economic growth unless state leaders commit to spending more on public schools and higher education, according to a study released Tuesday.
  Social and economic divisions will only get worse "if we let our talent systems atrophy so that they can no longer reach deep into distressed populations to prepare them for the best jobs," said David Dodson, president of the education and job development advocacy group MDC, which published the report.
  Around the South and elsewhere, teachers are demanding better pay and more resources. Thousands of Kentucky teachers rallied last week at the state Capitol to call for better school funding and decry changes to their pension plans, and they're planning to demonstrate again this week. And in West Virginia, teachers used a nine-day walkout earlier this year to win pay raises.
  The trends play out at a time when the region is becoming increasingly diverse - 53 percent of all southerners under the age of 15 identify as black, Latino or otherwise nonwhite, the report said. Yet three-quarters of the region's population age 65 and older is white, representing a generation of decision-makers who have shaped many current government priorities.