U.S. Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Thomas Donohue (in photo) said Wednesday that the United States must improve education to ensure an adequate supply of workers. As a result, the U.S. Chamber plans to measure and rank the performance of state school systems, with the aim of helping businesses decide where to locate.
“The bottom line is that this nation cannot rightfully expect to lead the 21st century’s information and technology-driven global economy when we have upwards of 30 percent of our young people not even graduating from high school,” he said.
That’s not the message that the Kansas Chamber has been sending in recent years. It has resisted increased spending on education and discounted Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ contention that investing in education is a key to economic development.
Will it change its message now?
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
Registered?
Commenting on WE Blog now requires you to be a Kansas.com member. Use the links above to register, if you haven't already, or to log in.Contact us
Follow us
Daily Archives
-
Recent Comments
- satatom on Open thread 11/22
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- Regular on Open thread 11/22
- DavidB on Health care reform would save state money
- DavidB on Minority status in Senate; majority approval at home
- JimJohnson on Open thread 11/22
- American_Way on Open thread 11/22
- American_Way on Open thread 11/22
- cosmos_originally on Open thread 11/22
8 Comments
Chamber of Commerce–
We don’t care if kids are educated or not for their sake.
But at some point, it might hurt (gasp!) business.
How about we just make EVERY school a good school?
The KS and Wichita Chambers believe that we should try to “Out-Haiti” Haiti. Their motto is “We might be uneducated but we’re real cheap!”
Always interesting that the people/organizations representing them with the most money moan the loudest when they have to pay their citizen’s share.Disgusting.
We must stay competitive, with more companies moving over sea for their cheap, uneducated laborer. Kansas must now become the newest third world nation in order to survive.Way to go education!
In typical liberal fashion, Mr. Brownlee assumes that the way to solve a problem is to throw more money at it. Maybe we could pay the kids to stay in school!
No, the problem is not finance, it is much deeper. We spend more now than ever on education, yet the results show no correlation.
We are more interested to see our kids entertained with the latest mind numbing video games, MTV and movies. Until more parents start to take their responsiblities seriously, nothing will change. The competition from the rest of the world is serious. We are doing a disservice to our kids by expecting so little.
What we need to come to grips with is whether our schools are an assembly line for turning out good little worker ants, or an institution for broadening the minds of our children and giving them the tools to (gasp) think for themselves. Many of our business and religious leaders seem to want more worker ants. Is that what our children deserve to be?
Ben, I could not agree with you more. As a professional in economic development for over 20 years, I love how the “it will hurt business” argument changes, depending on which special interest group is using it.
In legislative hearings in 2004,when it was noted how many Fortune 500 companies provide benefits for unmarried partners, State Senator Kay O’Connor’s reply was “more companies will come here if they dont have to deal with gays”. I heard the same thing from your own Bonnie Huey in 2005. ROFLMAO. How many of those “more companies” have come to Ks on that basis since then? And…how many have left?
Has anyone done a study on why companies dont choose Ks? Has anyone done a study on why companies leave KS? Of course not. We wouldnt want to deal in facts in Ks, just hate. After all, hate plays so well here.
Truth be told, executives dont want to locate their business in the nutcase capital of the world. And even fewer want to locate where their children will be educated by the Christian Taliban. Business decisions are said to be made on logic, not religious ferver.
BTW, how is that Bioscience initiative working out? Lured any scientists here based on how well their children will be educated?Joe Aistrup, head of political science at KSU says “few families will move to your town based on your football team, but they will move to your town if you have great math scores in your schools”. Given the population decline in KS, I guess the math scores must not be too high. Every year, for decades, we have had net more people leave the state than move here.
And as for taxes, after 20 years, I have yet to talk to a company that said they wouldnt go to a particular state because the taxes were too high. They generally looked at their overall cost of operation, and the number one cost for most of them is finding QUALIFIED and TRAINABLE workers.
Companies may not locate because their overall operating expenses are too high, but that includes more than taxes. It includes things like transportation, proximity to customers and suppliers, and the cost of obtaining qualified workers. They are no longer looking for warm bodies, of which KS has plenty. They are looking for well educated, productive workers, and those are in short supply in most of Ks.
Ben you are right. If we want to claim that businesses should locate in KS because we are the low cost and not the high quality provider, we will have to out “low cost” China, India, etc. Hell, the Ks legies even decided to approve the outsource of SRS call centers overseas. So much for our ability to be the low cost provider even for ourselves. I guess $.25/hr is even too low for the slaves in western Kansas. Damn unions must be driving up the cost of labor :)
I suppose KS just cant compete with states that market themselves as having the highest quality work force, best education system, good local government, etc. We just have to hang our heads and say “well, at least we are cheap”.
Once again, arent we proud to live in ks?
Well, there he goes again. Phillip can’t point to one district in America that has been improved by spending more money. KCK & NYC are great examples of instances where more money thrown at the system did nothing. All this reckless spending does is fleece the working class. If Brownie and the rest of the libs really cared they would push for real reform like ending tenure, na dwould support merit pay, charter schools and vouchers. Boy, they sure know so much that isn’t so. Keep increasing taxes and there won’t be any business left in Kansas to belong to the chamber!