[Vision2020] education and economic development

[Bill London]

There's a great article in the Sunday (June 6) Lewiston Tribune, page 1E (business section), entitled "Idaho labor pool a matter of quantity over quality."  The article was reprinted from the Boise Statesman.

In summary, the article explains that Idaho has plenty of unemployed people, but very few of those have the skills needed by the high-tech companies that are sought by every economic development plan (including Moscow's).

"The talent pool isn't there," explained one of the high-tech entrepreneurs.

Idaho is falling behind because the public education system (K-12 and college) has been slowly strangled by the Legislature and the Republican Party.

As is explained in the article, we are now seeing two significant results to this anti-education policy.  First, there just are not enough students who graduate in the needed fields because those college programs do not have the funds to grow.  Second, when talented workers consider moving to Idaho, they want to know that their own kids will be getting a "world-class" education -- and when they discover the problems with K-12 funding in Idaho, those workers chose to go elsewhere.

It's time to move Idaho ahead
BL
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