CAN AZ CUT EDUCATION AND DRAW QUALITY JOBS?

posted by Michael Chihak

Employers want well-trained employees. Their employees, in turn, want good schools for their children.

And Arizona wants a strong economy, one that can sustain the growing population and bring a new kind of prosperity to its residents.

There's a tried and true formula for that. Build an educational system that can train people for high-paying jobs and that employers can count on. Employers will hire those employees, and the economy will grow and prosper.

Arizona political leaders have the vision for a prosperous state, based on an economy that eschews dependence on population growth and housing and instead looks to the growth of knowledge and technology and the relevant complementary businesses.

Just one problem in the state: The educational component has been slowly whittled away over the last decade by an ever-changing standardized testing scenario and a series of political decisions meant to challenge public schools to get better but that instead created a competing school system that's not as good.

Oh, and budget cuts. Budget cuts. Budget cuts.

Three straight years of significant cuts to educational budgets, more than $450 million for the coming fiscal year alone. That will bring the three year total of cuts to more than $1 billion.

We plan to explore the complex scenario on Friday's Arizona Week, including asking economic development leaders if they think it is a formula for success.