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Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Business leaders willing to raise taxes for better schools
Increases should be tied to specific reforms, survey says.
The Associated Press

SACRAMENTO -- California's business leaders say they're willing to spend more money on public schools and even raise taxes to pay for them as long as the increased spending is tied to major reforms and holding schools accountable, according to a survey released Monday.

Three-quarters of the 1,342 chief executives surveyed said they either support or strongly support the idea of raising taxes to boost public school spending if the increase were tied to a specific reform they support.

They listed the most crucial reforms as teaching essential basic skills such as reading, writing and math in combination with communication skills, responsibility and work ethic. Those were followed by work force skills and boosting the number of technical and vocational schools in the state.

Business leaders are frustrated by a pool of workers who come out of school ill-equipped to handle basic job tasks, said Loren Kaye, president of the California Foundation for Commerce & Education. The nonprofit spinoff of the California Chamber of Commerce commissioned the study.

Business leaders want a better return on their investment, said Ben Tulchin, director of the western region for Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, which conducted the Internet study.

"That return is students who are better prepared for the work force," Tulchin said.

He said he was surprised to see business leaders rank school reform as a pressing policy issue equal to increasing access to health care, which has dominated the political debate in Sacramento since Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made health care a top priority for his second term.

Kaye added that when it comes to teachers, "executives feel like a tough-love approach is needed. ... You want to value your good ones, but you want to try to do what you can to get rid of the bad ones."

Executives from small to large companies in all economic sectors and regions of the state were surveyed online from Jan. 29 to Feb. 14. The survey has a sampling error rate of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

It comes just days ahead of the release of a package of 23 academic studies about California's education system that was commissioned by the governor, legislative leaders and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.

The so-called "adequacy studies" are expected to call for overhauling the state's finance system and many of its categorical programs, as well as increased education spending.

The business survey released Monday was funded by two of the same foundations that paid for the adequacy studies, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.