Comment

Iowa Business Council Releases First Competitiveness Index 
Four of Five Issue Areas Indicate ‘No Significant Progress’ in Overall Competitiveness Trends
In January 2011, IBC released “A Competitiveness Blueprint: Iowa 2025” (Blueprint).  This report identified five “call to action” issue areas to improve Iowa’s economy: economic growth, education and workforce readiness,  governance and fiscal matters, health and well-being, and workforce demographics and diversity.  From the  Blueprint evolved the ICI, developed  as a “report card” to identify benchmarks, analyze trends,  and distinguish positive or negative economic activity.  The Business Council will regularly revisit and review relevant data and information that measure Iowa‘s business environment and, at the same time, identify areas that need attention.
Initial findings of the 2011 ICI include:
• Relative to other states, over the last decade Iowa has not achieved a competitive advantage in four of the five areas measured: economic growth, education and workforce readiness, governance and fiscal matters, or workforce demographics and diversity.  

I went to a "Business Roundtable" meeting on Education over a decade ago in which we were told that it was the Business Roundtable's sense that schools were failing and the only way to save them was to give them tests and if they did not pass the tests money would be taken away from them until they improved.  More money would be given to schools who were succeeding according to these tests and this plan morphed into George Bush's "No Child Left Behind"  a disastrous program for Iowa and the Nation.

And so now the Iowa Business "Council" says that education has not achieved a competitive advantage in education over the past decade and they will be revisiting and watching.... I would venture to say that perhaps they were the problem in the first place and now they just want to continue dismantling education...  Jeeesh who do they think we are that we would not remember...oh yeah I guess that is right we don't pay attention.