California's politicians haven't shown much interest in regular old taxpayers' protests over the disastrous state of public schools. But lawmakers tend to listen to business leaders, so the results of a new survey of executives should lift the spirits of education advocates.
The Silicon Valley Leadership Group's annual business climate survey — which this year drew responses from 153 top executives at employers as varied as IBM, Wells Fargo, NASA and SunPower — sends an unmistakable message: Fixing schools should be the state's top priority. Sacramento needs to listen.
Asked to name five things the state could do to improve the business climate, 60 percent of respondents cited improving K-12 education as one of their choices — the largest percentage of any of the survey options, which included limiting frivolous lawsuits and lowering certain business taxes and fees.
California needs to regain the more than 1 million jobs lost during this recession. But listening to some politicians, you might think that just lowering taxes and reducing regulation would bring jobs pouring back. Valley executives recognize that the reality is far more complex.
A majority in the survey, 53 percent, did place high importance on the state's research and development tax credit; 48 percent cited business taxes as a challenge. But only about a third said streamlining regulations was crucial. Many placed quality-of-life issues
— housing, traffic, schools — high on their list of priorities for government.
Good schools are needed to recruit the best employees, who can work anywhere in the world and often balk at the area's combination of high home costs and weak schools. Longer term, the K-12 system is central to developing a