Learning from the Past: The Economy and School Reform Then and Now*
There is hardly any work we can do or any expenditures we can make that will yield so large a return to our industries as would come from the establishment of educational institutions which would give us skilled hands and trained minds for the conduct of our industries and our commerce.
Theodore Search, President of the National Association of Manufacturers, 1898 (quoted here, p. 29)
No issue will have a bigger impact on the future performance of our economy than education. In the long run it’s going to … determine whether businesses stay here. It will determine whether businesses are created here, whether businesses are hiring here. And it will determine whether there’s going to be an abundance of good middle-class jobs in America….The countries who out-educate us today will out-compete us tomorrow. That’s a simple fact. And if we want America to continue to be number one and stay number one, we’ve got some work to do.
President Barack Obama, speech to National Governors Association, 2012