SSTI Digest

The New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a bipartisan group of academic, industry and government leaders, is calling for a massive overhaul of the U.S. education system. In its new report, Tough Choices, Tough Times, the panel of business leaders, scholars, education officials, and former governors and cabinet secretaries argue that the country’s current system of K-12 education is outdated and must be restructured to enable American students to thrive in the global economy.

 

While most students once required only a rudimentary education to participate in the workforce, technological changes and globalization now demand skilled workers who have been trained in high-quality schools. The commission maintains that the current U.S. system is ill-suited to meeting these needs at any level of funding. Instead, it proposes a new structure that would begin educating children earlier and increase the number of students that enter the workforce with the necessary skills.

 

State lottery would be leased to private company to finance fund, scholarships

Two initiatives recently proposed by Gov. Mitch Daniels would keep graduating college students in-state and lure world-class researchers to Indiana's public universities. However, a lottery lease plan that would, in part, finance the initiatives may be more the center of attention with Indiana legislators.



The initiatives: (1) a forgivable loan of up to $20,000 for students who attend four-year colleges or universities in Indiana and stay in the state for three years, else repay the loans, and (2) a fund that would create endowments to cover salary and start-up costs to draw the aforementioned researchers and scholars from outside of Indiana.

The Oregon Innovation Council (Oregon InC), which spent a year reviewing how best to expand the state’s economy by leveraging industry-supported initiatives with public investments, may get to see the toils of its labor come to fruition. Gov. Ted Kulongoski released earlier this month his 2007-09 budget, with full support for the innovation plan put out by Oregon InC.



Oregon InC, a private-public statewide advisory council created by the 2005 legislature, had proposed $38.2 million for investment in industry and research initiatives to increase productivity and generate innovative technologies (see the Oct. 2, 2006 issue of the Digest). The governor's budget includes full funding for the council's proposals, including:

A recent report from Hawaii’s Tax Review Commission recommends the state eliminate or drastically overhaul its five-year old tax credit for high-tech investors. According to the report, the current credit provides no clear advantage to the state and appears open to taxpayer abuse. The commission was particularly troubled by the lack of data provided by taxpayers who were approved for the credit and by the lack of transparency concerning the credit within the state’s Department of Taxation.

 

A review undertaken on behalf of the commission was unable to determine the effectiveness of the credit, due to insufficient data on its cost to the state and its impact on state high-tech industries. This lack of transparency led the commission to suggest the Hawaii credit may be a ‘black hole’ for tax revenues, and propose legislative changes that would restructure the credit as a program of grants administered by a state agency.

 

SSTI's most recent publication, A Resource Guide for Technology-based Economic Development, provides valuable insights into three of the most important elements of transforming regional economies:

The Kansas City region is obtaining funding for high-tech research in the life sciences, but entrepreneurship is stifled because of fragmented efforts to improve the innovation environment and the region’s lack of an overall strategy for its various stakeholders. This finding and others were identified in Completing the Puzzle: Creating a High-Tech and Life Sciences Economy in Kansas City, a recent report prepared for the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program. The report offers suggestions on how a “second-tier” region like Kansas City can build upon its existing industrial capacity to emerge as a viable location for knowledge-based industries.

 

In what is often seen as a leading indicator of future total international student enrollment numbers, the percentage of newly enrolled foreign students has increased 8.3 percent between the 2004-05 and 2005-06 school years. This trend and others were highlighted in the annual Open Doors Report published by the Institute of International Education. The attractiveness of the U.S. as a place to attain an education is of great concern to many higher education institutions and public officials because of the contributions international students make to the innovative capacity and economic future of the U.S.

 

The University of Arizona's Office of Economic and Policy Analysis seeks a highly qualified and motivated individual to conduct and advance a nationally recognized applied research program in regional economics. Focus areas include regional economic integration, cross border trade and linkages, economic impact analyses, and evaluation of economic development policies. A full description of this opportunity and others is available through the SSTI Job Corner at http://www.ssti.org/posting.htm.