Kalamazoo economist Tim Bartik has some answers for Michigan’s economy…
MORE BUSINESS INCENTIVES: Michigan spends $500 million per year now, but another $100 million could result in a half-billion in additional income for the state. (This idea may run counter to the latest thinking of some statewide business advocates).
UNIVERSAL PRE-SCHOOL FOR 4-YEAR OLDS: If we could expand pre-school to 70 percent of four-year olds, the economic benefits would total more than $800 million. (Is the Michigan Senate listening? The Senate proposed zeroing out early childhood programs in this fall’s budget quagmire.)
CAREER ACADEMIES IN MICHIGAN HIGH SCHOOLS: Many job openings in the next decade will require post-high-school training but not bachelor’s degrees. Reaching students not bound for college, and directing them to these professions, could cost $63 million, but would provide additional earnings of nearly $700 million.
SUMMER SCHOOLS FOR LAGGING ELEMENTARY STUDENTS: Catching slower students earlier could cost $50 million but provide additional earnings of $400 million.
Read Bartik’s full recent PowerPoint presentation to the University of Michigan’s Research Seminar on Quantitative Economics. Or, click here to see tech journalist Matt Roush’s summary of Bartik’s presentation.
6 Comments
About schools:
Career Academies – this will require that the Senate pass SB 0698 and 0757, the alternative pathways to secondary graduation, which has already passed in the House. The current Michigan Merit Curriculum requires Algebra II for graduation since the current “political” goal for education is college for everyone.
Universal pre-school. We do not have it and that is one of the reasons (just one of many) our educational system is less effective than in other developed nations. To support this the proponents may wish to include the “$100.00″ Laptop program (See Negroponte at MIT or the video at http://www.ted.com) and provide a laptop for every child enrolled. For the naysayers, please google the “Hole in the Wall” experiment in India.
Elimination of the MBT and replacing with broader sales tax and an increased in the state income tax would be a step in the right direction. Becoming a right to work state would have lots of positive marketing advantages.
I’m sorry to be a nay sayer, but until we get the regular school system to be successful, I don’t see how adding more programs is going to resolve our education issues. Government told us that they could standardize the curriculums and acheive better results. Has that happened yet? The programs your talking about putting in place for technical non degree education used to be called and “apprenticeship” and the cost was born by business’s that knew what education their people needed. Another “Great Society” type program will only result in more money for teachers unions I’m afraid, The best solution is just for government to get out of the education business and put it on private enterprise.
Quote “The best solution is just for government to get out of the education business and put it on private enterprise.”
Where the private enterprise will apply for Federal and State grants to pay people to do what we should be expecting our present education system to provide. If we take away all of the incentives from taxes, that go to schools, you will have to be rich to afford a college education as tuition naturally has to be raised to meet the expenses. If we want a bright future we have to invest in bright kids.
Bartik is the same guy who said, in the midst of the 06 shutdown, the state would have a lower deficit if it spent more. Huh? Gotta love that Keynesian multiplier!
Mr. Blackburn-gov’t subsidies and programs are the reason college is so expensive. Those programs reach down further and further into each HS graduating class–obtaining more less-skilled students each year–its requires a lot more money and time to train the less skilled.
Regarding cy’s comment: “Bartik is the same guy who said, in the midst of the 06 shutdown, the state would have a lower deficit if it spent more.”
For the record, I never made any such statement. Nor would I have made such a statement, because I don’t agree with this supposed statement of mine.