Improving College Graduation Rates
At Michigan Future, Inc. we believe that investments in higher education are the single best thing the state can do to grow a high prosperity economy. It is the best asset we have to grow a knowledge-based economy. In the Twentieth Century we built one of the best public higher ed systems on the planet […]
We Have To Change
The question I get most often these days is for my take on the 2010 elections. To be honest I don’t have a clue what is going to happen. But I do have a sense of the nature of the debate. Likely it will be a repeat of the 2006 elections. As you remember that […]
Charters for Adults?
I attended a terrific conference this week – co hosted by CEOs for Cities and United Way for Southeastern Michigan – on reducing poverty. The mission was to identify local actions that can significantly reduce poverty over the next two to four years. In my presentation, unfortunately, I said we don’t know how to do […]
Introducing Michigan Future Schools
Today we officially launch Michigan Future Schools (MFS) as an initiative of Michigan Future, Inc. It builds on the work we have been doing for the past decade or so to figure out how to connect urban high schools students to the economy of the future. Its goal is to create new high schools at […]
Apple Again
After reading my previous post on Apple, John Austin, of the State Board of Education and the Brookings Institution, sent me a terrific study. Its from the Personal Computing Industry Center at the UC Irvine. Its topic is job creation generated by the iPod. It is one of the best articles I have seen on […]
Quality of Place Matters
Good post on quality of place by Rick Haglund at his web site. Its micheconomy.com Worth checking out regularly. Rick always has an interesting take on what’s happening to our state’s economy. In this blog Rick writes about the wife of Johnny Damon wanting him to play in a more cosmopolitan city – like Chicago […]
Questions for 2010
In my last post I recommended that we ask 2010 candidates “what state would Michigan look like if your economic development strategies worked?” The other key question I would ask is “what does Michigan need to look like for your kids (or grand kids) to want to live here?” Nearly all will be or are […]
What State Do We Want to Be Like?
One of the key questions I think we should ask every 2010 candidate is “if your economic development strategy works, what state would Michigan look like?” We need to know what kind of future economy they envision for the state. Turns out to be a hard question to answer for candidates of both parties. The […]
the Myth of Michigan Big Government III
In preparing for a presentation to the Michigan Society of Association Executives I took a look at what has happened to state taxes and spending this decade. Boy is convention wisdom wrong! To listen to the chatter from Lansing, despite an economic collapse, state government continues unrestrained taxing and spending. Many make the case if […]
Bissell, Part II
Nancy Crawley quotes Upjohn Institute economist George Erickcek in her column on Bissell. George, who is one of the best thinkers I know on economic development policy, says in the column “I for one am not willing, without a stronger fight, to say production simply can’t be here…. To say simply we give up, we’ll […]