ABSTRACT
BECAUSE OF THE presumption that better schools will attract industry and that more schooling will improve income and employment opportunities, education has become an important economic development strategy. And businesses increasingly give the quality of schools very high priority in making their location decisions, not only because of the need to have high-quality workforces, but also because of the importance of quality schools for their employees or their employees’ children. 1 Americans have always valued schooling as a means of personal advancement, but many state policy makers believe that the age of high technology makes schooling much more essential to economic growth. This presumption does not go unchallenged, however, since some analysts argue that schooling actually has very little to do with economic development, even in the age of high technology. Indeed, some experts contend that high technology actually 212“deskills” most jobs, requiring lower, not higher, levels of education.
