The Business Stake in K–12 Education

Alberta’s businesses find staff from among provincial school graduates, yet they seem strangely indifferent to the province’s educational system.As I travel across Alberta, business leaders frequently tell me about the challenges they experience in finding qualified workers. I believe that the root of this crisis is an educational one, and that business leaders therefore have a crucial stake in K–12 education. Business leaders need to be much more informed about the well-being of K–12 schooling in the province and advocate more strongly for educational choice, so that all school sectors produce the graduates with the basic skills and attributes of character that all businesses rely on—and that thriving economies require.