There is an old Welsh proverb that reads: “Bad news goes about in clogs, good news in stockinged feet.”
Within the last month however, news relating to the local business community sounded somewhat different.
For, as the R.I. General Assembly approved a state budget that did not include a dreaded increase in taxes, small-business owners and big-business lobbyists alike celebrated loudly together in victory. Thus, what often has been represented as a discouraging business climate in our state was not worsened. The budget’s success was not an accident.
Over the last few months, regular and steadfast lobbying by the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce and other pro-business organizations – to inform legislators of the deleterious impact of raised business taxes upon the state economy – was able to neutralize efforts from special-interest groups seeking to avoid cuts in subsidies, and unions attempting to preserve the status quo.
As invigorating as the budget victory was, however, it overshadowed the quiet demise of a relatively unknown yet important nonprofit advocacy group: The Education Partnership.
Now headed into receivership, the partnership over the past several years represented a coalition between local businesses and education wonks that worked to improve public education primarily through efforts to redirect limited municipal revenue away from teacher benefits to increasingly target student-centric and performance objectives.
While partnership funding at times came from consulting contracts with local communities, many well-known businesses from around the state supplied much of the working capital through annual membership.
Perhaps it was too much to expect that such noble work could regularly yield fruit and become self-sustaining. So while the names of its business members were prominent, the number of members was comparatively small. Over time, progress seemed slow, and though it remained emblematic of a growing public outcry to both revamp public education spending and improve student performance, sadly and ironically it needed more time and money, which ran out.
The invisible ceiling of business investment and involvement in public education that the partnership bumped up against must be raised if more productive and rational municipal spending formulas and better student performance is to occur.
The statewide business community needs to redouble its efforts to ensure that the partnership’s efforts do not recede into memory. And that may be easier to accomplish than you might think. Barring the formation of another nonprofit, one logical venue for advocacy of these goals would be through a coalition of the chambers of commerce.
The chambers are correct in working and advocating for a healthy business climate with low taxes in order to attract and retain companies to offer good wages to an available work force. This is a short-term objective of the highest priority.
But, equally important, in a long-term view, is the raising of the bar on student performance in public schools, and fostering an environment in which quality public education occurs.
Without the business community continuing to address public education, union-favored philosophies will continue to dominate legislative and municipal spending decisions, ultimately stymieing the growth of a better-educated work force, and over time resulting in business relocation.
The sound of businesses leaving a small state such as Rhode Island would be unmistakable and loud, similar to clogs walking down the street and across the border. •
Dr. Michael A. Battey, a partner in Rhode Island Foot Care Inc., lives in East Greenwich. He publishes a column on parenting and family issues in weekly newspapers.
