(Damnit, lost draft #1 of this)

So this morning I went to the bi-weekly Legislative breakfast at the Capital Area Michigan Works! in Lansing.  This is an event where “businesses, educators, economic developers and community leaders” discuss various topics.  This weeks topic was “Attracting and Retaining Talent.”  From what I understood, there was supposed to be discussion about how the Lansing area can better keep graduates around and draw in talent from elsewhere.

It turned out much much worse than that.  The first thirty minutes consisted of the 5-6 legislators introducing themselves and usually going on about something or other they’re working on that doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic at hand (some lady started talking about water conservation, wtf!?).  Being that they were all basically politicing and trying to show off how they aren’t useless, a good HALF of the whole meeting was wasted with no real value.  The remaining half hour was taking up by three (3!) questions, one of which was asked with 5 min remaining.  One question about promoting local internships, one asking for businesses to come to MSU and help them develop more connections to place people, and the 3rd about developing biotech and green indutries.  These mediocre questions were met with more posturing about what the legislators were working on currently.  Oh boy!

From the introductions and responses to questions, I gathered that most of the legislators thought that the answer lies in education.  If we can only improve our education system we’ll have more talent to attract more businesses.  WRONG.  That just means we’re generating more talent to ship elsewhere in the country.  I went to school with quite a lot of talented kids, most of which headed out of state because there really aren’t any tech jobs here.

Two of the legislators seemed to be especially off target on the education thing.  They were working to make it so that Algebra II was no longer a requirement to graduate high school.  Yes, Algebra II.  Stuff like:

Solve 3x2 + x - 2 = 0 for x.

Not even integrals and derivatives.  Stuff that is at least a bit practical and provides more of a base for skills in the future.

In lieu of Algebra II, they wanted other paths that would appeal to other types of students, ie trade skill training.  Way to think outside the box guys and try to progress Michigan’s economy past the manufacturing infrastructure that is collapsing.  Trade skills are something that most people can learn in their free time as a hobby.  They don’t grant a person skills that might actually be applicable to other areas as well.  Shift towards teaching trade skills will only doom Michigan to remain in the manufacturing rut that has led to to trailing the economic pack of all the other states.

On top of all that, breakfast was only bagels and fruit.  Not even real food.  At least now I get to leave work a bit early though.