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Section 5: Education
The fifth section of the questionnaire asks respondents their opinions about education both in general and in terms of its ability to serve the needs of the business community.
The first question of this section asks about the strength of educational programs that train people to work in specific industries, most of them associated with the state economic development initiatives. Results for this question appear in Figure 14.
Ratings for all eight educational program areas are statistically equivalent to the ratings from 2007, indicating that perceptions of these programs remain stable. Once again, "agriculture" and "information technology" are perceived to be moderately strong, while "film" is perceived to be moderately weak. Mean ratings for all other programs are just above the scale midpoint of "4," indicating slightly positive perceptions of these programs.
Respondents from central Indiana rate several of the programs higher than do their non-central Indiana counterparts: "information technology," "motor sports," "insurance," and "distribution/transportation/logistics."
It is important to consider that large minorities of respondents indicate they are unsure about how to rate specific programs. A low of 10.6% indicate they are unsure about the rating for "information technology," while nearly half (45.4%) say they are unsure about how to rate the strength of "film" educational programs. In short, the results presented reflect the averages of those who expressed an opinion, not the ratings of the entire sample.
The next question asks respondents to rate the various levels of Indiana’s educational system on a scale from "very weak" to "very strong." Responses appear in Figure 15.
All ratings are consistent with last year’s ratings, and there is once again wide variance in the average ratings of Indiana’s different educational levels. Undergraduate and graduate education, both public and private, is perceived to be very strong. Public elementary and secondary education is perceived to be weak. Private primary and secondary education, as well as trade and technical education, is rated near the middle of the scale. Unlike the previous question, very few respondents are "unsure" about their ratings for any educational level. In addition, these ratings appear to be consistent based on organization size, revenue, location, executive education level, and gender; therefore, we can conclude the perceptions are widespread and not traceable to any particular group of respondents.
When asked to rate the "education system overall," it appears that respondents were most heavily influenced by their perceptions of public primary and secondary education. This may be due to the large amount of publicity this level of education has received over the past several years as ISTEP, No Child Left Behind, and other initiatives have been implemented. Most coverage in mass media has focused on performance problems of city school systems, and such coverage may be driving these perceptions. However, once again, there are no statistically significant differences between those from central Indiana versus those outside central Indiana for any of the levels tested.
Next, respondents were asked to rate how well these same educational levels have adapted to a changing business climate in recent years. See Figure 16 for mean responses.
Perceptions of adaptation are statistically equivalent to the 2007 perceptions indicating stability over time. Also, it is clear that ratings of adaptability mirror the relative ratings of educational strength presented in the previous figure, with colleges and universities being perceived as adapting well and public primary and secondary education being perceived as not adapting well. All adaptability ratings are slightly lower than are strength ratings indicating perhaps that our respondents believe all levels of education could improve the degree to which they adapt to the changing business climate.
Because educational issues were rated as "critical" to Indiana’s future economic development and were perceived as a "big disadvantage" for the state relative to surrounding states in last year’s survey, the 2008 survey included additional questions on this topic (Questions 19–23).
First, respondents were asked: "What do you and your business have to offer to schools that would possibly help yield the results you seek from K-12 schools?" Nearly half (47.6%) responded with at least one suggestion. As might be expected, there were a wide variety of responses offered. The two most common responses were offers of internships and mentoring programs.
Next, we attempted to get some idea of the degree to which these business leaders were personally involved in the education system. Over half (57.1%) were engaged as a volunteer in either public or private schools, or had some other specific form of involvement (other than simply being the parent of a student attending school). Level of engagement does not appear to be related to region, gender or level of education of the respondent. There does, however, appear to be some relationship to age, with those 50 and younger, or 70 and older, being more engaged with K-12 schools.
These two questions seem to indicate that the business community is both professionally and personally active in improving Indiana’s schools, though it appears that these efforts might not be coordinated as well as they could be. We plan to continue evaluating the data associated with this issue.
