CHARLESTON – CNBC’s annual ranking has West Virginia near the bottom again for the best states for business.
The rankings, released last week, has the Mountain State at 47th overall. The state had failing grades in workforce, access to capital and technology/innovation.
The president of the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce said the low score for workforce is particularly troublesome to him.
“That one concerns me because workforce is such a critical ingredient for economic success,” Steve Roberts told The West Virginia Record. “In our state, we must do a better job of educating our young people and getting them ready to work.
“It is quite possible we have more vacant jobs than unemployed workers. Getting more people into the workforce and matched to a job is a top priority.”
Roberts said he doesn’t want to sound negative or assign blame. But, he said he doesn’t think the state has caught up when it comes to getting our workforce ready.
“I’m afraid we’re paying the price for it now,” he said. “Listen, we’re all in this together. So, the question becomes how can we all be part of the solution.
“Education is the remaining piece, and it’s going to take an all-in approach. We have to make this happen. And we have to be led by someone who nobody can say no to.”
Roberts said the process will take some time.
“But, I think we could make enormous progress in three to five years,” he said. “Yes, it will be a process. But it isn’t hopeless. We just have to be open.
“What we’re doing now was all good when we were manufacturing buggy whips. But the market for buggy whips is declining rapidly.”
Roberts said the state, in recent years, has made improvements in other areas in terms of regulations and taxation to attract business.
“I think we’ve done a lot of good things that were absolutely essential and had to be done just to get in position to be competitive,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we are competitive as we want to be, it just means we’re in a better position to be competitive.
“But, the 21st century economy is certainly shaping up to be a knowledge-based economy. Where there are knowledge-based workers, the economy is growing. We based a lot of our hopes on jobs that are not necessarily seen as knowledge-based.
“What we missed, I think, the fact the world very, very quickly turned from creating blue-collar jobs to knowledge-worker jobs. In many respects, I’m afraid, our school system simply hasn’t caught up.”
Roberts said the state has to be competitive in terms of regulations, taxes, available sites, financing and such.
“And we’ve largely fixed a lot of that in recent years,” he said. “But, there’s another piece. Employers go where there are educated and a capable workforce.
“Companies have to go to where they can hire people to do the jobs they need done, and they don’t have confidence they can find those people in West Virginia. We can’t get away with it anymore.”
He said some educational leaders seem to be resistant to any kind of change or even a discussion about possible change. He said the school bureaucracy is “extremely defensive” about the topic.
“We still run into people who think we should have consolidated schools and put kids on school buses for an hour or more each day when they could be learning virtually, learning at home and learning by doing hands-on types of things,” Robert said. “Again, I don’t want to be negative.
“I just don’t think we’ve really caught up with the 21st century when it comes to getting our workforce ready, and I’m afraid we’re paying the price for it.”
He said school leaders want to talk about things that don’t really matter, such as graduation rates.
“We have high graduation rates because we have low requirements,” Roberts said. “But how prepared are these students? Not just for four-year colleges, but for the military or CTE (Career and Technical Education).
“I know for a fact that we have valedictorians who have to take remedial classes when they get to college. That’s unacceptable. And, we score last in the nation in SAT exams.
“We need education improvement, and we need to figure out the best way to get our students in a different place in terms of preparation and ability to compete.”
Roberts said his intent isn’t to get everyone in the school system upset.
“We just need to call a timeout here and reflect on what we’re doing,” he said. “Are we really serving the students and the employers?
“I think we’ve got to get realistic about this. Forget this bologna that our kids are doing great when are kids are scoring so low on these national placement exams.”
He also said current teachers need more help.
“Teachers today are required not only to teach, but sometimes they have to parent, provide food and clothing, discipline and common sense,” Roberts said. “They shouldn’t have to do all of that.”
In addition, Roberts said he is a proponent of charter schools and of an alternative certification process to get more people who are qualified able to teach.
“We have to have alternative means of education,” he said. “We can’t continue this one-size-fits-all monopoly to do everything. The definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect a different result. We have to be more open to looking at different options.
“Also, we have counties where we cannot find certified teachers, yet we have plenty of people who could teach. The checklist is just so long that the ones who are qualified aren’t qualified in that way.”
CNBC’s list rated each state based on 10 categories, including cost of doing business, infrastructure, life, health and inclusion, economy, business friendliness, education, and cost of living. CNBC used data from federal government databases and other sources to determine scores in each category.
West Virginia was 45th in the 2019 ratings. The state’s highest ranking since 2007 has been 44th.
West Virginia’s best categories this year were cost of living and cost of doing business. Virginia, North Carolina, Utah, Texas and Tennessee were the top five states. Other neighboring states’ scores were Ohio at 10th, Maryland at 12th, Pennsylvania at 23rd and Kentucky at 41st.