Oregon’s bottom line: education. Business – Leaders at the economic summit say improving schools is crucial for the state to prosper.

The governor preached it. Business leaders repeated it. U.S. senators, leaders of the Legislature, and the god of competitive strategy, Harvard Business School Professor Michael Porter, were singing the same tune:

When it comes to the economy, it’s about education, stupid.

That is, the solution to Oregon’s most pressing economic problems — from declines in real income to the moving of manufacturing jobs offshore as well as the state’s chronic budget shortfalls — lies in improving the quality of public education, according to business and elected leaders who gathered Monday at the Oregon Convention Center for the fourth annual leadership summit on the state’s economy.

TED SICKINGER and BETSY HAMMOND

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