By John Koenig – Improvement is always good, so I was pleased to learn that Florida’s middle-and high-school students posted their highest-ever scores on the FCAT reading test this year. Yet, I was also be appalled by how low those record high scores are. As the saying goes, reading is fundamental.

By John Koenig – Our economic development strategy should focus more on delivering a high quality workforce and less on low costs. Keeping Florida’s taxes low is certainly attractive to some businesses. But to businesses that need a well-educated, highly skilled workforce to compete in the global economy, what does it say that Florida ranks last among states in per capita spending on K-12 education?

By John Koenig – We haven’t had even a single hurricane so far this year.  Nevertheless, between the blows to our economy and the blowout of BP Deepwater Horizon, it already feels like we’ve had more than we can withstand.  So any hurricane at this point would come at us like the terrible perfect storm.

By Rebecca Eagan — Overdevelopment is ruining Florida’s quality of life and damaging her unique natural areas. It has occurred too quickly. Speculation fueled the housing bubble, raised our taxes, cost us precious public funds propping up ghost metropolises in the sticks, and then crashed to earth. This November we can put Florida on a brighter path with Hometown Democracy.

Whenever Florida’s economy is in a slump, the state’s community colleges see an almost instant jump in enrollment. Going back to school is good for Floridians, and good for Florida. The Catch 22: With a sagging economy comes declining revenue to the state, which means less money is available to fund those community colleges with soaring enrollment.

As more doctors close offices, trading private practices for corporate medicine, their office nurses and support staff are thrown into the unemployment line.

The Sunshine State Survey confirms what we might all have suspected – that the economy is, indeed, the chief worry of Floridians these days.

By John KennedyAssociate Editor
Even in a state numbingly familiar with job loss, Florida’s Space Coast is about to stand out. By October, 9,000 aerospace jobs are expected to have disappeared at Kennedy Space Center, as NASA’s space shuttle program grinds to a halt with an uncertain commercial space industry the only real prospect for [...]

By Chester J. Straub Jr.
Fifty years ago, a culture of innovation gave birth to the U.S. space program. Challenged by the desire to explore and the need to compete globally, the United States set out to conquer space and, along the way, launched a technological boom on a scale never seen before.
Today’s climate is [...]

By Tom ZuccoAssociate Editor
Politicians of all stripes, government officials, and educators – nearly everyone agrees that getting college degrees in the hands of more Floridians is a key way to help jump-start the state’s economy. Better-educated people land better jobs and create a better overall business climate. Especially if you produce more science, math and [...]

By Frank T. Brogan
Here’s some good news: Florida’s economy is showing some new life. And here’s a challenge: Do we want to go back to business as usual, or are we prepared to build something new?
I think we can take steps, now, to make this recovery a turning point – a redesign of Florida into [...]

By Tom Zucco
Associate Editor
Economic development in Florida usually comes in two forms: trying to lure large, existing companies to the state, or helping homegrown startup companies get off the ground.
Now consider this: Florida’s unemployment rate was 11.9 percent in January, up from 11.7 percent in December. That ties a record set 35 years ago. [...]

By Tom ZuccoAssociate Editor
If there were one industry that would seem immune to an economic downtown, you’d think it would be the funeral business.
The perfect intersection of supply and demand.
But there’s trouble in this economic paradise, too. These are challenging times even for something as necessary as the funeral industry, and Florida’s 2,500 licensed funeral [...]

By John Koenig
Editor & Publisher
‘You know what Florida’s unemployed should do? They should hire some lobbyists,” I blurted out during a FloridaThinks staff meeting the other day.
My comment was met by silence. But I could hear my colleagues thinking: “Koenig is nuts. Maybe the pressure has finally gotten to him.”
We’d [...]

By Tom ZuccoAssociate Editor
They’re like a couple who dated forever and are finally talking about tying the knot.
Florida has been carrying on a relationship with gambling for more than a century. It began when railroad tycoon Henry Flagler opened a couple of illegal casinos along the state’s east coast in the 1880s, and exploded statewide [...]