By Richard Strutz
For the Journal

Education is everyone's business. Whether you operate a supermarket chain or corner coffee stand, a shopping mall or a shoe repair shop, the success of your company depends in large part on the quality of our schools.

Companies large and small rely on education to produce future employees who can read and prepare reports, speak languages to serve an increasingly diverse customer base, and perform the complex math and science functions needed in a high-tech economy.

Here's another reason good schools are important: Students are your future customers -- tomorrow's "knowledge workers" who need to learn the skills to earn the high wages that will enable them to buy your company's products and services.

Without a skilled work force, our communities, our customers and our companies suffer. Yet despite this need, it seems as if every day we read of additional teacher layoffs, larger class sizes, inadequate funding for books and supplies, shortened school years and cutbacks -- and, in some cases, elimination -- of after-school music, sports and arts programs. In Alaska, public participation by the business sector is vital if our schools are to receive the support they need.