Ask virtually anyone in the business community what Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration must do to repair our state’s broken economy, and over and again the answer is the same: improve education.

More than 40 years ago, Brice Harris entered education leadership and vowed never to use money — or lack thereof — as an excuse for the performance of the higher-learning institutions he served. However, he now insists the California Community Colleges System cannot adequately serve the student population without more state funding.

Sacramento State President Alexander Gonzalez’s tenure has been one of the most tumultuous in the university’s history.

The shade of the warehouse does little to quell the triple-digit heat. Still, Thomas Nesbit, 21, and Jared Smedly, 22, volunteer their afternoon to construct a picnic table from scratch.

In an economy where company officials are making hard financial decisions, spending thousands of dollars on training might seem like an unnecessary expense.

California will need close to a million new medical assistants, lab techs, respiratory therapists and other skilled health workers in the next 20 years in addition to new doctors and nurses, a recent study estimates. But the state doesn’t have enough educational capacity to train them all.

With California’s unemployment statistics among the worst in the nation, there’s no hotter topic right now than jobs: how to keep, expand and create them. Increasingly, policymakers are focused on so-called “middle-skill jobs.”

Mayor Kevin Johnson cited a statistic in his January state of the city speech that surprised, even shocked, me: In only one of Sacramento’s 19 zip codes are 70 percent or more of third-graders reading at grade level.

Financial donations to the 83-year-old Stockton Symphony are down sharply, yet shows are selling out.

Ira Heinzen knew he wanted to attend college but didn’t know how he would pay for it. Since his childhood, Heinzen was encouraged in education. Always a strong student, the Stockton native was focused in school and active in sports, music and the community.