When the IRS comes calling, most people are worried. Switch two letters to ISR and the tone switches from potential tax troubles to economic opportunity.

Although health care reform still dominates the discussion in Washington, those engaged in the military are preparing for a 30,000-troop expansion in Afghanistan. And they will need ISRs — intellligence, surveillance and reconnaissance products. Those are vehicles, manned and unmanned, and the accessories that go with them that can be deployed quickly.

In fact, Army General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, told a Senate committee, "There’s almost no amount of ISR, in my view, that would not be value added to my effort in Afghanistan."

Indiana has a growing defense industry, with state officials recently compiling more expansive information on the key players and their assets. Will the state benefit directly from this opportunity? I’m not sure our capabilities are at that level, but maybe I’m off base. I do know of some Hoosier companies that have been big beneficiaries of military contracts in other areas. Can anyone provide more insight?

Let’s leave the "should we be there or not?" thoughts out of this discussion. We are, products are needed to support our troops, our state makes things and I don’t think anyone is in a position to turn down development that means more jobs and healthier businesses.

How can I justify putting this post on our blog? Hmm, well it’s sort of education-related … and it’s definitely profit-related.

The Big Ten athletic conference is looking seriously at expanding to 12 teams. The last team to join was Penn State in 1990. Schools reported as top candidates to fill the current void include Rutgers, Syracuse, Missouri, Cincinnati and Louisville.

Brian Kelly’s boys in South Bend remain doubtful. The Chicago Tribune explains the rationale behind expansion:

Jim Delany never will be a contestant on "Top Chef," but the Big Ten commissioner frequently has used a cooking analogy when asked about the prospects of Big Ten expansion.

"A back-burner issue," he has called it.

Not anymore. According to a league official, the Big Ten will release a statement Tuesday saying the matter has moved to the front burner.

The first sign of change came from former Wisconsin coach Barry Alvarez, who told Wisconsin’s athletic board on Friday that Delany "is going to take this year to really be more aggressive about it. I just think everybody feels [expansion] is the direction to go, coaches and administrators."

A league source on Monday cited a "growing groundswell" of support among athletic directors for expansion.

In 1990, the Big Ten became the Bigger 11 by adding Penn State. (The Nittany Lions had to wait until 1993 to vie for their first Rose Bowl.) In 1999, Notre Dame stiff-armed the league’s overtures, and that put the issue on ice.

Why is it being revisited now?

The biggest reason, as always, is the stuff that doesn’t grow on trees: money. If the league expands to 12 teams and two divisions — like the SEC, Big 12 and ACC — it would create a Big Ten title game that could be worth $5 million or more to the league. The Big Ten Network would love to televise it, and the conference has a 51 percent ownership stake in the network.

Personally, I must admit that I love the Big Ten Conference. So much so that even though I’m an Indiana man, I even root for Purdue against "outsiders." And I think the conference embodies the characteristics of many Midwesterners like myself — the competitiveness, the penchant for good sportsmanship, and the plight of being terrible at football.

So I have mixed feelings about this move (should it happen). The money would be nice, but I think mega conferences like the Big East can get so convoluted they lose their identity, so expansion should be treaded lightly. Your thoughts?

Martin Feldstein – one of the most respected economists of our time – spoke a cautionary message at the Economic Club of Indiana luncheon in Indianapolis Tuesday.

“Reports of the economic recovery have been greatly exaggerated,” Feldstein said.

As a long-time Harvard professor of economics, Feldstein has educated many of today’s economic leaders. He has also served in top advisory roles for three of the past five U.S. Presidents. While acknowledging the consensus among professional forecasters that we are in an economic recovery, Feldstein remains skeptical about the sustainability of current growth.

“Many of the recent positive (economic) numbers are from temporary policy changes such as the stimulus package and first time home buyer tax credit,” Feldstein explains.

Feldstein supports the idea of using fiscal policy to end the recession but feels the Obama administration’s programs were poorly designed and ultimately failed. His long range concerns are based on the housing market – in which one-third of homebuyers owe more money on their loan than the home is currently worth – and the growth in national debt. 

In total, Feldstein feels that the economic outlook is a mixed picture – with the decrease in value of the dollar versus other world currencies making American goods more affordable and reducing trade deficits. He believes the prospects for a recovery are based largely on the household savings rate in 2010. An increased savings rate – while typically seen as beneficial for individual families – would delay the overall economic recovery by slowing consumption. The current national savings rate of 4-5% is double what it was immediately prior to the recession.

Chamber officials are traveling the state today (and tomorrow) recognizing the schools that warranted our "Best Buy" label this year. See below for a description of the award and this year’s honorees (and view the full report here):

For 2009, 135 public high schools were designated as a "best buy" for giving taxpayers the most value for their money.  Two methods determined this honor. A school was named a best buy if it had a quality index above the state median and revenues below the statewide median of $10,179 per student. The second method was by having a quality index ranking that was 20% higher than the school’s revenue ranking.

In addition, from the best buy group, 26 high schools were given the "honor roll" distinction for excelling academically despite having at-risk student demographics above the statewide median. For their exemplary efforts, the top five schools from the best buy and honor roll lists were then selected as "head of the class" members.

The 2009 "head of the class" selections are:

- Adams Central High School in Monroe (Adams County);
- Forest Park Jr.-Sr. High School in Ferdinand (Dubois County);
- North Central High School in Indianapolis (Marion County);
- Northwestern High School in Kokomo (Howard County);
- Plainfield High School (Hendricks County);
- Plymouth High School (Marshall County);
- Signature School in Evansville (Vanderburgh County).
- South Adams Jr.-Sr. High School in Berne (Adams County);
- Triton Jr.-Sr. High School in Bourbon (Marshall County); and
- Warsaw Community High School (Kosciusko County).

What factor ranks at or near the top of the list for successful organizations? Our members tell us it’s a well-trained, qualified workforce.

The Indiana Chamber has provided information and instruction for years through its employee training seminars and regulatory compliance publications. Our Ready Indiana program (in the last three years) has helped make the connections between employer training needs and the available providers and funding resources.

Now, a new and powerful tool – the Indiana Chamber’s E-Learning Services – is available to assist Indiana companies and their employees. This nationally successful program comes to Indiana with courses focused on improving basic business skills (writing, math, communication and common computer applications) as well as more advanced topics like project management, human resources, accounting, compliance and top technical certifications.

Check out the informational page for course listings, pricing, scholarship details and more.

For more information, call Lisa at (800) 824-6885. Let’s work together to improve Indiana’s workforce.

In the season of giving, Purdue University Calumet is the grateful recipient of the largest monetary gift it has ever received.

The Dean & Barbara White Family Foundation and the Bruce & Beth White Family Foundation announced a $5 million contribution to benefit the university’s hospitality and tourism management program. The gift will be used to enhance the undergraduate efforts and will be renamed the Purdue University Calumet White Lodging Center for Hospitality and Tourism Management program.

Indiana Chamber member White Lodging Services is “one of the fastest-growing, fully-integrated independent hotel ownership, development and management companies in the country,” according to the company’s web site. Based in Merrillville, White Lodging’s current projects include the JW Marriott Indianapolis among other hotels in Indiana and across the nation.

The gift will fund renovation and conversion of the university’s conference center into a nearly 13,000-square-foot instructional facility. It will also support a scholarship fund for high-performing students and create a hospitality and tourism management honors program. The rest of the funding will establish two endowed professorships within the program.

“We have been fortunate to employ many Purdue Calumet students and graduates and have found them to be well prepared, ambitious and steady contributors to our company’s growth and success,” White Lodging Services Chairman and CEO Bruce White said in the press release. “We hope to build and grow on that relationship by providing these expanded facilities and even greater faculty support.”

The renovated educational facilities will include a teaching kitchen, beverage service laboratory, working restaurant, computer labs and faculty offices, the release notes. Planning for the new center will begin in early 2010 with construction and renovations to start in the summer. The center is expected to be completed for the 2011-2012 school year. Read the full press release online.

Fast Company magazine recently addressed the topic of for-profit, or "market driven," colleges. In the piece they reveal the journey of Michael Clifford, chair of Significant Federation, a private equity firm and principal investor in six higher-education companies, and the challenges and stigmas associated with these types of programs:

Today, for-profit colleges enroll 9% of all students, many of them in online programs. It’s safe to assume they’ll soon have many more. President Obama has called for America to have the world’s highest percentage of college graduates by 2020, and for-profits are the only sector significantly expanding enrollment — up 17% since the start of the recession in 2008. Emerging from its scandal-plagued "diploma mill" rep (see "Not Quite Ready for the Honor Roll," page 54), the industry consolidated in the past decade under a handful of publicly traded names, including Kaplan (part of The Washington Post Co.), DeVry, and the University of Phoenix, which with 420,000 students is the largest university in North America. These companies, which depend on tuition revenues backed by federal student grants and loans, have been strong performers for stockholders.

Clifford likes to take over the accreditation of a struggling bricks-and-mortar institution, sometimes just days before it runs out of cash. "We’re a SWAT team," he says. "We love fixing schools." Full-time professors with PhDs and seasoned administrators run the home campus as a "learning lab," developing and testing curricula and texts for the much larger online programs. As a bonus, the brand maintains all the trappings of a traditional university — sports, dance line, pep band, community service, and in Grand Canyon’s case, a Christian mission. Clifford, whose personal charitable efforts include a soup kitchen and housing for 600 ex-gang members in L.A., says that Grand Canyon online students who have never set foot on the Phoenix campus log on to the Web site and check the status of the basketball team, or watch the live stream of Sunday chapel.

While private colleges have taken huge hits to their endowments, and public universities weather historic cutbacks, for-profits like Clifford’s keep costs down with innovative use of technology, publish metrics like job placements, and are open to any high-school graduate. They target under-served markets like first-generation students and working adults with convenience and a customer-service ethic. Tuition and fees, which tend to be higher than public institutions’ for on-campus programs, are comparable for online — $687.50 per credit for undergrads on campus at Grand Canyon and $415 for online, for example, compared to $476 for the public University of Arizona.

But questions about quality linger. Despite the traditional campus trappings, Clifford’s schools tend to have a vocational focus, such as health-care administration (L.A. College); only Grand Canyon and Crichton College have any liberal-arts programs.

Since there are no generally accepted measurements of learning in traditional higher education, the proxy for the value of a diploma on the job market is prestige. Rankings like those of U.S. News & World Report depend on reputation; spending per student, including spending on research; and selectivity — a measure of inputs, not outputs. On all these measures, for-profits come up short.

So what do you think? A new, unique opportunity? Or a dreg upon the education sector?