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If you ask local businesses what’s wrong with our school system, what answer are you likely to get? That the education system just isn’t businessy enough, of course!

That’s the gist of a decidedly unscientific poll conducted by the Review-Journal, which quizzed 70 local business owners about their impressions of the Clark County School District. Less than half said schools were only somewhat effective at preparing students for the workforce, while about half said schools weren’t at all effective. None considered our schools very effective in creating work-ready graduates.

But it’s when these would-be titans of industry sounded off on the source of the problem that things got interesting. Not surprisingly, it’s all the teachers’ fault.

Long after Bush’s No Child Left Behind has proved the intellectual bankruptcy of making teachers accountable without giving them the proper tools, these armchair quarterbacks squawked those oh-so-crusty platitudes about how to fix the system: Threaten teachers’ and administrators’ jobs (politely put, “stricter accountability.”) Threaten school funding (politely put, “make schools compete”). While a few innovative ideas did surface — grouping students by mastery levels versus age — for the most part, the poll was an excuse to throw a teacher-bashing parade.

Of course, these businesses didn’t dare look long enough at the problem to realize they’re just as complicit: Business’s acts of bad faith such as its slavish endorsement of anti-tax Gov. Jim Gibbons and long-standing opposition to a corporate income tax have arguably contributed to the dismal state of our schools — from teacher salaries to class sizes to textbook funds — more than the occasional classroom slacker who’s squeaking by with finger paints and field trips. (Even the Chamber of Commerce is now reconsidering this tack, as it perhaps realizes the businesses it represents need, shockingly enough, workers who can do more than jab buttons on a cash register and ask if you want the Mega Value Meal.)

So that’s the strategy? Lend a hand in starving the schools and then blame the teachers? Business leaders should bear in mind another truism as they bash the education system they’ve helped create: You get what you pay for.