Would you like a McJob with that?

A strange confluence of news streams caught my eye this week.

First was word that Iowa City School officials may have to lay off 22 teachers if state legislators don't bump their per-pupil spending - just one district among many facing classroom cuts.

Then there was the national news that even as more states are cracking down on for-profit colleges, federal Republican lawmakers say they just might boycott Sen. Tom Harkin's hearings on abuses in the industry.

With those stories in mind, I then read that Iowa Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds would attend McDonald's National Hiring Day news conference in Des Moines on Tuesday.

The company - which has been trying to replace our idea of the “McJob” with a rosier image of a fast-food future - hopes to hire up to 50,000 people, from hamburger slingers to pencil pushers.

But life on the grill is life on the grill, no matter how much spin doctoring you apply. Call yourself a cashier or a barista, but at the end of the day, you're walking on those same achy feet to cash the same measly paycheck.

Great PR can't change the facts any more than glossy brochures and basic cable ads can train you for a career in law enforcement or hotel management. That takes substance.

But the Washington Times reports that Republican members of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee are threatening to abandon investigation of the for-profit college industry. They don't like committee chairman Harkin's tone.

Forget that the U.S. Government Accountability Office has found industrywide deception about graduation rates and job placement. Forget concerns about public funds funneled into questionable for-profit coffers.

Never mind that lawmakers in more than a dozen states have targeted for-profit colleges this year, and attorneys general in still others (including Iowa) are looking into possible consumer protection issues - these lawmakers say Harkin is scapegoating the schools.

Which brings us to teachers, or the lack of the same. Because here at home, state legislators continue to argue about whether to let schools spend the money they'll need to make payroll.

Costs are increasing, but if allowable growth doesn't - even I can do that math.

We can talk all we want about education, but without the resources and effective oversight, we're left with just talk. Meanwhile, business leaders plead for young workers who have the science and math skills to fill the real jobs of the future.

At least McDonald's is hiring.

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