Herman School of Business
Are we falling behind...or are they just passing us?
The rhetoric today is that America is being surpassed by everyone from Brazil to China and some places in between. Our health care lags far behind many countries, imports far exceed exports, and today I learned that our High School students rank 15th in the world. 15th. As in 14 are doing better at educating their children than we are.
Would you want to eat the 15th best meal prepared by a Chef. Or drive the 15th safest car. Maybe you would enjoy the 15th best vacation spot without ever thinking about the 14 better places you could have gone. Suppose your home team in Football or Baseball finished the season with the 15th best record. The crying would be endless.
History repeats itself. While Nero fiddled, Rome burned.
I bet we lead the world in McMansions. Huge cars for sure. We have to be near number one in being overweight. Surely we consume the most energy. I bet if I came out with one of those big foam fingers that said, “We’re Number 15” they wouldn’t sell.
15h in Education tells you something about the future. It means that fourteen countries may actually do better than we do in many categories. What is the point of being Number One in opportunities unless we have the educated young people to take advantage of those opportunities? The good news is that with such lax borders those opportunities will be filled by the educated young people from other countries who don’t have those same opportunities back home. We do import a lot of educated young people, and if that costs your video game playing son or nephew his high paying job perhaps we should consider making little Johnny put down the game-boy and pick up a book.
YOU control the future of this country. And so do I. The challenge is really simple when you consider it. Since we will probably keep our hold on being Number One in opportunities, why don’t we just stop playing games with our education system and actually educate the students. This is my Public Proclamation that I intend to do something over the next twelve months to help change the education of our young people. One way I will do this is by continuing to go to colleges and speak to students…for no fee…and I will pay my own expenses. A commitment to education, from someone who wants the USA to move up a few notches in the education rankings worldwide.
What are you doing about it? Or is being 15th good enough for you?
- Posted: 29 May 2008
- Comments: 0
- Category: Running a business
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