Time to change US education system

One of America8217;s most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech to a summit meeting of our nation8217;s governors. Bil...

One of America8217;s most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech to a summit meeting of our nation8217;s governors. Bill Gates minced no words. 8216;8216;American high schools are obsolete,8217;8217; he told the governors. 8216;8216;By obsolete, I don8217;t just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. By obsolete, I mean that our high schools 8212; even when they are working exactly as designed 8212; cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

8216;8216;Training the work force of tomorrow with the high school students of today is like trying to teach kids about today8217;s computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting 8212; even ruining 8212; the lives of millions of Americans every year.8217;8217;

Let me translate Gates8217; words: 8216;8216;If we don8217;t fix American education, I will not be able to hire your kids.8217;8217; I consider that, well, kind of important. Alas, the media squeezed a few mentions of it between breaks in the Michael Jackson trial. But neither Tom DeLay nor Bill Frist called a late-night session of Congress 8212; or even a daytime one 8212; to discuss what Gates was saying. They were too busy pandering to those Americans who don8217;t even believe in evolution.

And the president stayed fixated on privatizing Social Security. It8217;s no wonder that the second Bush term is shaping up as 8216;8216;The Great Waste of Time.8217;8217; On foreign policy President Bush has offered a big idea: the expansion of freedom, particularly in the Arab-Muslim world, where its absence was one of the forces propelling 9/11. That is a big, bold and compelling idea 8212; worthy of a presidency and America8217;s long-term interests.

But on the home front, this team has no big idea 8212; certainly none that relates to the biggest challenge and opportunity facing us today: the flattening of the global economic playing field in a way that is allowing more people from more places to compete and collaborate with your kids and mine than ever before.

8216;8216;For the first time in our history, we are going to face competition from low-wage, high-human-capital communities, embedded within India, China and Asia,8217;8217; President Lawrence Summers of Harvard told me. In order to thrive, 8216;8216;it will not be enough for us to just leave no child behind. We also have to make sure that many more young Americans can get as far ahead as their potential will take them. How we meet this challenge is what will define our nation8217;s political economy for the next several decades.8217;8217;

Indeed, we can8217;t rely on importing the talent we need anymore 8212; not in a flat world where people can now innovate without having to emigrate. In Silicon Valley today, 8216;8216;B to B8217;8217; and 8216;8216;B to C8217;8217; stand for 8216;8216;back to Bangalore8217;8217; and 8216;8216;back to China,8217;8217; which is where a lot of our foreign talent is moving.

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Meeting this challenge requires a set of big ideas. If you want to grasp some of what is required, check out a smart new book by the strategists John Hagel 3rd and John Seely Brown entitled 8216;8216;The Only Sustainable Edge.8217;8217; They argue that comparative advantage today is moving faster than ever from structural factors, like natural resources, to how quickly a country builds its distinctive talents for innovation and entrepreneurship 8212; the only sustainable edge.

Economics is not like war. It can always be win-win. 8216;8216;But some win more than others,8217;8217; Hagel said, and today it will be those countries that are best and fastest at building, attracting and holding talent.

There is a real sense of urgency in India and China about 8216;8216;catching up8217;8217; in talent-building. America, by contrast, has become rather complacent. 8216;8216;People go to Shanghai or Bangalore and they look around and say, 8216;They8217;re still way behind us8217;,8217;8217; Hagel said. 8216;8216;But it8217;s not just about current capabilities. It8217;s about the relative pace and trajectories of capability-building. 8216;8216;You have to look at where Shanghai was just three years ago, see where it is today and then extrapolate forward. Compare the pace and trajectory of talent-building within their population and businesses and the pace and trajectory here.8217;8217;

India and China know they can8217;t just depend on low wages, so they are racing us to the top, not the bottom. Producing a comprehensive US response 8212; encompassing immigration, intellectual property law and educational policy 8212; to focus on developing our talent in a flat world is a big idea worthy of a presidency. But it would also require Bush to do something he has never done: ask Americans to do something hard. 8212; NYT