Educational gap poses a threat to U.S. future

"Thirty years from now, what do we want our grandchildren to say we did to improve education for them and their children?"

That is the question our elected leaders might want to ask themselves as they deliberate the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation.

Will it be that they stood up to the feds and fought the good battle that helped renew America's educational system so it could successfully compete in their ever-changing world?

Globalization has leveled the economic playing field. All nations and individuals have access to information, the ability to communicate and are able to compete on an equal basis. Our nation's challenge is to develop knowledgeable individuals by giving them the skills necessary to succeed in today's world where everyone is connected — and wireless at that.

The United States is losing ground while other nations are making rapid progress in the world marketplace. States spend more time in making minor repairs to an outdated system and having to fight the federal government's "one size fits all" regulations that focus on accountability followed with threats for non-compliance.

Thomas Friedman, quoting Shirley Ann Jackson, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, says, "We are in a quiet crisis, one that is eating away at America's scientific base . . . this could challenge our pre-eminence and capacity to innovate."

Friedman goes on to say, "The quiet crisis is the product of three gaps now plaguing American society": the "ambition gap" where Americans have gotten lazy and have a sense of entitlement; the "numbers gap" in that we are not producing enough engineers and scientists; and the "educational gap."

Friedman says, "No CEO wants to tell you . . . they are not just outsourcing to save on salary because they can often get better-skilled and more productive people than their American workers."

President Bush, in his rush to renew the nation's education system, ignored his own party's principles and tried to impose a system on states calling for more accountability and "highly qualified" teacher standards based on content but ignoring teaching skills. It failed to build upon his father's legacy that called for national education goals that included basic skills the business community was asking schools to develop — the ability to problem solve and to work in organizations.