Getting Down to Business: Enhancing Schools
Getting Down to Business: Enhancing Schools
In the end, it's all about education. We are powerless to stop capital from purchasing labor wherever in the globe. Having workers with the highest levels of education and experience is crucial. According to Patrick Byrne, chairman and CEO of Overstock.com, that is the key to attracting funding and creating jobs.
According to analysts, this happens all the time when certain states attract specific businesses. Take Silicon Valley, a region in California, famous for its innovative technology. Affluence often follows the concentration of jobs in a certain region. When it comes to international trade, the same logic applies: nations with skilled workers will be able to entice more investors and create more jobs.
Still, among the 28 most industrialized nations in 2000, the United States scored fifteenth in reading, nineteenth in mathematics, and fifteenth in science, according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics.
“In the past we’ve gotten around the limitations of our education system by in effect importing minds," remarked Steve Forbes, president and CEO of Forbes, Inc. Take a look at our graduate programs; a disproportionate number of students come from other countries. We receive the guys we need from other teams, like a baseball team with a bad farm system.
Stopping the Decline
The idea that competition, which has long been a driving force in the American private sector, could be the answer to America's failing schools, according to business executives.
The high quality of our educational institutions is not coincidental. The former chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Leo Melamed, explained that they compete. If you want the top students and instructors, you have to compete with them. In our primary and high schools, though, the bare minimum appears to be adequate, so that's bad news, according to Melamed. Interjecting school choice, according to Melamed and others, could help change that.
"With choice you get accountability; schools have to demonstrate they are doing right by the students," according to Forbes. Parents always want what's best for their kids, and consumers always want what's best for themselves. Even publicly funded schools will improve if given the chance, as failure to do so would result in a loss of pupils and funding.
Involving Big Business
A smaller fraction of business leaders back school choice, even though most of them know the free market and its effects on the economy. Melamed thinks that changing that will be possible by providing these leaders with better education on school choice.
Thus, how can the fight for parental choice in public schools gain momentum?
"The message needs to be clear that we are losing ground in competition to other world economies…if the trend continues, it won't be a happy ending," said Melamed.
According to Forbes, there will be a shift toward school choice and genuine education reform when more corporate leaders learn about the issue.
"I think people will look back and wonder what the fuss was all about," according to him.
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