“The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century,” by Thomas L. Friedman, should be required reading for everyone but especially for your elected representatives. Everyone you meet who reads it will tell you about the all the changes that have resulted in the increase in competition around the world. What I am afraid people will overlook is the part about the education crisis in the US. For years the US has been slipping in math and the sciences. Now it has become a crisis! The success that the US has enjoyed in the world market has been built on the back of our innovation engine. That engine comes as a result of a great education system, investment in basic research and smart engineers and scientists (both US born and those who emigrate to the US). Now our primary and secondary educations system is producing students who rank near the bottom of the list of developed countries, our goverment continually cuts funding to research and our population of engineers and scientists is rapidly aging with most expected to retire in the next 10 to 15 years (and a much smaller number entering the work force in the same period). The US continues to produce a disproportional number of lawyers and far to few engineers and scientists and since 9-11 we have drastically cut back on the number of students from other countries we allow to come to the US to study (and hopefully to stay and add to the US pool of innovators). If we want our children to continue to prosper then we need to turn these trends around. The world is becoming an ever more competitive place. We cannot sit back we need to be running harder to catch up. Protectionism is not an answer, working harder and smarter is. Send a copy of Friedman's book to your elected representitives and ask them what they are doing about increasing the nations investment in basic research and programs to encourage students to study engineering and science.
