Preparing the Next Generation

By William Charles "Bill" Boyer, IV

Unleash the Power of the Private Sector to Secure our Children's Future

We all cherish our children's future and we ask ourselves the same question: Are we doing enough?

American employers are exporting jobs to India and China and they are also importing skilled employees like engineers, software designers and other "white collar" positions.

There can be no more poignant indictment of our failure to prepare our children to compete than the fact that American mothers and fathers passing over there own and opting to hire outside the U.S. to fill their employment needs.

We can spend time questioning the wisdom and loyalty of these companies, but they are required to make decisions that serve their needs and the needs of their shareholders. They are hiring skilled labor because our educational system has been "called to action," but given inadequate tools to produce the necessary product. Formal education's primary goal is not to culturally indoctrinate, socially re-engineer or morally re-program our youth, the mission is to prepare tomorrow's adults to successfully engage the world as it is, not as we would like it to be.

Teaching has been, and continues to be, an under-appreciated and noble profession. Teachers are selfless, and pivotal, to our long-term economic and strategic livelihood. Teachers carry the privilege and the responsibility to shape our children's collective future.

Parents carry the sole responsibility to direct the development of their children. Parents cannot be asked to subjugate this role to the state. Parents should have access to choices when they invest in their most important of decision: the education of their children.

How inane is it that we have virtually unlimited choices as to where, what and how to buy our morning coffee, but have virtually no say or options as it relates to the awesome impact of K thru 12 education?

Given the challenges of the day, and the increasingly competitive make up of a shrinking world, does it seem prudent to artificially constrain educational choices? Is it not incumbent on us to unleash the extraordinary power of the American business machine to provide compelling and powerful choices in education?

Vouchers have been made the educational "dirty word" by those who fear the consequences of accountability that every other industry recognizes as reality. We haven't moved the discussion far enough towards choice. Unleashing the power of accountability, results-oriented compensation and the ingenuity of private enterprise can only improve our educational relevance. To help us collectively secure the nations economic future we must:

Abandon the current paradigm. More specifically, we should allow parents to direct their tax dollars dedicated to educational pursuits in a "voucher-like" fashion. Public institutions that are providing adequate education have nothing to fear, and those that don't would have a reason to catch up.

We must improve teacher compensation, but tie such increases in compensation to the results their efforts achieve. In short, bonuses are just as appropriate in the educational industry as it is in other parts of the private sector.

We need to partner with key leaders in industries that are future-centric. Knowing what these industries need relative to educational preparation is step one in designing "world-relevant" educational curriculum.

Internships should not be reserved for the medical industry. Conjoining classroom education with "hands-on" application of that education will accelerate our youths ability to "hit the career path" sprinting.

Finally, religious-based educational institutions can be part of our menu of choices. Their potential contribution cannot be left out of the power-of-choice equation simply due to feeble arguments about church-and-state separation. These schools could receive voucher compensation for the percentage of their curriculum that delivers the secular basics all students must have.