The Economy & Education Connection
If there is to be real sustainable economic growth in the USA and around the world, and realizing that long-term growth is tied to innovations and creativity in new technologies, then education is the biggest and most significant key to economic growth and to the creation of jobs.
With the US rapidly falling behind in the sciences, in math and in reading skills, something must be done. This trend is economically un-sustainable. What affect will such declines have in the country? And on the world?
Declining educational excellence, in any state on the planet, reduces the ability of the affected group to be innovative and to create new technologies, new industry, new enterprises, and thus stymies long-term economic sustainability and slows job recovery over time. What should be done?
The answer is that we must remove all obstacles that slow down, hinder or block the best chances for our children to be the very best in the sciences, in math, and in reading skills because of the direct connection education has with the success of the economy. These are the subjects from which all innovation and new technologies arise. We must provide the very best environment for success without shackling our children and grandchildren with unnecessary and useless non-productive foundations in those subjects.
Two obstacles come to mind immediately:
1) Since a sustainable economy is tied to continual and persistent innovations in science and math, which generates new technologies, which then become tomorrows 'must have' gadgets, ideas and software, which in turn fosters trade, industry and enterprise, and since all such things are conducted globally using the Metric system, then we must make an immediate switch to the metric system. The US pushed for global metrication and signed international agreements to that affect in 1875, called the 'Convention of the Metre'. Just switch to the Metric System. No conversion charts, tables or methods between measuring systems. Conversions just muddle the issue and are efforts at procrastination. Just switch to the metric system. We will adapt.
2) The second major obstacle to real innovation and creativity in the sciences and math is the tendency on the part of some people and organizations to demand the teaching or acknowledgement of pseudo-sciences in the science classroom. These pseudo-sciences water-down, or dumb down, our young people by confusing the teaching of real science with myth. All pseudo-sciences belong in the myth, superstition, or religious studies classes. Pseudo-sciences of all stripes have no business being taught in our science classes. This obstacle should also be removed immediately.
So if we are truly serious about real long-term economic viability, competitiveness and growth, then all obstacles to that brighter future, where better jobs are plentiful in the US and around the world, must be immediately removed.
Tell your Senators and Representatives. Share this on your blogs, and on twitter and facebook. Spread the word to businesses and industry, to your local school boards and state school agencies, and get this information to all your local, regional, state and national leaders.
Spread the word. The future prosperity of our children and grandchildren is being threatened by inaction today.
Thanks!
Tim Williamson
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Blog
If there is to be real sustainable economic growth in the USA and around the world, and realizing that long-term growth is tied to innovations and creativity in new technologies, then education is the biggest and most significant key to economic growth and to the creation of jobs.
With the US rapidly falling behind in the sciences, in math and in reading skills, something must be done. This trend is economically un-sustainable. What affect will such declines have in the country? And on the world?
Declining educational excellence, in any state on the planet, reduces the ability of the affected group to be innovative and to create new technologies, new industry, new enterprises, and thus stymies long-term economic sustainability and slows job recovery over time. What should be done?
The answer is that we must remove all obstacles that slow down, hinder or block the best chances for our children to be the very best in the sciences, in math, and in reading skills because of the direct connection education has with the success of the economy. These are the subjects from which all innovation and new technologies arise. We must provide the very best environment for success without shackling our children and grandchildren with unnecessary and useless non-productive foundations in those subjects.
Two obstacles come to mind immediately:
1) Since a sustainable economy is tied to continual and persistent innovations in science and math, which generates new technologies, which then become tomorrows 'must have' gadgets, ideas and software, which in turn fosters trade, industry and enterprise, and since all such things are conducted globally using the Metric system, then we must make an immediate switch to the metric system. The US pushed for global metrication and signed international agreements to that affect in 1875, called the 'Convention of the Metre'. Just switch to the Metric System. No conversion charts, tables or methods between measuring systems. Conversions just muddle the issue and are efforts at procrastination. Just switch to the metric system. We will adapt.
2) The second major obstacle to real innovation and creativity in the sciences and math is the tendency on the part of some people and organizations to demand the teaching or acknowledgement of pseudo-sciences in the science classroom. These pseudo-sciences water-down, or dumb down, our young people by confusing the teaching of real science with myth. All pseudo-sciences belong in the myth, superstition, or religious studies classes. Pseudo-sciences of all stripes have no business being taught in our science classes. This obstacle should also be removed immediately.
So if we are truly serious about real long-term economic viability, competitiveness and growth, then all obstacles to that brighter future, where better jobs are plentiful in the US and around the world, must be immediately removed.
Tell your Senators and Representatives. Share this on your blogs, and on twitter and facebook. Spread the word to businesses and industry, to your local school boards and state school agencies, and get this information to all your local, regional, state and national leaders.
Spread the word. The future prosperity of our children and grandchildren is being threatened by inaction today.
Thanks!
Tim Williamson
Blog
Let me repeat it again, politicians don't stick their necks out even for excellent ideas if they do not go down well with voters. To get any leverage at all for US metrication one has to engage the parents of school children and show them why their future does not look that bright. Tell them and illustrate it with examples how much time they waste on learning a disjointed jumble of cumbersome units. Tell them how handicapped they will be procuring jobs in a world that speaks only metric. That and any other USC disadvantages driven home consistently is bound to motivate responsible parents to do anything to secure their children's future and well being. So, why ignore the cheapest, simplest and most effective if not only road to metrication in America? Left to politicians it will take another 145 years of lame and sabotaged attempts to metricate America and this applies to long established, but ineffective groups like ‘USMA’ as well.
ReplyDeleteMaybe a good start would be to contact a group of progressives like change.org and see whether they help to get the ball rolling? Ideas for Change in America | Change.org
Change.org is an online activism platform for social change that raises awareness about important causes and connects people to opportunities for powerful ...
www.change.org/ideas
I am not a member, or contributor to that organisation.