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How many times have the combined local, state and national governments attempted to "fix" the American educational system? Just about everyone lost count ages ago. Throughout the years just about every conceivable idea has been tossed into the pot, mixed up, and spoon-fed to us by our education elitists, followed up by tepid attempts at enforcement, resulting in not very much.

For the past eight years, the Bush Administration made "No Child Left Behind" the mantra of his compassionate conservative movement. The end result of the effort has not yet been measured, but when primary, secondary and post secondary education are looked at as a whole, we find a system awash in money, but still sub-standard on the world scene.

The Obama Administration now rants almost daily about how it will make fixing our massive problems in education a top priority. We have yet to hear anything close to a comprehensive plan from the same politicos.

Today, when we examine the worldwide work force we can see the United States ranks first in high school graduates among workers 45 years of age and older. When workers age 35 to 44 are examined, the United States drops to fifth place worldwide. In the 25 to 34 years of age group, the United States plummets to tenth place in worldwide high school educated work force ranking.

In the Science and Engineering field, we have had two million baby boomers become eligible for retirement in the past year. However, our education system has only produced about 200,000 qualified replacements. Where once it claimed a solid 1st Place, for the past three decades the United States has ranked 3rd in the world in science and engineering graduates. Our current recent graduates and those in the pipeline are so few that again our worldwide position has shown a marked decline to 17th place.

For the past decade the United States has failed to increase its numbers of young adults enrolled in post secondary education. Both China and India exceed the United States in educating professionals in the fields of finance, accounting and life science.

In all fields the continued educational picture for the United States looks bleak. Anticipated annual college graduation in the United States is estimated to be at an average of about 1.5 million students earning degrees. In India, that number jumps to more than 3 million earning degrees each year and in China the figure is climbing toward 4 million graduates a year.

Why is that important? Those who make a study of future work force needs tell us that 80% of the new jobs created in the United States today require some form of post secondary education. Colleges are not filling that need, and only 52% of Americans have achieved the level of education needed by today's work force.

According to Dr. Carol D'Amico of Ivy Tech College in Indiana, Other nations are becoming more technology savvy than Americans. There are a continuing and ever growing number of tech workers from India and China taking jobs, which were once reserved for our citizens. Those two countries together are poised to fill most vacancies among the estimated 14 million high skilled post secondary education jobs, which will need to be staffed by 2020.

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