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Across America, claims Dr. D'Amico, we are suffering from a worker gap, a skills gap and an ambition gap, all brought about by substandard primary and secondary education. This is particularly true in the education of our minority population. Today African American and Hispanic 17 year old students are performing mathematics and demonstrating the ability to read at the same level as Caucasian 13 year olds. Yet these same 17-year-old minority students will be expected to comprise 35% of our work force in the next decade.

Other problems facing our under educated work force within the next five to ten years include a primary workforce in ages 30-49 that will shrink by 3.5 million jobs. Added to that figure, in the next five years we will have 16 million additional workers over the age of 50 attempting to find employment. Amost 75% of the new jobs being created will require existing workers to upgrade their educational levels just to be able to compete for open positions.

While the number of workers are growing and the number of jobs declining, employers are demanding a higher level of skill on the job. Jobs that previously required a high school diploma and now being upgraded to a requirement for post secondary education are varying levels. We have such an educational and skills gap today that the United States is ranked 19th out of 29 counties in Math, 15th out of 32 counties in reading and 14th out of 32 countries in science. When the math skills of our highest performing students are measured against the highest performing students of other countries , we rank 23rd out of 29 countries reviewed.

Technology has enabled business to outsource most employment. Technical call centers, tax preparation, journalism, medical consulting, sales, diagnostics, unit purchasing, artwork, computer graphics, architectural design, and photo printing make up just a small fraction of the labors that can all be handled by workers hundreds or thousands of miles away. There are few geographic barriers remaining for employment.

To date most of the outsourcing of jobs has been in the low skilled or unskilled category. At the same time eight out of ten new jobs becoming available are demanding high skilled workers. As this is taking place, almost half of our present and future work force cannot qualify for the new positions being offered and since the American workforce is unavailable, those jobs are being offered either abroad or to immigrants brought in to fill particular needs.

We only have ourselves to blame. We have allowed parents to abandon their children, expecting an army of educational union activists to take over parental duties. We have allowed work-place rules and regulations to keep sub-standard teachers on the job long after they should have been banned from every campus. Most of all, we have failed to motivate our children to work

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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