Education, awareness keys to keeping region ahead of ongoing change Four calls to action

First, let?s be clear, this is not a race to the bottom as some have said. It is a race to the top. People in India, China and Russia want what we have and they are fast modernizing their educational and economic institutions to get there.

In response, I offer four calls to action:

1. Our national, state and local leaders must commit immediately to increased investment in math and science education.

Yes, the U.S. remains the leader in engineering education. But that lead is slipping at the very moment the world is requiring more people schooled in the sciences and math.

Asian countries now produce eight times the number bachelor?s degrees in science than the U.S.

2. We must continue to remain open to foreign talent. The U.S. has long benefited from allowing foreign scientists to work in this country and to emigrate. The co-founder of Google is Russian. The founder of Intel was born in Hungary.

3. We can no longer tolerate high levels of high school dropouts. By far the greatest negative impacts of globalization are being felt by workers with the lowest skills. They feel it in access to jobs. They feel it in depressed wages. A reported 20 percent dropout rate among Latino students is far too high.

4. Finally, as individuals, families and as a region we should embrace globalization and make it work to our economic advantage. As individuals we must constantly upgrade our skills and stay flexible. We should talk to our children about the future. Should they learn Chinese or Spanish or both?

Ultimately we must remember that no matter how anchored we may think our job is today, some or all of it may not be tomorrow.

As they say, ?fortune favors the prepared mind.? As a region, we can all benefit by understanding and preparing for participation in the global economy.

There?s a saying that goes something like this: While people in Europe want a 35-hour workweek, workers in India and China want to work 35 hours a day.

So we are in a race, one well described in an African proverb quoted in Friedman?s book on globalization. It goes like this:

Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up.

It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed.

Every morning a lion wakes up.

It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve.

It doesn?t matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle.

When the sun comes up, you better start running.

Fortunately, your arrival in this auditorium tonight has prepared you for that race.

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Brad Bollinger is editor of the BUSINESS JOURNAL. He can be reached at bbollinger@northbaybusinessjournal.com or 707-579-2900 ext. 201.