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With great success, the United States competed in the 2008 Summer Olympics. We all proudly watched and cheered our athletes as they went on to win a combined total of 315 medals from individual and team events, more than any other country. We not only supported our hometown favorites but the entire US Olympic team who competed with remarkable athletes from every corner of the world and, in some cases, were able to defy great odds to be victorious. Wouldn’t it be great if we, the United States, were on this same level with our academic excellence?There is a television commercial currently running that shows a young man hoisting the flags of various countries up a flagpole. The dialogue indicates that the U.S. drastically lags behind 20 plus countries in math and science. It further states (or implies) these countries with their higher rankings have the potential to corner the market when it comes to supplying the well sought after talent required to fill the world’s jobs.
This information is supported by the PISA (Program for International Student Assessment) report from December 2007 which shows 15-year-old US students are ranked 25th in math and 21st in science compared to their international peer group. The PISA test, given every three years, measures the 15-year-olds’ ability to apply their understanding of math and science concepts to real-life situations. In 2006, about 400,000 students, including 5,600 in the US, took the exam.
Based on our current and future dependency on technology, it is extremely important that our students excel in math, science and reading in order to be competitive globally. Companies will not only continue to import or “in-source” this talent from other countries to the US but may find it more economical to move their business where this talent is located.
I contend there is today a US-based pandemic far greater than any strain of influenza that has infiltrated our society; complacency. We see and don’t see. We hear and don’t hear. We care and don’t care. Just as we excel in the world’s Olympic arena, we can and must achieve these same heights in the educational arena.
With your support, Project GRAD (Graduation Really Achieves Dreams) is working to “wake up the sleeping giants” within our children so they can compete globally bringing home the gold in the competitive world of doctors, scientists, teachers, nurses, entrepreneurs, lawyers, Nobel Prize winners, Pulitzer winners, astronauts and visionaries setting in motion the dreams and aspiration of the next generation.
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Striving for your Youth's Excellence,
LaToya Caver-Jackson
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