Montana education, the future and a flat world

A few years ago, I was reading a Pat Williams column in the paper and he said one of the most alarming things that I had ever heard. He says many alarming things, but this one really stuck with me. He said that this could be the first generation of the American middle class that could not be certain that their children would do better than their parents. I kept thinking about this as I watched the changes in the world over the past few years.

A recent study by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education suggested that personal income in the United States will drop over the next 15 years if we do not increase the educational level of our population. The projected decline coincides with the growth of the knowledge-based economy and competition with the rest of the world.

By DAVE LEWIS
Montana State Senator

Full Story: http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/02/08/opinion/guest/40-guest-op.txt

(Many thanks to Bob Brown of the Center for the Rocky Mountain West http://www.crmw.org for passing this along. russ)