Hiring is going down, unemployment is going up and the
country's leaders inside the Beltway aren’t doing enough to address the
seemingly endless problems – plunging budgets, rising class sizes, teaching “to
the test” – afflicting public schools.
Combine these factors with high dropout rates, soaring
college costs and lack of job openings for new grads and you have a bleak
picture of our young people’s future prospects. What's being done to boost our
youth's competitiveness in an increasingly globalized job market? There is no
sugar-coating this: American youth trail
those of most other developed countries in math, science and reading.
But that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible to ignite that
"can-do" spark in even the most apathetic or disadvantaged children.
Growing numbers
of jobless young Americans have decided to create jobs out of desperation – by
starting their own businesses. And here’s something even more inspiring: a lot
of these young entrepreneurs are launching businesses that also incorporate
social-impact programs addressing issues such as worldwide food preservation, the lack
of clean water in the
developing world and unemployment
itself. Go them!
I happen to know firsthand about the power of
entrepreneurship, and not just because I've started a number of businesses. For
several years, the nonprofit division of my PR agency, The ThinkTank, worked with a wonderful
non-profit organization called NFTE (Network for
Teaching Entrepreneurship). NFTE is dedicated to showing at-risk youth and those from low-income communities
the world of opportunity that can open up if they embrace the challenge of
starting businesses. How rewarding to see the
look of pride on the face of an eighth-grade girl from Little Havana as she
pitches her business plan for an apparel company. NFTE’s success has been
amazing to see: the group started with just a few schools in the South Bronx
and today it’s giving start-up classes to kids all over the world. How Nifty!
Kids all over the country are coming up with clever ways to
make money. Like 15-year-old Californian Jason Li, who founded
iReTron, a company that pays consumers for their old electronics, refurbishes
them and resells them, keeping them out of landfills. He’s just one example of
the great things a kid with business know-how can accomplish.
I’m convinced, like the author of a recent TIME Magazine article,
that it is absolutely crucial that
more youth learn the skills to start 21st-Century businesses. They need
to know how to use today’s powerful online tools, social media and mobile
technology, not just to create jobs for themselves and others, but to serve as
examples for other youth and spread that go-get-it spirit around the country’s
wider student population, showing lackadaisical peers just how school is,
indeed, relevant to their lives. Furthermore, the country’s economy isn’t only
shaky, it’s also changing. Manufacturing, the booming engine which propelled
mid-20th Century middle-class prosperity in America, is a shadow of
its former self. We need young entrepreneurs to drive innovation and growth in
new industries – tech and green, for example – to fuel a country that can hold
its own against the world’s emerging big powers.
Widespread business education programs in our schools could
do wonders for the youth who will be running this country in the next 20 years
and beyond. Let’s hope that as a nation we can somehow overcome our vast
differences – difficult, I know – to make it happen. Our children’s future (and
their children’s) will be all the brighter for it.
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