JOIN THE TEAM!

Once every four years, the world goes crazy for sports. Dozens of countries from all over the globe spend millions of dollars to send athletes to the Olympics. During the summer games, swimmers, divers, bikers, runners and jumpers compete against each other. In the winter games, skiers and skaters start the process all over again. The Games offer citizens the opportunity to cheer their athletes, wave their flags, and feel proud of their country’s accomplishments.

Across the United States, we watch our young adults go for – and often achieve – ‘the gold.’ We count the total of medals won by one team or another, and gauge the fitness of our athletic programs by how many medals our young men and women bring home.

For years before the games, teenagers practice their chosen sports. They enter more and more challenging competitions. As they grow into young adults, they win and set records in local events, then up to county, state and national play-offs. The constant practice and repetitive competitions groom them into World Class Athletes – ready to physically, psychologically, and emotionally meet – and beat – equally strong competitors from other countries.

World Class Students are just like World Class Athletes. World Class Students are ready to do as well as – to do better than –any student of the same age anywhere in the world. World Class Students are prepared for the future – ready to bring home the gold in the competition for college placements and good jobs.

But rather than beating the competition in a sporting event, the academic abilities of teens and young adults around the world are measured with international tests in languages, in the sciences, and especially in mathematics.

Unfortunately, TEAM USA is not doing very well in these academic games. In international comparisons of academic performance, American students aren’t measuring up very well. And this particular competition is far more important than any sporting event could ever be.

Take a look at one event in the 2005 "academic games":

• 70,000 American students participated in the Westinghouse Science Fair.
• Over 6,000,000 Chinese students participated in the same event!

Here are some more worrisome statistics:

• South Korea, which has one-sixth our population, graduated the same number of engineering students as the United States.
  
  
• The United States now ranks 7th in the number of individuals holding college degrees, behind countries like Canada, Japan, and Korea.
  
  
• When comparing 22 industrialized countries, the United States ranks 17th in the number of students who successfully graduate from high school.

As a middle or high school student, you may not fully understand why these numbers worry business people. Remember, we can’t do business without a qualified workforce. We can’t build buildings, design computers, cure diseases, produce medicine, manufacture cars – we can’t do anything if we don’t have workers who have the skills we need. And if we can’t find the workers we need in the United States, we will be forced to hire workers in other countries. That means that the jobs – and the salaries – that might have been yours will no longer be available in this country.

That is something that we don’t want to happen. That is something you don’t want to have happen either. So become a World Class Student. Join TEAM USA and be ready to compete in the global economy. Work hard in middle and high school to get the academic foundation you will need to do the jobs we will be creating. We need YOU to be ready: ready for college, ready for work, ready for life.

Hear about the experiences other students have had as they transition from high school to college or work.

Ready for College.

Ready for Work.

Ready for Life.