Lawrence H. Sum­mers addressed the New Amer­ica Foun­da­tion on the President’s Spec­trum Ini­tia­tive on June 28. The topic was Tech­no­log­i­cal Oppor­tu­ni­ties, Job Cre­ation and Eco­nomic Growth. He announced that through this ini­tia­tive, hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs will be created.

I come here today to announce the President’s plan to nearly dou­ble the amount of com­mer­cial spec­trum avail­able in order to unleash the inno­v­a­tive poten­tial of wire­less broadband.

This ini­tia­tive will cat­alyze pri­vate sec­tor invest­ment, con­tribute to eco­nomic growth, make rev­enue avail­able to the Fed­eral Gov­ern­ment, and help to cre­ate hun­dreds of thou­sands of jobs.

That’s just what we need Lawrence (and Mr. Pres­i­dent). But, before we can get there I think we need to look at some­thing else. It’s the prin­ci­ple that build­ings with­out solid foun­da­tions are not well built. While job cre­ation plans and exe­cu­tion get under­way for the third wave of the Internet’s devel­op­ment: mobile broad­band, a seri­ous edu­ca­tion reform needs to be con­sid­ered in the pub­lic school sys­tem across the nation.

The STEM pro­gram needs rein­force­ment, addi­tional fund­ing, and it needs a hefty PR/Marketing cam­paign to make inter­est in these careers sex­ier. Take some of that gov­ern­ment mint green paint off of it and start a national PSA cam­paign with Sci­en­tists, Math­e­mati­cians, Sur­geons, Engi­neers and those guys from Apple and Google talk­ing to kids about how impor­tant and cool their jobs are.

–> Addi­tion: Thanks to Rufus for point­ing me to Con­nect a Mil­lion Minds. I have to ask Why isn’t this on TV every­where?

How many peo­ple even know what STEM means?

K-12 is a feeder sys­tem for pro­duc­tiv­ity in adult­hood. Cur­rent edu­ca­tion does not par­al­lel the demands of the work­force today in in the US, let alone future fore­casts. The July 1 NY Times arti­cle, Fac­tory Jobs Return, but Employ­ers Find Skills Short­age is a rev­e­la­tory case in point.

Plenty of peo­ple are apply­ing for the jobs. The prob­lem, the com­pa­nies say, is a mis­match between the kind of skilled work­ers needed and the ranks of the unemployed.

Baiju R. Shah, Pres­i­dent & CEO of  BioEn­ter­prise is con­cerned. His non­profit group in Cleve­land try­ing to turn the region into a cen­ter for med­ical inno­va­tion. The prob­lem, accord­ing to him, is that the unem­ployed in Cleve­land aren’t a match for the types of jobs that are open and growing.

While my rec­om­men­da­tion from an eco­nomic and work­force devel­op­ment per­spec­tive is that orga­ni­za­tions research local work­force pre­pared­ness and skill sets before locat­ing a highly tech­ni­cal indus­try in any given area, this will only be a fix for a short period of time. The pro­jected growth of STEM based jobs like the ones that will result from the President’s Spec­trum Ini­tia­tive, and those from the return of failed attempts at off-shoring, will require that all schools across the coun­try inspire, engage and pre­pare youth for the new demands of the workforce.

There will always be a place for a lib­eral arts edu­ca­tion — how­ever, more empha­sis needs to be placed on tech­ni­cal careers, math and sci­ence for us to regain and remain com­pet­i­tive in the global econ­omy. What can you do if the schools in your com­mu­nity are asleep (and most are)?

Explore high pri­or­ity occu­pa­tions with your children.

Under­stand how stan­dard­ized tests are used with chil­dren — ensure your chil­dren are tested and the results are dis­closed to you so that you can help your child dis­cover and develop a bal­ance between inter­ests and aptitudes.

Call your child’s school Super­in­ten­dent, attend PTA meet­ings, and talk to the Math and Sci­ence teach­ers. Ask what the school’s STEM ini­tia­tives are and if after read­ing all the links in this post it doesn’t seem your child’s edu­ca­tion is prepar­ing them for the immi­nent needs of the work­force — iden­tify other con­cerned par­ents and launch a local cam­paign in your county, region and state. Be relent­less and demand a pub­lic school edu­ca­tion for chil­dren that will pro­vide them with a real oppor­tu­nity for the future.

Remem­ber it isn’t 100% up to the school to pre­pare chil­dren for adult­hood. It takes a vil­lage to raise a child.

When com­pared to other nations, the achieve­ment of U.S. pupils appears incon­sis­tent with the nation’s role as a world leader in sci­en­tific inno­va­tion. ~ CRS Report for Con­gress 2008