1:15 PM
Bill Millett, the founder of Scope View Strategic Alliance, spoke at the Agricultural Extension Building in Wentworth on Wednesday about the impact early education has on the economy.
Without early education, Millett said, we deprive our children of being as successful as they could be and our economy of getting back on its feet.
“I’m here to make an economic case for the importance of quality in our education,” said Millett. “No matter who you are, you have a stake in this.”
Millett said that during the economic struggle the United States is currently facing, he knows most people are asking the question, “Don’t we have bigger fish to fry?”
His answer is no.
“They (children) are too important to fail,” said Millett.
He points out that the United States is no longer on top in terms of education. In fact, children have more competition then ever. A generation or two ago, the biggest competition for a student in Rockingham County may have been another child from another county in the state, or possibly another state on the East Coast or in the Midwest. Now, children are finding themselves competing with others from four or five other continents.
The fact our educational system is not as strong as it used to be is not the fault of the teachers, according to Millett.
“There are bad teachers, but there are also great teachers,” said Millet. “You have teachers who are part of the problem, but you also have dysfunctional families, parents who don’t know how to parent, who don’t care about parenting, and a culture that undervalues education.”
Millett said America is a society that undervalues education. He has found that statistically, foreign countries have pulled 100 percent of their teachers from the top three percent of students in their class who are studying education at universities. America only pulls on 23 percent from that same percentile.
Millett believes this is why the phrase, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” resonates in America. As a society, he feels, we are living up to that phrase.
Bill Gates visited Asian countries last year and children flocked to him like he was their idol, according to Millett.
“In China, Bill Gates is Brittany Spears,” said Millett. “In the United States, Brittany Spears is Brittany Spears.”
Millett then asked the audience, if Bill Gates came to Reidsville on the same day that Brittany Spears came to Eden, where would the children flock to? The crowd answered that the children would go to Eden.
“That’s not a teacher problem,” said Millett. “That’s an education problem.”
Millett believes early education has not been valued enough because it is pitched to parents as a warm and fuzzy concept.
“A warm and fuzzy message in the economic environment of 2011 is a losing hand,” said Millett.
A lack of early education, later down the line, will impact our community and the economy, according to Millett, and studies have shown when a child is born they have 120 billion cells in their brain.
“To put that into context, that’s about the same number as stars in the Milky Way,” said Millet.
According to Millett, the same study shows that in the first two years of life the synaptic connections – the part of the brain which passes signals to specific cells – make 700 connections a second. Millett said the basic structure of the brain is made within the first four years of life.
“But the brain prunes those connections,” Millett said. “Those that are not being used get cut back.”
Millett said the brain of a child who is worked with often and early in life looks physically different then a child who is shoved into the corner and ignored.
He cited a study in which kids were separated into groups. One group was given state-of-the-art cognitive learning, and the other group was not. Without exception, Millett said, all of those in the first group earned more money, had fewer children out of wedlock and were less likely to become incarcerated.
“The kids that have been worked with are more likely to become tax generators then tax consumers,” said Millett.
In fact, that same study found that for every dollar spent on a child’s education, that child would be able to make eight dollars more.
“The earlier you invest in a child, the higher the return,” Millett said.
Millett said education should not be considered kindergarten through the senior year of high school. It should be considered pre-kindergarten through at least 20 years old, if not eternity.
“Lack of coordinating pre-K through high school will have a negative impact on the U.S.,” said Millett.
Many countries around the world already recognize that to be true, said Millett, and some companies are also recognizing this need. Millett sometimes introduces companies that want to be shown the benefit of education for their employees to four- and five-star early education programs.
Once, while in a conference, Millett was asked to join with a crowd in shouting “USA, we’re number one.” Later, the crowd were shown statistics that now make Millett say, “We used to be.”
According to Millett, a study determined that 15-year-olds in America rank 15th among other countries in their reading proficiency. That same group was found to rank 17th in their science proficiency and 25th in their math proficiency when competing with children from other countries.
“It’s not that we’re stupider then we used to be,” said Millett. “It’s that the rest of the world is smarter.”
Millett says we need to teach children from an early age to think and be creative. America has taught its children that if they memorize facts they are educated. Millett calls this obsoledge. Obsoledge is a word growing in popularity that combines the words obsolete and knowledge.
“If you just memorize things you become less relevant,” said Millett. “Those things you remember will become replaced by something else.”
In Millett’s opinion, Americans need to teach our children not to remember, but to think and anticipate. He also said that this needs to be taught very early in life.
If we remember both the disasters of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles, he said, those disasters both stemmed from a failure during the launch. According to Millett, this is the same for our children. Failure to educate children before they reach kindergarten, he said, is a failure to launch them to where they need to be.
“When we botched that, that fail causes long unemployment lines, people without skills to compete, kids in poverty, high rates of incarceration, and us paying the tab for all of that,” said Millett.
Some statistics involving Rockingham County are troubling to Millett. The number of children in North Carolina who graduate from high school is 78.1 percent, but in Rockingham County that number drops to 68.9 percent.
While Millett said that this is a huge difference, Reidsville Mayor James Festerman could be heard in the crowd saying, “But that’s 10 percent.”
Another unsettling statistic, according to Millett, is one showing that 22.5 percent of North Carolina residents graduate from college. But here in Rockingham County, that number drops to 10.8 percent.
Several local residents who attended Millett’s speech told him there is a stigma in Rockingham County that the community shouldn’t bother to spend extra funds to educate children, because they will eventually just leave the county.
Millett said the Charlotte area has the same issue. It doesn’t matter if a community is rural or not, he said; people always want to go on to the bigger and better, and Charlotte children often want to work in New York or Chicago.
According to Millett, this stigma shouldn’t be applied to a community. What a community needs to be doing, he said, is advancing the education of its children, and then pulling the rest of the community up to that same level of education.
Educate children from an early
Educate children from an early
Without early education, Millett said, we deprive our children of being as successful as they could be and our economy of getting back on its feet.
“I’m here to make an economic case for the importance of quality in our education,” said Millett. “No matter who you are, you have a stake in this.”
Millett said that during the economic struggle the United States is currently facing, he knows most people are asking the question, “Don’t we have bigger fish to fry?”
His answer is no.
“They (children) are too important to fail,” said Millett.
He points out that the United States is no longer on top in terms of education. In fact, children have more competition then ever. A generation or two ago, the biggest competition for a student in Rockingham County may have been another child from another county in the state, or possibly another state on the East Coast or in the Midwest. Now, children are finding themselves competing with others from four or five other continents.
The fact our educational system is not as strong as it used to be is not the fault of the teachers, according to Millett.
“There are bad teachers, but there are also great teachers,” said Millet. “You have teachers who are part of the problem, but you also have dysfunctional families, parents who don’t know how to parent, who don’t care about parenting, and a culture that undervalues education.”
Millett said America is a society that undervalues education. He has found that statistically, foreign countries have pulled 100 percent of their teachers from the top three percent of students in their class who are studying education at universities. America only pulls on 23 percent from that same percentile.
Millett believes this is why the phrase, “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach,” resonates in America. As a society, he feels, we are living up to that phrase.
Bill Gates visited Asian countries last year and children flocked to him like he was their idol, according to Millett.
“In China, Bill Gates is Brittany Spears,” said Millett. “In the United States, Brittany Spears is Brittany Spears.”
Millett then asked the audience, if Bill Gates came to Reidsville on the same day that Brittany Spears came to Eden, where would the children flock to? The crowd answered that the children would go to Eden.
“That’s not a teacher problem,” said Millett. “That’s an education problem.”
Millett believes early education has not been valued enough because it is pitched to parents as a warm and fuzzy concept.
“A warm and fuzzy message in the economic environment of 2011 is a losing hand,” said Millett.
A lack of early education, later down the line, will impact our community and the economy, according to Millett, and studies have shown when a child is born they have 120 billion cells in their brain.
“To put that into context, that’s about the same number as stars in the Milky Way,” said Millet.
According to Millett, the same study shows that in the first two years of life the synaptic connections – the part of the brain which passes signals to specific cells – make 700 connections a second. Millett said the basic structure of the brain is made within the first four years of life.
“But the brain prunes those connections,” Millett said. “Those that are not being used get cut back.”
Millett said the brain of a child who is worked with often and early in life looks physically different then a child who is shoved into the corner and ignored.
He cited a study in which kids were separated into groups. One group was given state-of-the-art cognitive learning, and the other group was not. Without exception, Millett said, all of those in the first group earned more money, had fewer children out of wedlock and were less likely to become incarcerated.
“The kids that have been worked with are more likely to become tax generators then tax consumers,” said Millett.
In fact, that same study found that for every dollar spent on a child’s education, that child would be able to make eight dollars more.
“The earlier you invest in a child, the higher the return,” Millett said.
Millett said education should not be considered kindergarten through the senior year of high school. It should be considered pre-kindergarten through at least 20 years old, if not eternity.
“Lack of coordinating pre-K through high school will have a negative impact on the U.S.,” said Millett.
Many countries around the world already recognize that to be true, said Millett, and some companies are also recognizing this need. Millett sometimes introduces companies that want to be shown the benefit of education for their employees to four- and five-star early education programs.
Once, while in a conference, Millett was asked to join with a crowd in shouting “USA, we’re number one.” Later, the crowd were shown statistics that now make Millett say, “We used to be.”
According to Millett, a study determined that 15-year-olds in America rank 15th among other countries in their reading proficiency. That same group was found to rank 17th in their science proficiency and 25th in their math proficiency when competing with children from other countries.
“It’s not that we’re stupider then we used to be,” said Millett. “It’s that the rest of the world is smarter.”
Millett says we need to teach children from an early age to think and be creative. America has taught its children that if they memorize facts they are educated. Millett calls this obsoledge. Obsoledge is a word growing in popularity that combines the words obsolete and knowledge.
“If you just memorize things you become less relevant,” said Millett. “Those things you remember will become replaced by something else.”
In Millett’s opinion, Americans need to teach our children not to remember, but to think and anticipate. He also said that this needs to be taught very early in life.
If we remember both the disasters of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttles, he said, those disasters both stemmed from a failure during the launch. According to Millett, this is the same for our children. Failure to educate children before they reach kindergarten, he said, is a failure to launch them to where they need to be.
“When we botched that, that fail causes long unemployment lines, people without skills to compete, kids in poverty, high rates of incarceration, and us paying the tab for all of that,” said Millett.
Some statistics involving Rockingham County are troubling to Millett. The number of children in North Carolina who graduate from high school is 78.1 percent, but in Rockingham County that number drops to 68.9 percent.
While Millett said that this is a huge difference, Reidsville Mayor James Festerman could be heard in the crowd saying, “But that’s 10 percent.”
Another unsettling statistic, according to Millett, is one showing that 22.5 percent of North Carolina residents graduate from college. But here in Rockingham County, that number drops to 10.8 percent.
Several local residents who attended Millett’s speech told him there is a stigma in Rockingham County that the community shouldn’t bother to spend extra funds to educate children, because they will eventually just leave the county.
Millett said the Charlotte area has the same issue. It doesn’t matter if a community is rural or not, he said; people always want to go on to the bigger and better, and Charlotte children often want to work in New York or Chicago.
According to Millett, this stigma shouldn’t be applied to a community. What a community needs to be doing, he said, is advancing the education of its children, and then pulling the rest of the community up to that same level of education.