Unfortuntely many people here do not live that dream. They expect to be taken care of by society.

Still confuses me how somebody so intelligent (and Catholic no less) can still support Obama after everything that we know about him now. Seriously?

Anyway, regardless of that I think the growing problem this country faces is the next 50 years is the aging of our population. This means that the majority of the population will either of retirement age, or too young to work. This leaves less of the workforce to pay for their children, and their parents. The burden is growing.

That is going to be our problem. Beyond that, in 50 years the US Census predicts that only 48% of the population will be white. And I am not referring to any race terms either. With a white minority and a non-working age majority, where do you think the USA will be in 50 years?

That’s what keeps me up in the middle of the night. Seriously.

I agree with you about the education system in this country. It’s far too easy on the students and needs to be a lot harder. I will say that I can’t speak from public school experience though– I went to all private schools. Still, I know that the level of education is not what it is in other countries. I’m not sure what the answer is, especially with all those that like to dumb down the school system.

If you drop out of high school these days, you’re pretty much guaranteed a bad/minimum wage job. Here in Ohio (especially the north part of the state), it’s amazing to me the people that think you can drop out of high school and get a $70,000/year job in the automobile industry.

There needs to be a serious reality check for education.

All parents want out of school is a safe haven to put their child in for 7-8 hours while they goto work.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqQQh_r_4UU

Golgafrinchan Telephone Sanitisers, Management Consultants and Marketing executives were persuaded that the planet was under threat from an enormous mutant star goat. The useless third of their population was then packed in Ark spaceships and sent to an insignificant planet.

That planet turned out to be Earth, where the arrival of the Golgafrincham B Ark rather disrupted an experiment designed to find the question to the ultimate Answer. Wich of couse is 42.

The world is changing, jobs are evolving, and far too many students are simply not being prepared to be successful adults:

* Seventy percent of eighth graders are not proficient in reading—and most will never catch up.
* Every year, more than 1.2 million students drop out of high school.
* Many of those who do graduate are not ready for college, for the workplace, and for life.

This is not about schools in some far-off city. This is about the students you see in your own neighborhood. This is not someone else’s problem. This is an American problem that affects us all.