Adam Segal and John Yochelson take the broken-down language of national competitiveness
out for another run in today’s Financial Times. I’ll spare you the pain
of reading the whole thing, in which they find that “federal spending
alone will not win the race in science and technology,” to share their
best idea.

US companies should treat their
investments in education as rigorously as they do investments in
product development and marketing. Many businesses view contributions
to education mainly as an aspect of community relations. What a
difference it would make if they made grants conditional on program
effectiveness and aligned their efforts around programs that worked.

 

UPDATE: Link to article added