I will be delivering two speeches to in West Fargo, North Dakota on March 10th to two discrete groups. One session will be to the business community and will be entitled, Building North Dakota’s Global Competitiveness: From the Schoolhouse to the Workplace. The presentation deals with the need to build World Class Schools – schools which are as globally competitive as businesses are. As Thomas Friedman has pointed out in The World Is Flat “a student in Bangalore India is now as globally competitive as a student in Bangor, Maine.” If we wish to maintain any economic advantage, we need to create schools that prepare students to thrive in the 21st century.
The second presentation is directed at educators in Fargo and is entitled, Helping Students Graduate: Tools and Strategies to Prevent Student Dropouts. While North Dakota’s dropout rate is lower than the national average, the loss of even one student is one too many.