Blog

Overview

Overview

The Gen Next Foundation is focused on these three issue points because we have to be. To excel at one means we have to excel at all three. As we look to the future, we must be prepared, competitive, and safe—not one of the three, all three. 

This means we need to transform a broken school system that settles with one in three high school students failing. For the first time in American History our children are being born into a world where they will not be better educated than their parents.

As we’re failing to educate our kids, we’re also failing to invest in their futures.  Instead, we borrow from them and create crippling levels of debt.  Today, future generations in the U.S. are less likely than future generations in other countries to surpass their parents’ income and quality of life.  This is not a recipe for economic growth or opportunity. We need to protect our country’s most precious commodity – our competitiveness, freedom, and innovation – and make sure that we continue to set global standards.

The ability of the U.S. to produce talent and economic power has been directly correlated to an ability to protect itself and pursue its interests. Yet, America’s role in the world is changing amidst new and complex security challenges. 

Today we look at a future with a less educated, less financially stable, and less ambitious society that is facing new threats to prosperity and security

Indeed, each generation has it’s own challenges, and their lives are invariably shaped by the decisions made before them.  We take that responsibility seriously, so we’re here to help lead in that effort.   

Economic Opportunity

Economic Opportunity

We must find the best ideas, leaders, and policies that promote entrepreneurship, free enterprise, and the smartening government's role. We must implement a competitive tax code and regulatory system, eliminate borrowing against the future for indulgences of the past, and cultivate a culture of individual responsibility and accountability.

In supporting a culture of economic freedom, we know the result will be opportunity, innovation, ambition, self reliance, work ethic and a stronger economy overall.

GNF encourages policies that promote entrepreneurship and growth, as well as well as the highest educated work force.  We believe in enabling and developing the capability of the U.S. to be competitive in the global marketplace.

Education

Education

Our education system has not evolved since the nineteenth century. The needs of our economy are much different than they were long ago. The jobs of the future will require our kids to be highly skilled and highly-educated, not only to keep up with the rest of the world, but also to surpass it. But only 1 in 3 students graduate high school and only 1 in 3 are prepared for college. This has to change.

At any level of education we benefit from offering incentives for good teachers: recruiting and rewarding the most talented teachers and maintaining focus on student performance and results.   

“If we eliminated the lowest performing five to 10 percent of teachers, we could have the solid public education system we had decades ago” – Waiting for Superman, 2010

Curriculum at each level must be rigorous, forward thinking, and internationally benchmarked.  We must increase the completion of advanced education, as well as a performance focus on understanding international economic and political arrangements.

Moreover, transformational change cannot occur without rethinking the way we educate our kids for the 21^st century.  Every feature of our educational system must be on the table for review: pedagogy, curriculum, length of school days, digital learning, teacher effectiveness, school funding, and more. 

We must prepare students to compete in a global economy and ultimately help maintain U.S. leadership in the 21st century.

Global Security

Global Security

Each generation has major challenges: Nazism, Communism, Colonialism, Fascism, and so on. This and the next generation have and will have their issues. Technology has unleashed a level of connectedness, information, and force of change never seen before.

National and international security has become one in the same. The role of the United States of America is more essential, and overcoming 21st century challenges demand that our nation's defense is the most funded, versatile, well-trained, respected, and effective in the world. We must also prioritize diplomacy and present a positive image of the US and our ideas to the world.

As Gen Next Member, Juan Zarate says, "the U.S. must be respected, feared, and ultimately admired to be effective at leading the world to a more peaceful and free future."