The Gus A. Stavros Center for Free Enterprise and Economic Education
Global Literacies
The future of our nation rests in the hands of a creative, literate society: innovative people who can read and communicate effectively, and who possess the vision, passion, knowledge, and entrepreneurial skill-sets to confront our nation’s challenging issues. It is education’s responsibility to fulfill the duty of preparing students for the future.
But today our nation's need to have a literate citizenry goes far beyond the ability to read with comprehension and communicate with clarity. Global competition is a daily reminder that the world has changed and the U.S. must respond accordingly if we are to continue our prominence as a global leader. Future leaders in business, politics, and education, upon whom the future of our nation rests, currently are occupying the public and private schools of our communities. This suggests a serious “call to action” which must be sounded for educators who will serve as the “front line” vanguard to provide K-20 students with the literacy skills that are needed to tackle the innovative approaches to our nation’s economic prosperity.
The critical need for literacy skills is a current focus of the National Academy of Education. Recently, the National Academy of Education and the Carnegie Corporation issued a report entitled Time to Act (Carnegie, 2010) in which they stated:
Every adolescent must have the opportunity to develop the necessary tools and skill-sets for ongoing active engagement with different kinds of text, critical thinking, and lifelong exploration and development. Improving literacy in grades 4-12 is the key to realizing this essential goal (Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Council on Advancing Adolescent Literacy, 2010).
The Stavros Center is committed to providing professional development programs that address the need of K-20 educators to have global literacy knowledge and skill sets that they may convey to their students. Only in this way will our future citizens effectively function in a competitive global economy.