Hardcover

Paperback

Audiobook

eBook

America Needs Talent

Description

With falling wages and rising inequality, persistent unemployment, failing schools, and broken cities, have America’s best days come and gone?

In AMERICA NEEDS TALENT, Jamie Merisotis, a leader in philanthropy, higher education, and public policy, explains why talent is needed to usher in a new era of innovation and success, and why deliberate choices must be made by government, the private sector, educators, and individuals to grow talent in America.

What if you paid for education based on what you had actually learned, instead of the time you spent in class? What if your visa application were processed as if you were an asset to our nation’s growing talent pool instead of by Homeland Security?

Merisotis proposes bold ideas to successfully deploy the world’s most talented people—from rethinking higher education to transforming immigration laws, revitalizing urban hubs, and encouraging private-sector innovation.

In an updated-and-expanded second edition, Merisotis explains how educational and political developments have increased our need for talent and how state initiatives and global competition can bring us closer to our goals.

Just when so many thinkers are focused on robots and the threat that automation will close off possibilities for Americans, Jamie Merisotis understands that the opposite is true—that the future will put even more of a premium on human beings and their talent. He’s right to be hopeful, but also right to goad us: we won’t realize our great potential unless we start to do things differently—focusing on talent and cultivating it with all the tools at our disposal.

Tamar Jacoby
President, Opportunity America

Merisotis provides an optimistic, solution-oriented roadmap for improving our nation’s higher education system and training and educating our future workforce. His innovative ideas are practical and long overdue for a system that has lagged behind in keeping up with our workforce needs.

Margaret Spellings
Former Secretary, U.S. Department of Education

Merisotis is dead right: If we don’t fix higher education and build new kinds of public-private partnerships, with employers of all types, America will lose the global war for good jobs.

Jim Clifton
Chairman and CEO, Gallup

...These are wise words from a thoughtful leader in the nonprofit world offering a unique perspective on the history and future of higher education in America.

Sarah Grant
Writer, Booklist

Jamie Merisotis explores the history of American innovation and the need to recapture the spirit of risk taking that fueled our growth in the 20th century. From competency-based learning to a skills-based immigration policy, he presents sound solutions to these challenges in a thoughtful and entertaining way.

Tom Linebarger
Chairman and CEO, Cummins Inc.

Merisotis details solutions with a constant refrain that competitiveness, compassion, and equity must be priorities. AMERICA NEEDS TALENT offers a blueprint for a Second American Century—one that I believe...will make our communities more vibrant and our nation more prosperous.

Greg Fischer
Mayor, City of Louisville

AMERICA NEEDS TALENT is a challenge to both American citizens and our leaders to have the courage of previous generations to invest in ourselves to better our future.

George Miller
Retired Chairman, Committee on Education and Labor, U.S. House of Representatives

Merisotis calls for a new generation of leadership to launch a new American century, one that will nurture our diverse talents in a grand 21st century republic of learning.

Anthony Carnevale
Research Professor and Director, Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce

...this book should be required reading for anyone interested in productive and disruptive policy change for cultivating a new generation of American talent.

Darren Walker
President, Ford Foundation

Merisotis makes the compelling argument for why and how higher education must be turned on its head so that we can build a strong new American Century in which people from all walks of life can participate and benefit. AMERICA NEEDS TALENT is a book that I will recommend often—an enlightening must-read for anyone engaged in any part of the education pipeline.

Nancy Zimpher
Former Chancellor, State University of New York

Jamie Merisotis has authored an inspiring vision for a Second American Century and a framework to achieve it...AMERICA NEEDS TALENT should be required reading for all who would lead and for all who want America to be a land of opportunity where people are working, incomes are rising, and the future looks brighter than the past.

John Engler
Former Governor of Michigan

This book should be on the desk of every 2016 presidential candidate.

Anne-Marie Slaughter
President and CEO, New America

AMERICA NEEDS TALENT makes it clear that if we’re willing to harness the innovation born of cross-sector collaboration and embrace new ways to accomplish our goals, we can nurture the talent we need to make the story of 21st century America one of truly inclusive prosperity.

Melody Barnes
Former Assistant to President Barack Obama and Director, Domestic Policy Council

AMERICA NEEDS TALENT offers a sharp, timely blueprint for unleashing the potential of millions of Americans. This is the path toward not just individual and familial success, but also urban and national prosperity.

Bruce Katz
Founding Director, Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program

This book is a must-read for anyone who is worried about America’s role in the 21st century and looking for solutions.

John R. McKernan, Jr.
Senior Advisor and Past President, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and former Governor of Maine

AMERICA NEEDS TALENT makes it clear that if we’re willing to harness the innovation born of cross-sector collaboration and embrace new ways to accomplish our goals, we can nurture the talent we need to make the story of 21st century America one of truly inclusive prosperity.

Tracy Palandjian
Co-Founder and CEO, Social Finance