The Global Bear Chase

There's an old saying that says when evading a bear you only have to be faster than the guy behind you. Unfortunately, in a global economy it doesn't really matter who's behind you; it matters who is in front of you. Recognizing fully that it is a good goal to bring up the lower 10% of the student body, I think we should take a page from W.E.B. DeBois' book and make sure that our 'talented tenth,' the top 10% of a group, is the best top 10% in the world. If we are able to stay in front of the world with our technology and science and philosophy, that knowledge has a better chance of trickling down than worrying about bringing the bottom tenth up to the median bar. We are losing a lot of talented minds to blasé and boredom and not gaining a whole bunch except perhaps a flooded workforce.