out of date by the time they are printed. A big gap separates the schools from the outside world.
For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests. This article is about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction（分数，部分） of our children get “left behind” but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can’t think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English.
An assembly（议会，集会） of Education Secretaries and other education leaders releases a blueprint for rethinking American education to better prepare students to thrive（茁壮成长） in the global economy. They finally reach a
remarkable consensus（一致，共识） on one key conclusion: we need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century.
Right now we’re aiming too low. Competency（竞争力） in reading and math is the minimum. Scientific and technical skills are, likewise（同样的）, utterly（十分） necessary but insufficient（不足的，不够的）. Today’s economy demands not only a high-level competence in the traditional academic disciplines（学科） but also what might be called 21st century skills. Here’s what they are:
Knowing more about the world. Kids are global citizens now, even in small-town America, and they must learn to act that way. Mike Eskew, CEO of UPS, talks about needing workers who are “global trade literate, sensitive to foreign cultures, conversant in different languages”
Thinking outside the box. “Put an enormous premium on creative and innovative（创新的，革新的） skills, seeing patterns where other