Education is more important today than at any other time in history. As we leave the Industrial Age behind and enter the Information Age, the value of one's education continues to increase. The question today is, Is the education you or your child receives in school adequate to meet the challenges of this brave new world we enter?

In the Industrial Age you could go to school, graduate, and start your career. You usually did not need additional education to succeed simply because things did not change that fast. In other words, the education you learned in school was all you needed for your lifetime.

As millions of baby boomers get ready to retire today, however, many are faced with the realization that they have not been adequately educated for the new world they face. For the first time in history, many well-educated people are facing the same economic difficulties that the less educated are facing. They repeatedly find themselves having to get additional education and training in order to satisfy their current job requirements.

When Do You Measure the Success of Your Education?

When do you measure the success of your education? Is it the final report card the day you graduate from school, let's say at age twenty-five, or is education's effectiveness measured when you retire, let's say at age sixty-five?

In the Sunday, July 16, 2000, issue of my local paper, the Arizona Republic, an article included the following statistic: "About 700,000 seniors will be cut from their Medicare Choice HMOs according to a survey released earlier this month by the American Association of Health Plans."

The article went on to state that providing health care for senior citizens was too expensive and was not profitable for insurance companies, so senior citizens are being dropped from supplemental health care protection. The health care problem for seniors will only increase, as seventy-five million baby boomers hit that age bracket in the next ten years.

Health Education and Welfare Stats

Based on a study performed by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, of every one hundred people at age sixty-five, one is rich, four are comfortable, five are still working, fifty-six are needing government support or family support, and the rest are dead.

It is not becoming the one rich person that this book is about. It is the fifty-six who still need someone else to support them I am concerned about. I do not want you or your child to wind up in that big statistic.

People often say to me, "I won't need much money when I retire because when I retire, my living expenses go down." While it is true that your living expenses may go down after you retire, there is one thing that often goes up dramatically, and that is health care. And that is why the HMOs (health maintenance organizations) in the previous article are cutting seniors from supplemental medical coverage. Senior citizens are just too expensive to cover. In the next few years it will be clear that health care will literally be a life-and-death issue for millions of older people. Putting it bluntly, if you have money, you may live; and if you don't have money, you may die.

The question is, Did these senior citizens' education prepare them for this financial challenge at the end of their lives?

The next question is, What does the plight of these senior citizens have to do with your child's education?

There are two answers to these two questions.

Answer number one is that it is your child who will ultimately have to pay for the health care of these millions of senior citizens if they cannot pay for it themselves.

Answer number two is another question: Will your children's education prepare them to be financially secure enough not to need government financial and medical support at the end of their working days?

The Rules Have Changed

In the Industrial Age, the rules were go to school, get good grades, find a safe, secure job with benefits, and stay there all your life. After twenty years or so you retire, and the company and the government take care of you for the rest of your life.

In the Information Age, the rules have changed. The rules now are go to school, get good grades, find a job, and then retrain yourself for that job. Find a new company and a new job and retrain. Find a new company and a new job and retrain, and hope and pray you have enough money set aside to last you much longer than age sixty-five because you will live well beyond the age of sixty-five.

In the Industrial Age, the defining theory of the era was Einstein's E = mc[2]. In the Information Age, the defining theory of the era is Moore's law, which spawned the current ideology that the amount of information doubles every eighteen months. In other words, to keep up with change, you need to virtually relearn everything every eighteen months.

In the Industrial Age, change was slower. What you went to school to learn was valuable for a longer period of time. In the Information Age, what you know becomes obsolete very quickly. What you learned is important, but not as important as how fast you can learn, change, and adapt to new information.

Both my parents grew up during the Great Depression. For them job security was everything, which is why there was always a little bit of panic in their voice when they said, "You must go to school so you can get a safe, secure job." In case you have not noticed, today jobs are plentiful. The challenge is not to get left behind because you become obsolete working at your current job.

Other subtle yet significant changes between the ages:

In the Industrial Age, the employer was responsible for your retirement plan.

In the Information Age, the employee is responsible. If you run out of money after age sixty-five, it is your problem, not the company's problem.

In the Industrial Age, you became more valuable the older you got.

In the Information Age, you become less valuable the older you get.

In the Industrial Age, people were employees for life.

In the Information Age, more people are now free agents.

In the Industrial Age, the smart kids went on to become doctors and lawyers. They made the big bucks.

In the Information Age, the people who make the big bucks are the athletes, actors, and musicians. Many of the doctors and other professional people are actually making less than they did in the Industrial Age.

In the Industrial Age, you could count on the government to bail you out if you and your family got in financial trouble.

As the Information Age begins, we hear more and more politicians promising to save Social Security and other government safety net programs. You and I are smart enough to know that when politicians begin to make promises to save something, the chances are what they are proposing to save is already gone.

When change occurs there is typically resistance. In the last few years there are many examples of people recognizing the opportunities that arise during a period of change.

1. Bill Gates became the richest man in the world because the older men at IBM failed to see the market and the rules changing. Because of these older executives' failure to see these changes, the investors in IBM literally lost billions of dollars.

2. Today we have Information Age companies, started by twenty-year-olds, buying Industrial Age corporations run by forty-five-year-olds (AOL and Time Warner are two examples).

3. Today we have twenty-year-olds becoming billionaires because forty-five-year-old executives failed to see the opportunities the twenty-year-olds saw.

4. Today we have twenty-year-old self-made billionaires who have never had a job, and at the same time we have forty-five-year-olds who are starting over, retraining for a new job.

5. It is said that in the near future, the individuals will go on-line and bid for jobs rather than apply for jobs. It is said that people who want jobs longer than a year (greater security) will have to accept less money for that security.

6. Instead of hoping to find a good job with a big company, more and more students are starting their own businesses in their dorm rooms. Harvard University even has a special office that assists students in developing their incubator businesses -- touted as a way to help them build the business, but more likely intended as an incentive to keep them in school.

7. And at the same time, half of the employees of one of America's largest employers earn so little that they qualify for food stamps. What will happen to these employees when they are too old to work? Was their education adequate?

8. Home schooling is no longer a fringe form of alternative education. Today the number of kids being educated at home is increasing by 15 percent per year.

9. More and more parents are seeking other educational systems, such as the Catholic system, Waldorf, or Montessori, just to remove their children from an antiquated government-run educational system that does not cater to their child's needs. More and more parents realize that their child's early education is as important to a child's development as college is.

Super Camp is a shorter-term, intensive learning environment utilizing the latest teaching techniques to improve test scores and increase a teen's self-confidence. It is sponsored by the Learning Forum and can be found at www.supercamp.com.

10. Simply put, the Information Age will bring economic changes that will dramatically increase the gap between the haves and have-nots. For some people, these changes will be a blessing; for others, these coming changes will be a curse; and for still others, these changes will make no difference at all. As my rich dad said, "There are people who make things happen; there are people who watch things happen; and there are people who say, 'What happened?' "

Education is more important than ever before because things will be changing faster than we have ever seen before. For the first time in history, those who do well in school may face the same economic challenges as those who did not do well. All of us need to pay attention when our bankers ask for our financial statements rather than our report cards. Your banker is trying to tell you something. This book is about what your children need to learn for personal and financial success in the real world.

Is the education your children are receiving today adequately preparing them for the future they face?

Is the school system catering to the special needs of your child?

What do parents do if their child dislikes school or is doing poorly in school?

Do good grades insure lifelong professional and financial success?

Does your child even need to go to a traditional brick-and-mortar school in order to receive the education he or she needs?

Whom Is This Book For?

This book is written for parents who realize that the world has changed and suspect that our current system of education may not be adequately catering to the special needs of their children. This book is written for parents who are willing to take a more active role in their child's education, rather than leave the responsibility to the school system.

It is written to assist parents in preparing for the real world... the world after school is over. It is written specifically for parents who:

want to give their child a financial head start in life without costing them a fortune.

want to insure that their child's natural genius and learning style are protected and their child leaves school excited about being a lifelong learner.

may have a child who does not like school or a child who is having difficulty learning in school.

All of the above.

How This Book Is Organized

This book is written in three parts.

Part I is an overview of education both academic and financial. Those who have read my other books already know that I had two father figures in my life. One man I called my rich dad was my best friend Mike's dad; and one man I called my poor dad was my real dad. The benefit I had was that both men were geniuses in their own right. The man I call my poor dad in my opinion was an academic genius and educator. After the age of nine I began having serious problems in school. I did not like what I was learning and how I was being taught. I saw no relevance between what I was being forced to learn and how I could apply it to the real world.

Part I of this book was how my smart but poor dad continued to guide me through this very difficult part of my life. If not for my smart dad, I would have dropped or flunked out of school and never would have gone on to graduate with my college degree.

Part I of this book is also about the educational process my other dad, rich dad, put me through. I would say my rich dad was a financial genius and also a great teacher. In part I of this book I explain how rich dad began preparing my young mind to think like a rich person. Between the ages of nine and twelve and because of my rich dad's guidance, I was absolutely certain that I would attain great wealth, whether or not I did well in school or got a high-paying job. By the age of twelve I knew that becoming rich had little to do with what I was learning in school. Knowing I was going to be rich, regardless of how I did in school, did create some unique attitude problems for me while I was still in school. Part II of this book is how both dads worked to keep my attitude problem in check and guided me to complete my college education.

Part II is about some simple action steps, academically and financially, parents can take to begin preparing their child for the real world. I begin part II with a story of how I almost failed high school because of my changes in attitude about school. In part II you will begin to gain further insights into how my smart dad and rich dad kept me in school and how my rich dad used my academic failures to prepare me to become rich.

In part II my rich dad explains to me why his banker never asked him for his report card. My rich dad goes on to say, "My banker has never asked me if I had good grades. All my banker wants to see are my financial statements. The problem is, most people leave school not knowing what a financial statement is." Rich dad would also say, "Understanding how financial statements work is essential for anyone wanting to build a life of financial security." And in today's world of less and less job security, it is essential that your child have the skills to insure a life of financial security.

When you look at an overview of the current educational system, it is obvious that the system focuses on two main areas of education:

Scholastic Education: the ability to read, to write, and to do arithmetic.

Professional Education: the education to become a doctor, lawyer, plumber, secretary, or whatever you want to do to earn money once you leave school.

America and many Western nations have done an excellent job in making these two fundamental types of education available to their citizens. This education has contributed greatly to the advantage the West has in the world today. The problem is, as stated previously, the rules have changed. In the Information Age, we need more new education, not more of the same education. Each and every student now needs some of the basic education my rich dad gave me:

Financial Education: the education required to turn the money you earn from your profession into lifelong wealth and financial security. The financial education those seven hundred thousand senior citizens didn't have. The financial education that will help insure that your child does not wind up a financial failure late in life or financially destitute and alone after a life of raising a family and working hard.

The reason your banker does not want to see your report card is that he or she wants to see how smart you are after you leave school. He or she wants to see a measure of your financial intelligence, not your scholastic intelligence. Your financial statement is a much better measure of your financial intelligence than your report card.

Part II has some simple, concrete examples of things parents can do to give their child a financial head start into the real world of jobs and money.

Part III is about some of the latest technological breakthroughs in education that will enhance parents' ability to find their child's natural learning ability and natural genius. Part III is about giving your child an academic head start.

Years ago one of Albert Einstein's teachers scoffed and said, "He will never amount to anything." Many teachers thought him dull-witted because of his failure to learn by rote memorization.

A year later in his life, when Einstein was told that a prominent inventor declared that fact knowledge was vitally important, Einstein disagreed. He said, "A person does not need to go to college to learn facts. He can learn them from books. The value of a liberal arts college education is that it trains the mind to think." He also said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

While being questioned by a group of reporters, one asked, "What is the speed of sound?" Einstein replied, "I don't know. I don't carry information in my mind that is readily available in books."

Almost every parent I have met is certain that his or her child is smart and a genius. When that child reaches school, however, the child's natural genius is often shoved aside or takes a subordinate role to the single genius and single learning style emphasized by the educational system as the right way to learn. My smart dad and many other educators realize that the current school system does not cater to the various different geniuses that children are born with.

It is unfortunate that our current educational system is mired in controversy and old ideas. While our current system may be aware of many of these educational breakthroughs, the politics and red tape surrounding the profession of education prevent many of these new innovative ways of assessing your child's genius from becoming part of the system.

My smart dad was the head of the educational system of Hawaii. He did his best to change the system but was crushed by the system instead. He later said to me, "There are three different types of teachers and administrators in the system. There is one group that works diligently to change the system. There is another group that works diligently against any kind of change. And the third group does not care if the system changes or not. All this group wants is their job security and their paycheck. And that is why the system has remained the same for years."

In Conclusion

It was my smart dad who often said, "A child's most important teachers are his or her parents. Many parents say to their children, 'Go to school and study hard. A good education is important.' The problem is that many parents who say these words do not continue with their own education or studies." My smart dad also said, "Parents are the child's most important teachers... but students learn by watching more than they do by listening. Children are tuned in to watching for discrepancies between words and actions." Children love to catch parents saying one thing and doing something else. My rich dad used to say, "Your actions speak louder than your words." He also said, "If you want to be a good parent, you need to walk your talk."

If you have children, I thank you for taking an interest in a book on education and an interest in your children's education. Most parents say their child's education is important, but few pick up books on educating their children.