As families enjoyed the holiday break, a fierce debate over immigration, foreign labor, and the role of the H-1B visas took the internet by storm after Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman and advisor to incoming President Donald Trump, issued a blunt criticism of modern American culture and its veneration of “mediocrity over excellence.”

Until we rectify our misguided cultural priorities, he argues, companies will continue hiring workers from countries where achievement and excellence are valued.

There is certainly truth to this perspective. But the reason for America’s decline on the global stage is not primarily social or cultural — the root cause lies in a faltering public education system. North Carolina is no exception in this regard. The data shows that many students here are simply not prepared to compete in top STEM fields after graduation, let alone to read at grade level.

For starters, less than 30% of eighth graders are considered on track for college and career readiness in math, according to the NC Department of Public Instruction’s (DPI) latest annual testing report. The on-track rate for third graders is about 41%, showing a decline in math preparedness as students get older and face more challenging material.

We know that math is a foundational skill for technology, engineering, and financial roles, not to mention a necessity in daily life. Its basis in problem-solving and logic makes it the backbone of virtually all programming and software positions. But given these outcomes, how can we expect graduates to compete for these jobs or succeed in high-demand fields?

Workforce readiness is further undermined by our reading scores. The same DPI report shows that most eighth and third graders are reading below the level necessary to be on track for college or a career. Less than 30% in both grades meet this mark. And with the exception of a 0.1% bump for eighth-grade students, year-over-year results in this category did not change.

Now understand that roughly 1.4 million North Carolina students (roughly three in four) attend traditional public schools. Even as school choice options like the Opportunity Scholarship program gain popularity, the reality is that most parents will enroll their kids in their neighborhood public school.

Zooming out, the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) — which ranks countries based on students’ math, science, and reading performance — places the United States just above average among a list of 81 nations. We lag well behind other industrialized countries such as China, Japan, Canada, the United Kingdom.

To regain our competitive edge and prepare future generations for success — both in life and career — we must embed achievement into every facet of public education.

School board members, as chief policymakers in their districts, are uniquely positioned to lead this institutional reform. Their authority over curriculum selection, hiring superintendents, resource allocation, and academic goalsetting make them the key driving force behind educational transformation.

On the question of labor, North Carolina is in the top half of states issuing H-1B visas. Created in 1990, the program lets companies temporarily hire foreign workers to fill high-skill roles, often in the tech industry. Over 122,000 visa beneficiaries have been approved to work jobs in North Carolina since 2009.

With its location in the Research Triangle, IBM Corporation has been the largest user of the program in recent years, with 2,906 visa beneficiaries approved for employment in fiscal year 2024 alone. Bank of America, Truist Bank, and the Lowes Corporation are among the other major companies issuing visas in the state.

However you may feel about these visas, they are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. President-elect Trump last month called himself a believer in the H-1Bs and described it as a “great program.” If North Carolinians are to succeed in this hyper-competitive environment, we must prioritize a rigorous education system that produces the most skilled, innovative, and prepared students in the world.