I recently finished Alan Greenspan’s “The Age of Turbulence.” I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend it to you. The end of the book is a prediction of where America will be in the year 2030. There were several different variables such as the rule of law, property rights, terrorism, etc. One of the largest variables that he did not have the answer to was the quality of education at the primary and secondary levels in American schools.

He noted how the United States has the best Universities in the world but that our primary and secondary education levels are so poor that it will force the quality of our universities to be lowered in order to teach an ever more increasingly unprepared group of high school graduates. As this happens there will be fewer and fewer people capable of filling the higher skilled jobs pushing their wages up and there will be more and more people capable of filling the lower skilled jobs pushing those wages down thus increasing the wage gap between the wealthy and poor leading to social and economical problems that could be very costly for us.

His book was in part a request for our country to put a higher priority on education. There are certainly some critical improvements we can make in our education system that Chairman Greenspan makes and which I would endorse. However, I give it as my opinion that those changes alone will not correct the problem that he foresees.

I would like to go a step further. The real source of problems in education is not in the structure, pay, or performance of our educators. The source of the problem is the homes our children are coming from. The problem is a deterioration of the family. Here are just a few statistics to strengthen my point:

1. 35% of Children live in single parent or blended family homes (a majority of whom are living below the poverty line)

2. Parents who work full-time spend just 19 minutes every day "caring for [their] own children", according to the survey. A further 16 minutes is spent looking after their children as a "secondary activity", like when parents do grocery shopping or cook. Although this is a UK stat – I know our numbers are not much better.

3. 54% of all married couples are both employed (if all of these families have children, then half of America is being raised by daycare providers – not to mention the single parent households).

4. 37% of all births are to unmarried mothers

5. There are 5.5 million unmarried couples living together

6. Fatherless homes account for 63% of youth suicides, 90% of homeless/runaway children, 85% of children with behavior problems, 71% of high school dropouts, 85% of youths in prison, well over 50% of teen mothers.

How can we ever expect to produce a better society without better homes? It’s a “no brainer” – we simply can’t do it. We may train great teachers but if the students coming into their classes are sad, troubled, depressed, rebellious, dysfunctional, irresponsible, disrespectful, law breaking, drug using, sex crazed, thrill seeking kids – the best teachers in the world will fail to prepare them for adulthood. That is the parent’s responsibility – educators only support the family in those duties only they can do. The family is the fundamental unit of society and its integrity, stability and happiness must be promoted and preserved at all costs.

What does America’s Future Depend on? It depends on you and your spouse loving each other and loving your children enough to put each other and them first. It depends on you being less selfish and more selfless. It depends on you honoring your marital vows. It depends on you abiding by moral law. It depends on you putting your family first. Your family depends on it. You depend on it. And in my opinion, America depends on it. This doesn't mean enduring physical or emotional abuse on the part of our spouse and sadly there is too much of that in our time. This does mean though doing our utmost to honor our vows until death do we part. What will the world look like in 2030? It’s up to us to decide.