What shall we do to save the generation of Innovators?

Education should be a lifetime experience, not limited to the youth years. Educators are switching to test because there is a crisis in education of their own making and society wants measurable results. This pressure is passed on to political leaders who base political decisions on what is measurable, which is academic test and test are based on acceptance of the status quo. Ever student must now accept the status quo and be an academic intellectual or be labeled a failure. Natural talent and knowledge processing skills does not count. Students receiving the failure label are growing in numbers and percent, all because the system measures selected knowledge on a one day standardized paper test.
Fact: Self-made millionaires are not "A" students in the classroom. The way they process knowledge is in conflict with classroom priorities. The self-made millionaire has a vision, then he researches specific knowledge, applies intuitive knowledge and process all the elements, searching for a workable solution. Finding alternative ways to do common tasks makes millionaires. The secret is vision, research and processing, not pre stored knowledge.
The student population is exploding while qualified teachers are leaving the system. It takes an experienced teacher, with curriculum freedom, to inspire a motivating vision in students.
The education industry and their view of a success personality, is destroying the potential of many teenagers who should be focusing on their natural talent. But... Who can argue against high academic standards? Society has bought the education establishment's belief that every teenager can, and must, learn academics in passive classroom environments before given opportunity. Because society has accepted the industry's version of a success personality, the education monopoly is gaining strength and the high school dropout problem is growing. It is in the industry's interest to keep all students, including non-performers, in the system and under their control. With no opposing forces, society has embraced the opinion that academic achievement is the ONLY path to success. For some they are right, for others they are wrong.
Why do some high school dropouts become self-made millionaires? Do they hold the secret to a success personality? Consider that their skills were NOT molded by classroom environments. Society says these people should never have found success.
What do these self-made millionaires have that many highly educated people don’t have?
What are the characteristics of high school dropouts that go on welfare and those who find success?
True education is based on inspiration and motivation, not memorization. Education based on standardized test (memorization) does not inspire or motivate, it serves the goals of the formal education bureaucracy.
Today, government controls in the classroom and standardized testing threatens passing students as well as failing students. As a result, the young generation is entering a phase where they are learning how to unit and fight the system. In the past, government policies negatively affected failing students and they left the system, now it affects all.
Federal and state governments are increasing regulations in the classroom, which are based on the acceptance of the status quo. Only the status quo can be measured, not creative thinking or other forms of education. As pressure increases for students to accept the status quo, an increasing number will rebel and fight the system. Their subconscious tells them their creative freedom is being taken away and the outward expression is to fight back. They do not understand what they are fighting, other than the system builds unbearable stress. They give into stress or fight it.
Because of government policies, the number of at-risk youth will grow and the number of creative thinkers (visionaries) will shrink. As the government increases controls over the classroom, many A & B students will lose interest in classroom education, give up the effort and enter the at-risk category. Students who are good at memorizing and accept the status quo will be rewarded.
Our high schools are designed to prepare students for college, not the world most will enter. Parents are influenced by society and they want their children to reflect the ideal for success, that is, academics with music lessons on the side, becoming a polished professional, achieving a status that can change the world. Parents want the education system to maintain high standards so their child has opportunity to achieve this ideal. This sounds great in theory - one out of a thousand will achieve that ideal. The problem is, this standard robs non-college students’ job skills they need to enter the real world.
From the beginning of man to the late 1800s, an educational institution was the only source of information and attending them was the only way to acquire information. Times have changed. Today, we are an information society with hundreds of sources of information. Last year’s facts, or yesterday’s, may not have any value today. Skills learned today will soon become obsolete and new skills must be mastered. For this reason, knowing how to learn, search for and acquire information is more valuable than being a learner-of-facts. Because most high schools students enter the work force, their knowledge should be measured by their ability to acquire information and turn it into useful knowledge rather than their ability to memorize. For some licensed professions such as lawyers and doctors, learner-of-facts is a necessity.
Society is now drugging our youth with behavior control pills, nulling the skill that makes them creative. They learn to accept the status quo. This new generation may make a comfortable living, but they will have lost the ability to be an innovator. Soon, the world will have a generation of people who can earn "A's" in the classroom, but have no vision in the real world.
Our society values academic achievement above all other skills. In the classroom, creativity, love-to-learn, accepting risk, learning from failures, motivation, and aggressiveness are replaced by dependency on authority, indifference, embracing the status quo, and accepting the follow-the-crowd mentality. Behavior control drugs are forcing students to accept the teachers' view of success while destroying the next generation of entrepreneurs.
The Roman Empire was built by very intelligent people. They developed technology that allowed them to control the known world. They were also wealthy, which led to their downfall. For example, they love to drink wine and wine for the wealthy was stored in lead bottles. Slowly, over generations, they were poisoned by lead in the wine. Their creativity was subdued, their desire-to-learn was turned off and finally they feared risk. When indifference replaced innovation, they were easily conquered by people using low technology weapons
People who have a vision control their destiny and lifestyle. For people without a vision, their destiny and lifestyle is controlled by others.
What is success, money or a desired lifestyle? Our society measures success with money. A lifestyle of personal achievement is real success - money is a reward or byproduct.

To start, your need a vision of the person you want to be.
Being debt free and living a dynamic lifestyle sounds great to all of us. The reason most people only wish and do not act is because they have no clear vision of the person they want to be. All they know is they want more money. Without a clear vision, nothing is going to happen. Most people, in their youth, had a vision, but family and friends killed ambitions by making a mockery of their ideas. The pressure to be socially acceptable was strong and they gave up the dream, then the realities of adult responsibility sealed their fate.
For people without a vision, the best way to start is to go back to their youth and dig up old dreams. Start researching and see where they lead.
Classroom education is needed to meet employer's hiring qualifications. Classroom education is NOT needed to become a super achiever. Project base education is a natural builder of super achievers.
A person, who depends on classrooms for education, depends on someone to promote them. A person who can educate themselves will promote themselves.
All youth enter the teen years with visions of doing great things. For at-risk students, these visions are out of step with the formal education system. Society pressures them to give up wild visions and accept the status quo, which includes goals achieved with a college education. As a result, student's natural talent, desires and social pressure are on a collision course. The teenager does not know how to cope and gives up all ambition.
The argument is that teens need to learn basic skills for the adult world. High schools are designed to prepare students for college, not the adult world most will enter. For blue-collar trades, high level of academics is not necessary. Pushing high academic achievement on blue-collar types produces negative results. Many academic subjects can be delayed to a later time in life when there is a need to know. This is the way the system works in the adult world, why not let teenagers join it instead of fight it? If there was less pressure on academics, at-risk students could pursue natural talents that would lead them to a productive lifestyle in the blue-collar world.