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The so-called skills gap is really a gap in education, and that affects all of us.

What out country is facing right now is a skills gap.

It's not enough to train today's workforce. We also have to prepare tomorrow's workforce by guaranteeing every child access to a world-class education.

The biggest barrier we've seen to student progress is this: School policies and practices often prevent good teachers from doing great work and even dissuade some talented Americans from entering the profession. This needs to change.

We are now living in a fast paced technological era where every skill that we teach our children becomes obsolete in the 10 to 15 years due to exponentially growing technological advances.

Who knows what technology will emerge in the next five years, let alone 20. Yet the education we provide our children now is supposed to last for decades. We cannot train them for jobs that do not even exist yet, but we can provide them with the minds and tools they'll need to adapt to our ever-changing set of circumstances.

There is a huge gap between what students want for their future and what their schools are offering.

This is not a skill problem, this is a will problem. Does America have the will to make education a priority? We know the things that work. Why don't we scale up those things that do work.

Your kids are going to do well in the workplace of the future if they can bring creativity, if they can bring some innovation, if they can bring some entrepreneurialism.

Obstacles, of course, are developmentally necessary: they teach kids strategy, patience, critical thinking, resilience and resourcefulness.