We often talk about the benefits of entrepreneurship beyond business creation. In this recent piece from Worth.com, we see a thoughtful examination of why entrepreneurial tendencies are beneficial to our children and how we can start to nudge them towards being more entrepreneurial.

Reframing failure as a learning opportunity, enabling our kids to try new things (and saying no less), and a DIY mentality are just a few of the bits of wisdom this piece has to offer.

Going beyond how we can improve our children's lives with entrepreneurial thinking, let's look at how formal learning structures add entrepreneurship to their efforts.

In the state of Florida, colleges and workforce development centers are looking beyond technical training to develop the 21st-century skills employers now demand in an effort to emphasize "human skills" in their CTE programs. 

"...human skills matter to employers just as much as technical skills. Maybe even more."

How are Florida CTE program providers leveraging state and federal resources to make this shift? How can other states do the same? Find out more in this guest piece for EdNote.

As we think about raising children and shifting how we educate them, it is essential to look at how we measure their education. Over the last decade, much has been said about US education standards called "Common Core."

In this piece published by the Brookings Institute, we see a plethora of reasons why these standards are not shaping up for the needs of 21st-century society. For one thing, the standards do not adequately account for the socio-economic gap many students encounter before they enter school.

If we are going to emphasize the empowering nature of entrepreneurship, we also have to examine the inequity students of all ages face. 

"It’s time to invest resources in improving the basic science of education—including the discovery of new, effective instructional strategies and curricula that boost learning. Scientific discovery, not standards-based regulation, should be the dominant theme of the next era of education reform."

Thinking about the question of equity, let's expand our discussion beyond childhood development and education.

Women-led ventures have been hit hard by COVID-19, but even before the pandemic, they have experienced a significant lack of representation in venture-backed investment. Despite their typically higher rate of return, women-led firms and inclusive investment teams represent less than 4% of the venture capital landscape. This is a problem.

This is a problem not only from a pure equity standpoint (dealing fairly and equally with all concerned) but also from the benefits of a diverse market. "[O]n average, companies with more diverse leadership teams report almost 20% higher revenue from innovation." If it is not only just, fair, and right, but also beneficial to all, what is keeping us from investing in more diverse businesses? 

Jump off of the idea that women-led firms and VC teams increase innovation in a modern context; we would like to close with a thought-provoking piece on the importance of equality for society as a whole.

"Sometimes in the debates about how to improve equality in our society, the reason why we should desire equality gets lost. In his classic text The Subjection of Women, John Stuart Mill explains why equality is critical for solving the world’s problems—because it allows everyone to decide how they can best contribute to society."

While this piece focuses on the detriment to society of continued subjection of women in the mid-19th century, it makes very compelling cases for the importance of equality as a whole. Greater opportunity is, of course, implied, but also "[t]he more equal we are in our freedom to choose how we can contribute to society makes it more likely that the best contributions will be realized."