K-12 and the board game Go
Generations of K–12 students can become naturals at the ancient board game Go—a non-violent strategy game where a cup of tiny stones has shaped Chinese culture for thousands of years. Far older than chess or checkers, Go is instantly playable yet endlessly deep.
China is a master of Go strategy—the United States is not. As history suggests, America’s leaders too often act reactively, rather than thinking a hundred moves ahead. Like Wile E. Coyote getting flattened by the Road Runner, we’re stunned by the beep! beep! only moments before impact.
Examples.
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Executive Branch
The President, National Economic Council, U.S. Trade Representative, and even the U.S. Department of Education (led by a presidentially appointed Secretary of Education) bear primary responsibility for overall U.S. economic strategy.
In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy took a relentlessly bold stance, urging Congress to confront the failure of the states in K–12 student performance. Kennedy was not seeking federal control of K–12 education, nor did a U.S. Department of Education exist. That agency would not be created nearly 17 years after his assassination–but the creation was a boondoggle (click this U.S. Department of Education link).
Kennedy’s vehement concern was that well-educated K–12 graduates formed the foundation of U.S. national strength — yet much of K–12 was being allowed to languish.There is no indication that Kennedy ever invoked or played the ancient game Go. Yet logically, if he and Congress had possessed a Go background, his message would have been understood instantly.
Indeed, the absence of Go-style thinking — long-range and anticipatory — is a precursor to nearly every major U.S. policy failure, not just in K–12 education.
From the 1970s onward, successive U.S. administrations emphasized trade liberalization and offshoring, benefiting China’s strategic position in the global economy — precisely hundreds of million of seven- and eight-year old Go masters in China might encircle an inattentive opponent. (And yet Go players passively surround and America’s checker players agressively attack.)
Strategic self-sufficiency in manufacturing and critical industries was sacrificed for short-term efficiency.
Congress
Nearly two decades after President Kennedy’s assassination, Congress established the U.S. Department of Education (herein, the DOE). Yet the founding legislation made the agency virtually ineffective in changing nationwide K–12 performance from bad to excellent.
The leginslation had no mechanism to dramatically raise student outcomes—no Go‑like understanding for a winning K-12 national strategy.
That is, beyond K–12, Congress—regardless of which party was the majority—failed to craft a coherent industrial or manufacturing policy (as if unaware of Go strategy).
Department of Commerce
The Commerce Department—through its International Trade Administration and Bureau of Industry and Security—is charged with protecting critical industries and supply chains. Yet for decades, it prioritized trade expansion over industrial resilience. An incredible victory for China, U.S. leadership sacraficed self-sufficiency or short-term efficiency! Beep! Beep!
Busted. It took the shock of COVID 19 to publicly shame this strategic blunder, as semiconductor shortages revealed America’s dangerous dependence on fragile global supply chains.
Department of War
For decades, the Pentagon relied on global markets—especially Chinese suppliers—under the mistaken belief that critical materials would remain perpetually available within global supply chains.
Busted. This strategic error received glaring public exposure recently when bipartisan (reactive) pressure pushed the Department to invest in domestic rare-earth mining and refining through the Defense Production Act.
Military recruitment is a responsibility, although each branch of service has its own recruiting command.
Busted. Although current post-draft applicant numbers meet official objectives, another vital metric is subset selectivity, a genuine Go issue that demands broad population engagement and an educated, trainable post K-12 applicant pool several times larger than exists today, a pool size indispensable in containing a uniquely capable subsets–such as for operating and maintaining advanced warfare systems.
Busted. That said, the Department of War failed to recognize its interconnected role within the national Go strategy, neglecting its responsibility to confront chronic failings in the K–12 system as exposed by Department of Education NAEP results–rather, half or more or the nation’s K-12 graduates cannot read, write, or do math at minimum NAEP proficiency. This systemic weakness cripples both military and industrial workforce pipelines—a challenge similarly overlooked by the Department of Labor, whose mission is fundamentally dependent on competent, responsible K–12 outcomes.
Department of Labor (DOL)
Cross-agency collaboration is essential. As in Go, the whole is dependent on the coordination of its parts–in this case, the other agencies.
The Department of Labor’s (DOL) success, for instance, is fundamentally linked to the quality and quantity of the nation’s homegrown workforce, which is directly determined by nationwide K-12 student performance. High workforce readiness depends on strong K-12 outcomes, as measured in part by assessments such as the NAEP. Therefore, it is incumbent upon the DOL to continually confront the Department of Education (DOE) and its leadership regarding K-12 deficiencies and to advocate for radical reform in nationwide student performance.
Busted. The DOL’s failure to agressivlely influence the success of the K-12 pipeline undermines the DOL homegrown workforce mission. (The DOL, like any other federal agency, has the opportunity to fulfill its due diligence as it considers sponsorship of the HSe4Metrics platform.)
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Busted. For pharmaceuticals, HHS and the FDA indirectly fueled national crisis conditions–by not just allowing, but encouraging–foreign manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). (Would a Go strategy have allowed this?)
Today, the U.S. depends on imports for 70–80% of key drug ingredients. This shift wasn’t driven by corruption but by regulatory cost pressures and the absence of a national industrial strategy —again, beep! beep!
Where was the fostering domestic capacity? Where was aligning regulations and incentives with long-term national interests?
Department of Education (DOE)
Busted. The Department of Education’s founding legislation by Congress did not focus on hard-numbers or on a hard-number rewrite of nationwide K-12 student performance. Click the U.S. Department of Education link.
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