No, that's not how long it feels like listening to Boeing moan over losing the KC-X tanker contract (although no one would blame you for thinking that).

2 Million Minutes is the title of a new documentary, named for the approximate amount of time a student spends in high school. The push of the film is twofold: to compare those 2 million minutes from the perspectives of students in the U.S., China and India; and to exclaim loudly that the U.S. education system is broken - that it is incapable of generating the amount of engineers, scientists and technologists the U.S. economy requires to compete and thrive in the global bouillabaisse.

Check out the trailer for a great introduction.

Now, anyone would have to be a fool or asleep not to agree - at least partly - with this premise. The clues are all around us. Recently, Bill Gates testified before the U.S. Congress on the need for increased funding for math and science education and revised immigration regulations for the U.S. to maintain its competitive edge.

I acknowledge that our education system is flawed. Our curricula and techniques are outdated, and we're slow to adjust. Students in countries that 20 years ago couldn't hold our abacus are catching up to us at an alarming rate.

But you know what? I don't buy it - at least, not the fact that the education system is solely to blame for this malaise. It's like saying guns kill people. Yes, they do. But a lot of things lead up to a killing, outside of - and just as important as - the action itself, or instrument used.

Look at manufacturing in the U.S. If you're reading this, odds are you're intimately familiar at how difficult it becomes every year to find talent for the shop floor. You know that it's not just the system that is failing us.

It's the culture, too. Mostly.

Fact is, the attraction isn't there. Fewer students are ENTERING school to become chemists, engineers, and computer scientists. Manufacturing is seen as a path best suited for mouth-breathing Luddites out of step with the times and technology. More now see the road to success paved with abstracts, leisure and bling. Our culture places less emphasis on space programs or smallpox vaccines. Parents, families, peers, media, government and, yes, our education system are ALL a bit out of whack.

2 Million Minutes is an important film, with an important message. Heading its warnings can do nothing but help us regain our competitive edge.

But we must acknowledge that the 2 million minutes BEFORE these 2 million minutes are just as important to this cause. Otherwise, we're whistling in the dark.