Rattled by Indian kids, Obama calls for revamping U.S. education

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Silicon India

Apparently rattled by the competitive edge that Indian and Chinese students possess over U.S. students, President Barack Obama has emphasized the need for improving the country's education system. Obama said that Indian and Chinese kids spend more time in school and less time playing "video games", indirectly hinting at the U.S. culture where the country's kids are not as obsessed with their studies as their Indian counterparts."The Chinese, the Indians are coming at us and they are coming at us hard, and they are hungry and they are really buckling down," Obama said at a town hall meeting in neighboring Wisconsin.


Read more: http://www.siliconindia.com/shownews/Rattled_by_Indian_kids_Obama_calls_for_revamping_US_education-nid-58025.html

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http://www.ptinews.com/pti%5Cptisite.nsf/0/11E30D5FA4DE1BF1652575D3001FDDD2?OpenDocument

[One of Many]

1. He's right

They are hungry, determined, and in it to win it. We need to wake up.

[Xipe Totec]

11. Of course he is right!

We need to value education and respect teachers more.

Teaching is a noble profession, highly respected in India and China.

If we want to excel in scholarship, the first thing we need to do is reassess our priorities.

Ask yourself, why do coaches earn more than research PhDs?



and welcome to DU!

[wordpix]

64. I was teaching gr. 6 science this year and told not to teach metric math

It was "too hard" for my classes to learn how to move a decimal point and convert metric units. Geesh.

[JayMusgrove]

92. What idiot would tell a teacher not to teach metric?

That's crazy!

My relative's kids all knew about the metric system and the English system in 3rd grade. They live in CANADA!!!!!!!!!

[wordpix]

101. yes but this is the good ol' US so metric's not important. Sarcasm

[AlphaCentauri]

121. Ask Ronald Reagan

Within a year of taking office, Ronald Reagan quietly snuffed out the U.S. Metric Office. I asked Don Regan (before he passed away), Reagan's Treasury Secretary, "why did you guys stall metric conversion?" The reply I got was, "In 25 years, you're the first person who's asked me!!" It is suspected that metric conversion was viewed as a "Democratic" issue, rather than an economic trade issue.


http://nh.barackobama.com/page/community/post/pierrebierre/gGxDh7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrication_in_the_United_States

[stlsaxman]

135. Teaching metrics will lead to doing away with fractions! We can't have THAT now can we??

And this is only the "camel hoof" under the tent to European Socialism!

QUICKLY- how many millimeters is 19/32nds of an inch? SEE? It can't be done!

Metrics may be evil- but fractions are as stupid as six cans of black paint.

[Pirate Smile]

2. "Apparently rattled" - I guess they didn't hear him make this same point 20 plus times

during the campaign.

[No Elephants]

91. ? Story doesn't say this is the first time he's saying ths. It's just reporting on a recent speech.

[LuckyLib]

3. Asian countries also value teachers to the extent that in-class time is far less than in the US --

teachers need time to prepare, to plan, and to collaborate with colleagues. That is part of the profession. The US is WAY behind in understanding how to value teachers, and how to make school a larger part of a community's life.

[AlphaCentauri]

7. Also they make college education almost free, they value education in all aspects. n/t

[JI7]

15. this is a very big problem and might prevent many who want to start their own projects

from doing so after they graduate because they are so worried about having to pay off those huge loans.

[Frank Booth]

123. Tell that to the tens of millions of Chinese kids who can't even afford primary education.

I agree that college education here should be much more heavily subsidized, but up through 12th grade the US has incredible advantages over China and India.

Unfortunately, laziness (in students, parents and teachers) is culturally acceptable here.

[JDPriestly]

44. European school days in grade school are also shorter.

And beginning in first grade, the children do homework after school -- every day. At least that is the way it was in the early 1980s. I doubt that has changed.

In addition, the best students, those who do well in grade school, get to go to the academic high school. I'm not sure I agree with that system, but it does identify those who work hard early on and reward them (and their families) with the opportunity for further academic education. Less talented or less hardworking students in grade school go into apprenticeships or to business schools.

[wordpix]

65. no joke - I spent on average 10 hr./day, plus 10 hr. on wkends & many more when grades were due

This was for a "3/4" time position with low pay. I am leaving due to the exploitation.

[musette_sf]

4. if the H-1Bs i work with are any indication

i'm not all that worried.

we do need to get rid of the rote learning without context, though. just because India and China do this, is no reason for us to continue with NCLB.

[Igel]

63. Rote learning is good.

There's an important place for it, and it shows up later in school where kids simply don't know facts that they absolutely, positively need to know.

They can "think critically," but have no idea what to think, what to think about, or what the relevant facts are. Because withoput facts all you get with "critical thinking" is scepticism and, 9 times out of 10, fairly blind acceptance of what the teacher pushes. The kids, naturally, push back, but since they can't argue with the teacher's set of facts (having none of their none), they accede ... and the teacher declares his/her students critical thinkers! I've seen too many kids who were past masters at being critical and completely incapable of decently critiquing anything; they were generally intelligent, almost always stupid, and only rarely wise (then again, they were kids).

Context is important, but I suspect we'd disagree over what "context" is important.

[PfcHammer]

5. Math is hard.

What's on teevee?

[Deja Q]

88. Sesame Street. But I had to turn it off; trying to count to 10 was too hard...

:yoiks:

[CoffeeCat]

6. I'm sorry what???

I was watching a Spongebob marathon. Jellyfish Jam rocks!

Did I miss something about edumacation?

[notadmblnd]

8. obviously he's never spoken to any of their call center representatives

They're no more or no less intelligent than American kids. However, their use comes at a far less cost to corporate America, than our own children.

[AlphaCentauri]

10. they may not be more intelligent but, hey! some of them speak 2 or 3 languages n/t

[Larkspur]

13. India has like 15 different languages within its borders

so which ones are they speaking?

[AlphaCentauri]

19. I guess english and any other of the 15 languages

most US citizens would not qualify to work in a calling center taking calls in french or many other languages

[girl gone mad]

21. To be fair, the majority of Indian call center workers I've spoken with over the years..

weren't qualified to be taking calls in English.

[JDPriestly]

45. How true. Most of the foreign call center employees try very hard

to do a good job, but they just don't speak our language and dialect well enough to understand us and be understood by us. I recently called a company that had its call center in, I think, Georgia, U.S.A. The gentleman on the other end of the line was so competent and courteous. It was wonderful to order a product from an American.

[JerseygirlCT]

86. LOL, true. Very true. But then agin, I remember getting a

call center rep years ago who I think was from Louisiana. Had a heck of a time understanding her, too!

There probably was good reason that for years companies looked to call centers in the middle of the country - more easily understood by everyone.

[AlphaCentauri]

128. I remembered a customer from Barcelona was contacting one of those calling centers

they offered him two options spanish or english, he choosed spanish, english wasn't his native language, after a while trying to make sense of what he was listening he decided to hangup and call again to hit the english option. He got his problem solved but he had to recur to his broken english to communicate cos the person who was taking the calls in spanish had a poor spanish vocabulary.

[stlsaxman]

136. He "choosed" it?

[AlphaCentauri]

141. I knew it, spell checking was free, sorry n/t

[JerseygirlCT]

140. If you call Sirius for help (and I hope you never have to; absolutely the most aggravating

thing to do!), you'll reach the Phillipines. The operators speak English, but their accent is very very heavy. I've wondered whether I'd do better if I spoke Spanish. (Unfortunately, I don't).

Their English is quite colloguial, but it's hard to make out through the accent. And they will not, at any cost, reveal a US number to call!

[OhioChick]

71. Agreed. Those that I have worked with have a very hard time with English

To the point where it has cost the company $$$$ due to mistakes made.

[JerseygirlCT]

85. Yes, I think I'd probably sound a great deal less intelligent

if I were supposed to handle business transactions in Mandarin.

[No Elephants]

94. A company should not expect you to provide customer service to its Mandarin-speaking customers then.

At least, not without a translator.

[JerseygirlCT]

117. Oh no argument there. Just saying it's not necessarily a reflection of their

intelligence. And that as most Americans are just about fluent in one language, it's a bit arrogant to assume that ability in a second (or third, etc) language is a measure of intelligence.

[AlphaCentauri]

129. Exactly what I did say

:eyes:

[JI7]

17. i don't think the ones who do very well in math and science work in call centers

[Deja Q]

89. Exactly. Exploitation. On a grand scale.

[Ian David]

9. He's right. But have you seen their movies?? n/t

[AlphaCentauri]

12. what? they don't show silicon implants or plastic surgeries

LOL

[Lydia Leftcoast]

14. I don't know about Chinese or Indian kids

but Japanese kids play a lot of video games. Nintendo and Sony are Japanese companies, of course, and for younger translators who grew up with video games, translating them can be a lucrative line of work.

There are a couple of things about Japanese culture that should be mentioned. One is that teaching is a respected profession, one of the highest paid that a four-year graduate can get, and only the best students are allowed to be teachers. The other is that while elementary and junior high school is free and compulsory, with most people attending their neighborhood schools, high school admission is competitive, and everyone knows which high schools in a given area are for the academically talented and which are mere holding pens for teenagers. By tenth grade, therefore, the most capable students are in school only with other capable students.

[No Elephants]

95. Translating video games is different from only playing video games, though.

[bloomington-lib]

16. He is a very busy guy.

[Larkspur]

18. But other articles show that Indian students aren't smarter than Americans

Study Says H-1Bs Aren't the Best or Brightest, eWeek.com, May 12, 2008

India's Business Schools Out of Date, The Washington Post, May 3, 2009

I was laid off last year and my duties were taken over by an H-1B visa contractor from India's Patni company. He was a nice fellow, but he was no Einstein. He was just an ordinary programmer.

I sent the 2 articles above with a bunch others about H-1B visa abuse to my senator, Sen. Dodd, this week in a letter asking him to support the Durbin-Grassley http://durbin.senate.gov">H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act

[AlphaCentauri]

24. They can accomplish their college education with less resources

that must be a plus for them, many of them may not have a computer 24/7 at home or money to join a sorority club and still they get their college degree.

[OhioChick]

72. Good for you!

:thumbsup:

[DBoon]

20. maybe we should spend more on HS science labs than on football teams

and maybe we should stop this nonsense where being studious is considered a bad thing

I'd love to see the day when the winner of a HS physics competition gets the prestige and future earnings of a star HS football player

[BuelahWitch]

83. +1

:thumbsup:

[girl gone mad]

22. Nonsense.

Indian and Chinese workers aren't competing on intelligence, they're competing on cheaper pay.

Here is a great lecture from Ken Robinson on what's wrong with our schools:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

It has nothing to do with forcing children to learn more math or spend more time in subjects that were designed for the industrial age. Just the opposite, in fact.

I think we should be encouraging kids to study video games, if that's what interests them. It's a lucrative field.

[digidigido]

23. There's a certain willful ignorance in this response. If you think video games are

going to be what makes us grow as an economic power, and help cure cancer and lead us as a power into this millennium.

[notadmblnd]

27. have you said that to the military?

because they have entire programs based on video games of war machines to influence our kids.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

28. Actually, there's a fair amount that kids can learn from video games...

...if they play the right games.

Video games have enhanced and reinforced my kid's knowledge of history, science, and mathematics. While some games include less-than-optimum language skills, others have helped increase his vocabulary. His main incentive for learning to read, which he started doing at age 3, was the desire to be able to read video game instruction manuals.

Obviously, there has to be life beyond the video screen, but video and computer games can be valuable learning tools.

[No Elephants]

102. Yep. The right video games ARE educational. Some can help with exercise, too.

But, he was talking about games that use up time without educating.

[truedelphi]

34. That video was priceless. Great humorous touches and

I think if people on DU gave it a chance they would highly recommend it.

I loved the scenario of thinking about Shakespeare having a father.

And it is true - how is the current educational system geared? It is truly geared for the educating of future college professors. And art his point in history, we need a system which can greatly help everyone who is in school now come to terms with the task of synthesizing vast reams of knowledge and integrate it.

[Confusious]

36. You need math to make video games

Unless you intend to sit in your underwear on the couch until your 60 playing them.

[girl gone mad]

39. All the more reason to encourage kids to study them.

There are a lot of complex ideas involved in video game design. Psychology, art, math, physics. My son's love of video games is what first got him interested in math, architecture and computer programming.

[smitra]

41. One of my brightest students - mentioned in post # 30 - tells me...

... that he got 'hooked on programming' through playing the 'World of Warcraft'.

[Confusious]

43. Thats why I'm going back to school

And voluntarily taking calculus.

[OhioChick]

73. Bingo! "they're competing on cheaper pay." n/t

[Deja Q]

80. No arguments here; THAT is the "being able to compete" that corporations want.

[No Elephants]

99. Playing video games is different from studying tthem and both are different from making

money from video games. He is clearly addressing playing for the sake of playing, and to an extent that results in neglect of learning other things.

[RobinA]

120. In My ex High School

The Asian kids are competing on merit and winning all the academic awards. Born and raised here. Same teachers, same class size, same school. It's the attitude towards education.

[AlphaCentauri]

130. Yep, we need less educated consumers

:sarcasm:

[tblue37]

25. I teach college English. In spring semester, about 3/4 of my students are

international students straight out of the AEC (Applied English Center), where they learn to fucntion in English. When I get them in English 101, most of them can barely write or understand English. But some of them--especially those from China and Korea--work and study so hard that by the end of the semester, they are the ones that are earning As and Bs, while my Amercian students are still struggling to write beyond an 8th-grade level.

Furthermore, they think deeply and know stuff. They understand complex ideas, can reason logically, and have a knowledge of such things as world history, things that my American students are completely ignorant of.

Best of all, unlike American students they can tolerate having their work critiqued. They don't expect to get and A for mediocre work, and they are grateful for comments and corrections, rather than feeling insulted by them. They know I am putting in a lot of time to do all that commenting and correcting--and I don't have to do that much. I do a thorough analysis of all levels of their work: grammar and usage, sentence style, structural coherence, logical analysis of ideas, presentation of evidence (and credibility and specificity of said evidence), etc. They take my analysis and study it to improve their work on their next assignment, and the rapidity of their improvement is astonishing.

Meanwhile, even without understanding classroom lectures in their math and science courses very well, because at the start of their first term out of the AEC most don't comprehend spoken English well enough to follow a lecture that well, they are still acing their math and science courses, because although they can't follow the lectures or understand the English in their textbooks, they already know much of the material, because they studied it in 9th grade or so. (They find that our introductory college courses repeat material they learned much earlier--and do so in much less depth.)

At the same time that they are acing their calculus courses (Math 115 or 116), their American classmates are having to take remedial college algebra (Math 002)--usually more than once, since it can take two, three, four, or more times for an American freshman to pass college algebra. In fact, many of my American students never are able to pass it at our university. They end up having to take it at a junior college, because it's easier there.

We really do need to be worrying about how poorly served American students are by our educational system. It's not the teachers' fault. They are hogtied by a system in which they are not permitted to hurt students' feelings by giving them honest grades, and in which they must spend most of their time dealing with discipline problems or teaching to the standardized tests.

[Confusious]

37. Well, I know for a fact that people from the university take math

at a junior college here, and it has nothing to do with being easier. The tier 1 university has a shitty math department, and most of them complain about not being able to understand, or non-helpful, student teachers. The teachers at the community college I'm going to right now, 2 out of 2 teachers had PHD's, one in math and one in Physics, and were always willing to help.

[tblue37]

60. Yes, there is that, too. I hear from my students that our university's

math department's policies are not very student-friendly, and that their instructors are not that helpful, but I also hear from them that they find math easier at the junior colleges. I imagine that more helpful instructors might be one reason it is easier--but we are still talking about college algebra, Math 002 here, which my international students mostly mastered in junior high.

Of course, only part of the problem is that the students get away without taking enough math in junior high and high school, or when they do take it, they are passed along even if they don't master the subject. The other part is that math is often very badly taught at those levels, and students who have trouble are sort of considered expendable. They are not taught in a way that enables them to learn the material, so what they learn is that math cannot be learned--at least not by them. And of course our educational system accepts the idea that a significant percentage of our students will not be able to learn math well, so they allow that many of them to drop by the wayside.

Although I teach college English, I also tutor in most other subjects at all levels. I don't tutor math past 8th grade, though, because math has changed since I was in college (for example, I have never used a graphing calculator). I don't have time or energy to learn new material in a subject that is so far from my own areas of interest and professional concern.

But up to and including 8th grade, I do tutor math. I am the person parents bring their kids to when the kids are totally lost in science and math courses at the grade-school and middle school level. My experience has been that these kids can learn math and science, though it needs to be taught to them in a way that suits their individual learning patterns, not in the way that it is typically taught. But many of our math teachers teach the subject in just one way, and if that way doesn't work, they often cannot think of other ways to get the ideas across.

Furthermore, with all the pressures and demands on them, and the oversized classes, the math teachers just have the time to spend with a single student who might need many hours' worth of time and effort to discover which methods will work for them--and also to drill them adequately on material they have trouble with. I don't blame the teachers for that. There's just no way they could take the time to do what I do--and that parents pay me well to do. We are talking about children who might need many, many hours of drill just to learn basic math facts and be able to reliably reverse processes--at the elementary level. For example, I had one child who, as late as fourth grade, could not reliably say that if 8 + 4 = 12, then 4 + 8 = 12. She wasn't stupid. It's just that for her, the neurological patterning that enabled such recognition took longer than normal to develop. But our hours of drill helped that patterning along, and she ended up finally being able to do math, though it was never her strongest subject.


Also, the way our system is set up, a child who does not mature neurologically along the same timeline as her peers ends up being labeled a failure--in her own mind as well as in everyone else's--so that by the time her brain is ready to learn the material, she has already learned to believe with absolute conviction that she cannot learn that material. I see the same sorts of problems with children who are not able to master reading along the same timeline as their peers. Again, they are usually just late bloomers where those abilities are concerned, but by the time they are able to learn, they have learned to hate reading as the subject that makes them look stupid to everyone.

But instead of making sure that all our kids master reading, writing, and math, we pass them along with inflated grades. Even worse, the grades and pass/fail set-up means that if the kid is slower to learn material, he or she will be stigmatized and humiliated. At the same time, teachers have little authority to control discipline problems in their classrooms, because the administration and parents don't back them up. And the schools, like every other part of our society, glorify the social status athletic achievements of students over their academic achievements, and allow "nerds" to be bullied or ostracized for the crime of being smart.

BTW, if our students are passing math with curved grades in junior high or high school, originally 45% or 55% but pushed up to a D or low C level by a curve, then they are not mastering the foundational material, so all later material becomes increasingly incomprehensible.

The same thing is true in other subjects. I have seen students who got straight As in 2-4 years of high school Spanish show up in college unable to speak, write, or read the language at any level. Our university unwisely forces kids with that much high school language into 3rd-semester language courses, even though they cannot function even at the 1st-semester yet. They end up either failing the course or dropping it—and they often have to switch languages to fulfill their language requirement, since they are not allowed to take the 1st-semester language course in the language they have taken in high school. (I believe that language placement should rest entirely on a proficiency exam, since having taken high school language courses doesn’t guarantee that the student knows anything about the language in question.)

[No Elephants]

106. I went to school when teachers were giving honest grades, not teaching to standardized tests and

humiliating students at will. (I must admit I laughed to myself whenever my 7th grade teacher called the kid who sat in front of me in homeroom "cave dweller, but I bet it got old with him really fast.) The system was failing students then, too. Maybe in different ways, but it was failing students nonetheless.

I am not sure what the answers are, but I would not let all teachers (or all administrators or boards of education) completely off the hook. Nor a society whose priorities are so messed up that kids singing about killing cops and hitting bitches get obscenely rich, while teachers struggle to feed and house their families. I think there are many pieces to this.

[dickthegrouch]

26. The US education system is doomed without

DISCIPLINE.

I go to various schools as a Junior Achievement volunteer, teaching the students about various aspects of their lives in relation to their families, cities, states, and the world according to the specific age group. I am continually astonished at how little attention they pay to me, how often someone disrupts the proceedings and how many of them get sent for timeouts.

If you are a parent: it is YOUR responsibility to make sure YOUR child learns as much as he or she can. They will only do that if they are instilled with a sense of discipline before they even get to school.

I was taught to be very proud of my achievements and cajoled and even bullied into getting over some of the obstacles I had. The majority of today's kids are utterly pathetic in comparison, or fiercely endowed with a sense of achievement and they wrest what they need out of the education system in spite of it.

I know I could not be a teacher full time, it would drive me crazy in less than a year. I think the British system of segregating the achievers from the disrupters was a far better system than mixing all abilities and interests in together. (Of course they've abandoned it in favor of a similar system to the US one and no-one has benefitted).

If you do nothing else, teach your kids to listen to the teacher.

[Name removed]

118. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[truedelphi]

29. He is missing a serious point - jobs are going to INDIA and CHINA. Jobs are leaving the USA.

Kids do not have much interest in doing something that does not pay off.

Back in the early '00s, when I subscribed to The American Chemical Association and got its monthly or quarterly magazines, reading the letters to the editors was a very dismal prospect.

People with major degrees in the sciences were discussing that the jobs were gone - research laboratories had moved over to Shanghai and Singapore. And not only had their family incomes declined, and they fought off depression, but they saw their children dis-interested in the subjects that they had excelled at back when mom and dad worked.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that kids are not going to study hard if they have watched their 'parental units' laid off for years on end, even though those parents have spent a huge amount of time in post secondary schools learning valuable skills and knowledge.

[Deja Q]

104. Wholly agreed. How come we're seeing the obvious yet corporate and/or governmental units cannot?

Especially the right wing, who thinks corporate values can be tied in with family values, what with divorces being due to the stress brought about by finances and/or job losses... amongst other issues, but that pesky greedy money thing always gets in the way...

[smitra]

30. My graduating class this year had two American-born kids who can without question....

... be described as the best and the brightest.

I teach Computer Science at a state college in upstate NY, and we do not get the 'Einsteins'. Many of them could well be subject to the criticism leveled at American-born kids in this thread. But among the graduating class of 18 this year, I had two (not of ethnic Asian origin) who could easily beat out the best and brightest anywhere in the world. Their intelligence is not the question, but rather their dedication to the discipline and capacity for hard work. Very pleasant and polite kids too. One of them - who did not want to leave this area where jobs are rather hard to get - has been hired by a company that is supposedly on a 'hiring freeze'. And at a starting salary that is $ 2K higher than the upper end of the starting salary range they offer.

Somebody might say that these are the exceptions that prove the rule. I believe, though, that in many of the Asian countries too a graduating class will not consist of all geniuses and super-performers. A certain percentage will be, and maybe this percentage is higher than what a typical US class will contain. But I do not believe that it is the vast majority.

My experience with the kids this year has led me to believe that it is possible for the American-born kids - the 'average' ones who go to state colleges - and are products of the local high schools - to compete with the best and brightest anywhere. The average US state college (at least in NY) offers a quality undergraduate program to a large number of high school graduates - a quality that is far above what many similar 'average' colleges in many other parts of the world can offer.

And, incidentally, I am of Indian origin.

[AlphaCentauri]

33. American born kids means their parents are immigrants?

[smitra]

35. No, their parents are born in the US too.

I don't know about the earlier generations. And one of them is a product of a high school from a rural area. His parents told me during commencement ceremonies that they were worried how he would perform in Computer Sci because they did not even have the Internet at home when he came in as a freshman.

He graduated with a GPA of 3.99.

[Confusious]

38. As far as a percentage

America has 350 million people - 10% are the best and brightest - 3.5 million people

China and India - Together 2.5 billion people - 10% - 250 million.

We're hosed.

[smitra]

40. Given what I also said in my post (#30) ...

I believe that the 'average' US state college is way better than corresponding 'average' colleges in Asia, Africa and maybe even Europe, we may be able to generate more capable people. But as others on this thread say, education has to be a major priority.

[Confusious]

42. I know

I've been ranting and raving about how little pay and respect teachers get for years.

What can you say about a country that gives millions to babies to throw a ball around on a field, but short-changes its own children?

[scrinmaster]

48. 10% of 350 million is 35 million.

Just saying...

[clixtox]

49. Could I really be the first to gently correct you...

10% of 350, 000,000= 35,000,000 (35 million)

The poster's estimate of the population of "America" is a bit generous even if Canada is included. Most demographers, etc. would also consider Mexico as part of North America.

We apparently are not in quite as desperate situation as the usually wise Confusious alleged...

Or does the wordplay on the name Confucius indicate the erroneous calculation was meant to be misleading.

[clixtox]

50. If I had just learned to type in high school...

I wouldn't be wasting time hunting and pecking my way through each post!

I was second by 3 minutes!

[No Elephants]

109. Apparently not. You can be the second, though.

[No Elephants]

100. Only if you make lots of assumptions not inherent in the bare numbers.

[JDPriestly]

46. You are quite right. It depends on the culture in the home.

Many of the Indian and Chinese children and families, immigrants who come here are the best and brightest of their countries. Our best and brightest also measure up. Obama himself is an excellent example. My children worked hard and have done very well. We emphasized education. TV was permitted only in small doses.

Never put a TV in a child's room. That's my primary rule in raising children. Watch TV with them. You can read a book while they watch or do something else, but don't ever leave a child alone in a room with a TV. Don't ask me why, but that worked really well with our children.

[No Elephants]

108. My son had a TV in his room. He did well, right through Cornell Law School and is one

of the wisest (as in wisdom, not as in smart aleck) people I've ever known. He is my hero.

Had a computer and video gamesin his room too, but without Internet.

You can't generalize with human beings.

BTW, Obama got some of his education in Indonesia (ages 6 to 10, IIRC, and all or most of the balance in private school. And, his mom was certainly a scholar and, I believe a Ph.d., who placed a very high premium on his education, waking him at 6 to supplement his overseas education. (According to his book.) So, he is not exactly the typical American public scholl kid.

[Hannah Bell]

52. almost always when kids do poorly in school, it has nothing to do with smarts.

a raft of other factors, but not intelligence.

the waste of life-potential we tolerate is pitiful.

that so many buy into the propaganda that a huge chunk of kids just don't have "the right stuff" is pitiful too.

thanks for being a teacher who doesn't buy the propaganda.

[Rex]

31. Hey with over a billion people, both countries need to figure out how

to combat overpopulation. Something Americans don't have to worry about, for now. So sad that every single POTUS we have is 'shocked' or 'rattled' about how little of a shit we give about education in America. How can they all be so ignorant for so long? Sad.

[Deja Q]

81. Useless and ultimately unrealistic ideas such as monogamy, abstinence, and planned parenting?

:wow:

[tularetom]

32. Educated people are ridiculed in this country

Our last president almost refused to acknowledge that he had a degree from an Ivy League university and he certainly acted stupid. Was it an act? I dunno, but it went over pretty well with a lot of the American people for awhile at least. He wasn't some intellectual pinhead, he was a regular guy that you'd like to have a beer with. Actually he was neither of those things he was a borderline idiot. But he managed to capitalize on the country's dislike of intellectuals to get into office and fuck up the country big time. Did we learn anything from that? I hope so and I'd like to think so but when I hear comments from people like Bill Maher that Obama should be more like bush, I'm afraid education and thinking are still going to be frowned on.

[Mythsaje]

47. We're still teaching in much the same way we were in the early 20th Century

rather than teaching our kids how to live in a modern, 21st Century world.

[MadHound]

55. As one who's enrolled in an education program

And who was also in the public school system forty years ago, I can definitely tell you that we're not "teaching in much the same way we were in the early 20th century." Sorry, but that's just so much bogus BS. When was the last time you were in a classroom?

[smitra]

58. As a college teacher of Computer Science...

... I can say that we are not teaching in the same way we taught even at the end of the 20th century - that is, about 10 years ago. The technology we teach, and the manner in which we teach it, is very different.

Many overseas institutions I am familiar with, on the other hand, still believe in a huge amount of 'rote learning'. Not a very good idea in the high-tech disciplines.

[Mythsaje]

62. College doesn't count.

And computer science is a very specialized field that changes rapidly.

[Mythsaje]

61. Every time I talk to someone in "education"

I get the same reactionary bullshit. Tell me something. Do they still teach cursive writing in grade school? What the fuck for? Is typing/keyboarding required learning yet? Why the fuck not? Do we teach kids how to balance a checkbook, how to figure interest rates, how to comparison shop, or are we still trying to stuff their heads with rote facts we want them to regurgitate on command? Someone want to explain to me why most people need higher math? No, they need to be very good at BASIC math.

It's been some twenty years since I've been in the classroom, but I work with a lot of kids. Can you explain to me why my 14 y.o. son knew NOTHING of why Hitler was evil? What he did? I sure as hell can't. Do you have any idea how many points of history I have to explain to these kids? Not just my own, but the kids I work with? Things about the labor laws, civil rights, suffrage, prohibition, and the like? You folks spend so much time stuffing dates in their heads that they don't get the chance to see things holistically, as part of a larger web of events.

[mbperrin]

110. I've been teaching high school students for 3 decades now. Let's answer

your questions.

Let's see - cursive writing. Yes, your batteries might go down sometime on your laptop, or your cell might run out of minutes. And perish the thought, you might want to read some original source documents written in, let's say, cursive.

Keyboarding has been required in Texas since 1984.

Your economics literacy skills and lots more are taught. This has been my assignment for 14 years. Here's the TEKS standards for the course in economics:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/ssc/teks_and_taas/teks/teksecon.htm

You will note many of the critical thinking skills you're asking about. They're required.

Higher math? All you need to graduate is two years of algebra and one of geometry. I used both daily when I worked construction long ago.

Your 14 year old is 8th grade. That's US history through the Civil War. 9th grade- world geography. 10th grade -world history, including Hitler, 11th grade US history from reconstruction through present, more Hitler. Your kid's too early in the curriculum at 14.

Here's the TEKS standards for all social studies, all grades:
http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter113/index.html

You'll note the analysis and critical thinking required at all levels, including integration into the larger world picture.

Anything else I can answer?

[greengestalt]

51. But I have three college degrees!

-And you want me to sweep the floor!?


---Boss---- Sorry about that, I was insensitive. Here's how you sweep: (Demonstrates) And if you don't like it, three people were begging for this job before you.



Forcing kids to keep spending more and more time in boring, Hitleristic schools is a waste of time when the real culprit is the outright assault on the middle and lower classes by the elites.


What's needed is to protect our own wealth by calling for tariffs and the end to tax breaks for outsourcing, the enforcement of existing laws on employers who hire illegals and the strong call for a "Wealth Cap". The elites have had it too good for too long and they keep taking more and more. I ask this: "What does man truly need?" The answer is simple, man does not need ten mansions and five yachts. Man needs food, shelter and companionship. He needs a purpouse in life and he needs to enjoy life. Wealth in excess is not just pointless, it is as or more damaging to the soul than dire poverty. The elites like to cry about the "Death Tax" they usually find ways to cheat on, well wait till they see "Wealth Caps". Set them at something 99.99% of us would consider stratospheric (like $10 million in total assets) but to them would be pauper level. When they get too big, anything and everything extra is taken. Any attempt to hide extra wealth, all assets are taken, they have to go naked from court to beg charity for clothes. That way big companies don't crowd out smaller companies and drain the nation dry.

[UpInArms]

54. see my post #52 n/t

[Deja Q]

84. You mean the top 1% has some responsibility too?

:applause:

[UpInArms]

53. I work in an office next to a woman (she's 26) a recent graduate

of a State University - with her Master's Degree in Business.

One day, while talking with her about her work and what she saw as her future, she said to me:

"If I'd knowed then what I know now, I wouldn't have went to college."

:sigh:

If no one else sees what is wrong with this picture, how this person even graduated from grade school with grammar that horrific, than we truly are lost.

[sisters6]

56. as it is carried out now, NCLB is not the answer.

[wordpix]

66. smaller classes, parent education, more aides in the classroom...

learning centers, counseling...the more caring adults around, the better. The problems don't get resolved when students have a 25:1 ratio and a stressed teacher is expected to do everything---be with large numbers of kids all day every day, be in touch with all of their parents regularly, do all the paperwork for 100+ kids, plan lessons with "differentiated instruction" for students who are five grade levels apart in the same class, give extra help or do clubs after school, go to faculty meetings, go to training sessions, calculate grades, write comments...

[du_grad]

67. There were 39 of us in second grade...

...in 1956-57. I think all of this talk about large classes is kind of ridiculous. I went to a solid middle class grade school in the 1950's at the height of the baby boom. All our classes were large. My kindergarten class had over 50 children in it (with two teachers). By the same token, I don't envy today's teachers, as they have to deal with things that my grade school teachers couldn't even imagine. It was a simpler time.

We did a lot of rote memorization in math in early grade school. I think this worked out well as I knew my multiplication tables cold. That really helps later on in math. I remember one of our teachers in 9th grade algebra drilling us on 15 x 15, 16 x 16, etc. so we knew those answers immediately. It really helps to have basic math facts at your finger tips.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying we should go back to all rote learning or all large classes. A group of us from those large classes graduated in the top ten of our high school classes in 1967 and went on to various jobs that could be considered as successful - or not. We had two girls tie for number 1 in our class: one is a law professor at a prestigious law school now, and the other did "something with computers" (she never would say what - very secretive about it) and now teaches tai chi in her retirement. I graduated second in the class and work part time as a medical technologist in microbiology. Another guy in the top 5 graduated with a degree in botany but went to a large west coast city and worked as a waiter for years in a posh restaurant and made a lot of money. The stress nearly killed him in the 90's, however, and he almost died of a bleeding ulcer. He's retired now, invested in property that has kept its value, and is having fun being a restaurant critic in a tourist venue in Mexico. His older brother graduated in the top three of an earlier class and became a physician. A classmate of the brother also became a physician and did extremely well. Most of us were products of the same grade school.

I think you have to decide how you define "success." For some it is monetary gain; for others it is contentment with your station in life. I attended a competitive college and felt like a fish out of water, as most of my fellow students were much wealthier, had gone to private high schools, and, quite frankly, had had a more rigorous high school experience academically than I did. I did okay but never felt as if I fit in very well socially. If I had it to do over again I would have gone to a state university and enjoyed myself a LOT more.

My sister-in-law has high achiever daughters who were raised in an upscale suburb of a pretty large city. One just graduated medical school and the other is almost finished with her undergrad degree at a large midwestern university. My daughter (the same age as her med school cousin) is married, working towards her nursing degree (after she already got a B.A. in Art History ) and has a child. My sister-in-law wants grandkids more than anything - even though her daughter achieved many parents' dream. She is very proud of her high achieving daughter, of course, but my take on it is that this daughter may never get married, at least not soon, as she's just starting a long residency in psychiatry at the age of nearly 29. Her other two daughters don't seem to have marriage on the horizon either. Parents sometimes want what their children either can't or won't produce.

What do we really want for our children? I think we want them to at least be able to have a job after they finish their expensive college educations. My daughter had to go back to school to do this (on her dime). Even though I graduated second in my large high school class, I do not consider myself a huge success in the business sense. Sure, I have a job that is fairly complex and fairly recession proof, but I don't pull down HUGE bucks. Many kids who graduated far below me in class are making a lot more money than I am. The question becomes whether our children's children will even be able to find a job in the post-Bush 'merkuh. I think this is the crux of everyone's problems. Our corporations, in their infinite wisdom to provide the biggest bang for the buck with their shareholders, shipped lots of jobs overseas to produce cheaper products so that, when the products were shipped back here, nobody would have any money to buy them because there were no other jobs to fall back on. What kind of crappy business plan is that? I blame many corporate baby boomers for growing up extremely greedy and scamming everyone out of what could have been a good life. I'm knocking on wood I never have to find out how easy or difficult it might be for a microbiologist to look for a job at age 60.

Sorry to have prattled on with my meandering comments. I hope you can get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

[wordpix]

69. there were 60 of us in 6th gr. with 2 teachers BUT I had a parent at home at all times

Today's kids, whether rich or poor, are latchkey or raised by someone else like a babysitter, if that's affordable. Also, there are a lot of one-parent families. No parents around often = no discipline, electronic babysitters, older siblings in charge (and they're not good at effective discipline) and lots of stress when parents do get home. Who wants to help out or give oversight re: homework and backpack organization, much less discipline, when you're stressed, tired, and you have to shop and make dinner for the family on top of it all? Not many parents can pull this off successfully.

This is why teachers are called on to be sociologists, psychiatrists, give after school help and organize/lead clubs, do extensive comments on each kid, even drive kids home when their parents don't show up. Many parents barely know their kids compared to the teachers.

[du_grad]

131. So very true.

Yes, we ended up raising our daughter differently than both of us were raised. My husband's mom was a registered nurse, but I don't think she really went back to work much until the kids were a lot older. My mom was content to stay at home until my parents divorced in 1966. Yes, there was the stability of having my mom always there after school, but after they split up we had a mess at home - mostly with my sister, who was younger and wasn't really supervised well. She ended up preggers at age 16 in 1967. Through a lot of luck and perseverance after the debacle of their first 7 years of marriage, they just celebrated their 40th anniversary, but they've had a lot of hard times in their lives - mostly economic.

I worked part time second shift until my daughter was 7. I then worked full time second shift in a clinical lab and my husband was home with her every evening until she was in high school and I got a day job for three years. It wasn't the most ideal situation because after 5th grade she was indeed latch key. She was calling me after school every day when she got home, but the reality was that, for a couple of hours, we really didn't know what was going on (which we found out later on :-( after she graduated and was in college).

She turned out well, is now 29 and going to school to get her RN after graduating with her B.A. in Art History and finding that it didn't open a lot of doors to her. Looking back I should have made more of an effort to find a day job all those years she was in grade school. However, in my field all the day jobs dried up after 1984 and DRG's were instituted in all the hospitals for Medicare billing. Hospitals started looking at labs as cost centers rather than revenue centers and I got stuck on second. I am still working evenings and will probably never get onto day shift again.

I do not envy the teachers of today's kids. They deal with many many issues that my teachers in the 1950's never had to worry about. I salute you all.

[mbperrin]

111. I taught 183 senior economics students in 6 sections last spring. I taught

210 in 6 sections in the fall.

I have taught more than 6,000 students over the years, and this means that every time I see 16 adults congregated in this town, 1 of them is my student. I'm not done yet, and these kids will be the ones to give me medical care, physical rehab when needed, meals on wheels and all the rest of growing old.

I'm not worried about it at all. As always, 99.9% are simply good people who want happiness in their lives. I know that my old age will be as comfortable as it can be with these kind people around me.

Doom and gloom is easy; be afraid of the Reds, Sputnik is destroying us, the missile gap, horrors - the Cubans, oh nos - Terra Terra Terra, Gitmo releasees will murder ya, and don't fergit to be afraid of that there Swine Flu!

Fuck all that. Government bureaucrats have damaged me more than all the above put together. Depend on your locals, and run the rest out on a rail.

[Deja Q]

87. Ah, but like regulations and their enforcement, what you ask costs money.

People don't want their tax money spent. They don't want to pay taxes.

Money for nothing...

[HughBeaumont]

57. Er . . . what's he missing besides THE BIG PICTURE?

Indians and Chinese have a competitive edge because

a) Their higher education is subsidized (I don't know about China's but India's is). 'nother words, they're not graduating multiple thousands in debt like American kids are.

b) They're cheaper.

c) American corporations offshore and inshore jobs to H-1b and L-1 holders like nobody's business.

The private sector has had one of the most dismal 10 year stretches of job creation thus far. Where's the ROI for the freshly graduated students who are now thousands in debt if there are too few jobs for far too many American students that need them? How do these corporations expect anyone to be an active economic participant if there are no jobs provided to make that happen?

Common sense tells even the most addled child not to go into a field that might be following their "once hot" predecessors offshore or to the lower pay scale. American corporations treat their workers like oxygen-thieving pieces of dogshit. We take them as seriously as we take our economic future; and by that, I mean "not at all".

[OhioChick]

74. Well said, as usual. n/t

[Deja Q]

79. *DING* *DING* *DING* We have THE winner!

+11,000,000,000,000

[krabigirl]

59. Yeah, well also, school sports teams are not as important.

Instead of cutting education costs, maybe cut some of the team sports crap and put the teams back to where they belong, ie the city level? Have PE in schools but let communities control the teams. I think it would cut down on bullying as well. There is WAY too much focus on football, etc. in American high schools.

[du_grad]

68. That is so true about sports.

My grandson is now 2 1/2 years old. I wonder what it will be like for him in school if he doesn't like sports?? He is a cute gentle kid now. I never used to believe in home schooling, but after what I hear these kids do to each other in school, and how the administration looks the other way, I fear for the safety of many quiet nerdy kids.

[OhioChick]

70. U.S. education is not in need of "revamping".....jobs will still go to the cheapest worker. n/t

[marshall]

75. India and China focus on educating the brightest

Here in the US we have decided to educate everyone, so US statistics include the full bell curve of human potential. Naturally a society that eliminates the lower end of the curve will come off looking better. And in fact they may produce a greater number of high achievers--but at what cost to the people?

[ChromeFoundry]

77. Exactly...

so the average American has a better education than the AVERAGE Indian or Chinese citizen. There are not a lot of people from this culture that understand the caste system, still very prominent in India, and only choose to make account for the educated ones from these cultures.

[Liberal_in_LA]

93. yep. and in this cultures, if you don't make the cut it's over..no 2nd chances for an education

[JonQ]

98. Yep

Now, I still think there is plenty of room for improvement in our schools. And if you took our best and brightest against their best and brightest we wouldn't necessarily dominate.

But the comparisons being made are unfair. Even in many european countries by the time our kids "fall behind" the kids they're being compared to have already been divided in to those who are going on to college and those who aren't. So all our kids are competing with only their college bound, leaving out those destined to become laborers.

[AlphaCentauri]

122. Here in the US we have decided to educate everyone except the poor

Attending a college or university in the United States is very expensive. A year at a prominent four-year university can cost almost $50,000, and this does not include the extra costs of housing, transportation, and other living expenses. There are, of course, less expensive options at colleges that also offer an excellent education. Most four-year colleges cost at least $10,000 per year, and many more are in the $20,000 to $30,000 range. For families in the United States, paying for the education of their children has become a major expense. Many families begin saving money from the time their children are born, and some states offer incentive plans for savings programs.

http://www.america.gov/st/educ-english/2008/April/20080519002020SrenoD0.56625.html

For 2009, the federal poverty level is $22,050 for a family of four. Children living in families with incomes below the federal poverty level are referred to as poor. But research suggests that, on average, families need an income of about twice the federal poverty level to meet their basic needs. The United States measures poverty by an outdated standard developed in the 1960s.


http://www.nccp.org/profiles/US_profile_7.html

[DatManFromNawlins]

133. The flip side is many ultra-bright kids fall right on through the cracks

Know how hard it is to be interested in course material when you're already 4 steps ahead of your classmates?

My family was poor. My parents didn't know what to teach me, so they didn't teach me anything. But I passed the exam to get into kindergarten because we relied on teachers to give us verbal instructions. I was embarrassed when I entered the big K. Was the only kid in class who didn't know his alphabet, only knew how to count to 10, and couldn't spell his own name.

By 3rd grade, I was reading high school and college level textbooks. In the 5th grade, I scored a 27 on the ACT, getting a 36 on science reasoning and reading comprehension.

And I was not the brighest kid at my school. There were several whose parents had more time to meet their needs than mine.

I see these stories, about these kids who graduate from college at the age of 11 or 13, and think that there are tons of kids out there who could do that if their educational needs were met. Being very bright and stuck in a group of even above average kids is like trying to travel upstream in a boat made of lead. It sucks the life out of your desire to do well in school. I have no doubt that if I had been allowed to take the GED and enroll in college early, that I would have earned multiple advanced degrees. But by the time I graduated from high school, school was just a freaking beating. I earned a college degree, but again, it was like trudging through quicksand.

Society moves ahead when its best and brightest are allowed to flourish. I saw many exceptionally bright kids drop out of high school because it bored them to death. Why is it that when a school system looks to make budget cuts, the gifted program always gets the short end of the stick versus the special education classes?

[yellowwood]

76. The Culture of Ignorance and Ease

Our culture does not encourage students to work hard for an education or for anything else.
It does not honor academic excellence.
It glorifies sports figures, movie and music stars, and lottery winners.
Grades are inflated.
Students expect and get cell phones, IPods, and designer clothes no matter what the family has to sacrifice to buy these things. Or what they have to put on credit cards.
We have to hire guest workers to pick our vegetables because "Americans won't do these jobs."
I once told a class that they needed to work hard in school because their chances of becoming professional sports stars were slim. A father (minister) came in to scold me because I had "ruined" his 12-year-old son's "dream."

I'm happy that the Obamas are exemplifying the idea of "excellence." What a contrast to the Bushes!

[ChromeFoundry]

78. Ummm,,, yeah, m-Kay.

We have to hire guest workers to pick our vegetables because "Americans won't do these jobs."

You obviously don't understand much about what lengths a parent will go to, to feed their children. This has nothing to do with what country you were born into. Your comment is idiotic and naive.

Comments like this prove that you have nothing beneficial to offer.

[yellowwood]

96. You misunderstand my comment

I'm sorry if I wasn't clear.
My criticism isn't aimed at guest workers who go to any lengths to feed their children.
My criticism is to Americans who will NOT go to any lengths to feed their children, or themselves. They expect people from other countries to do the hard labor for them.
I read a biography recently about an Irish immigrant who came here in about 1850, a task in itself. He came to the Midwest; then he traveled to California for a couple of years, returned to the Midwest, married, and then parented ten children. He lived to be over ninety. I see many immigrants who have that kind of energy and resolve.
I think that we believe that we have earned a life of ease just by benefit of being born here. Our culture teaches that we should not have to think too much or work too much.

[Deja Q]

103. How many of these Americans spent 5/6 digit figures to get a degree, only to not be able to use it?

I think the real issue is the value of work and what companies define "value" as being... which isn't much...

[Manifestor_of_Light]

126. Yep, baby boomers are screwed.

I'm one of those. Go to college, pay your own way through or get your parents to pay for it, so you don't have student loans, get that graduate degree.....and for what???

Long-term unemployment. All that education we were supposed to get in math and science after Sputnik was launched..what happened? Well, NASA couldn't take all the scientists and the idiots in Congress shut down the Superconducting Supercollider near Waxahachie. It was basic research, so I guess it was too theoretical for these idiots to see any benefit from.

Twelve years of grade school and twelve years of college, in my case? For what? No jobs out there, over qualified, over forty....OMG you have a doctorate, we can't hire you, you'll get bored and leave....Millions of us played by the rules and got screwed.

It does no good to look for a job. It's just a waste of time and energy and gas and phone calls.

[No Elephants]

107. ChromeFoundry understood your comment perfectly.. You did not understand ChromeFoundry's though.

Try again.

[ChromeFoundry]

113. Nope, I understood completely well

You obviously didn't understand my pointing out that you are completely out-of-touch with reality.
Don't worry about confirming this point- Your post already does this very well.

[Psephos]

132. You call that an "argument"?

Your comment is idiotic and naive.

Comments like this prove that you have nothing beneficial to offer.

Insults are the anger of the weak.

yellowwood deserves better. So does anyone civilly posting an opinion on a (cue the irony) opinion board.

[ChromeFoundry]

139. and...who the hell are you?

Yellowwood received more than what she brought to the table. If she wants more of a rebuttal for a comment that was made to discredit every American parent, worker and citizen... I'll be more than happy to lift her up out of her hole to give her a view at some of the jobs Americans are doing right now just to "get by," if she chooses to continue to play. If you want to play the advocate role of bashing American citizens, rather than tossing around simple quips to make yourself feel bigger, game on.

[Deja Q]

82. Uh-oh. I can smell Xbox and PS3 executives shitting their pants over this...

But in seriousness:

Mr. President, A lot of us are buckling down. A lot of us are jack shit scared of losing our jobs. Or not finding new jobs. Or new careers to replace ended ones.

A lot of us ARE bright.

We are hungry too.

As others have already said, it is not about raw intellect. It's about value paid for work done. And it's not about the quality of the work either, for I otherwise wouldn't have dumped Microsoft like a hot potato. It's all about how quickly and how cheaply something can be done; quality be damned.

As others have already said, these other countries' governments subsidize costs.

As others have probably already said, with jobs going offshore, where is the incentive to learn?

As others have probably already said, there is no OTJ training anymore.

Younger workers are losing their jobs because they are too new. As are older ones, because they are too expensive. Even entry level jobs demand 3~5 years of experience. Where is this experience to come from? Volunteer work at some small church is NO substitute for a large company.

And yet we talk of our middle class.

We've all heard and read the same cant. We've all come to the same conclusions. Or at least the same fears about America's future if real change does not occur.

Now I will not deny there are fundamental problems in schools (the horrors and hell I endured, you can rest assured I know damn straight there are HUGE problems, which can only be made far worse by now), but I cannot deny our country will be in big trouble if issues are cherry-picked by what is most "convenient" while others are ignored. Education is one small part of the system. A system of which that has been abused. By a number of corporations. For quite some time now.

It's not about the people. It's about the ethics and the morality.

[HughBeaumont]

90. K & R this post.

Profit seems to be all that matters among the upper crust.

Fact is, the "betters" just couldn't stand the fact that eventually, our wages need to be raised to match the cost of living. Otherwise, you don't and cannot have a strong economy. It's impossible.

[Deja Q]

105. Thank you kindly.

:)

With luck, things will change for the better, worldwide, but as history has shown, the world is stuck with the US - even if corporations would otherwise invent teleporters to transport in offshored laborers to dismantle a plumbers' union...

[OhioChick]

116. +100 Damn good post! n/t

[Deja Q]

142. Thanks! And it looks like a petty troll also responded...

Pity it got deleted before I had a chance to read it... I wonder who the person was... and why I would be the target...

[Name removed]

119. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[No Elephants]

97. Did he have any proposals on how to remedy the situation, beyond less time on video games?

[high density]

112. I'm not impressed by either the Indians or the Chinese

They both work for cheap but I don't see much else there. Students in this country are wise to avoid the fields that are being offshored or H-1Bed to death. There is no sense to spend four years and $50k+ on an education in a field that has no demand. Congress has made it very clear they have no intention of protecting any jobs from cheap foreign competition.

[Deja Q]

115. And college instructors will say in return "choose your field wisely; know what you're getting in"

So when any politician or business leader states to get more education, they cannot be seeing all of the details.

Not that THAT would stop people from getting the degree, at least it shows we're seeing things through to the end...

the end...

it will be the end if the corporate bullshit that some like to buy into keeps going.

And it'll take down the global economy with it, so those developing nations will be destroyed too. Not exactly what I'd call a silver lining either... it'll be a catastrophe. A real one. A big mammoth rush limbaugh anal butt one. (and I've said that lots of times so if anybody dares to call me a racist ever again, just STFU forever more you blind bastards.)

[high density]

127. Yep, I seem to recall Bush was all for reeducating people

Reeducation for what role in society, I don't know. Janitorial positions I guess. It seems we're on a path that leads us to a point where the only jobs left will be cleaning up after or providing for a supreme elite class. A class that is managing an Indian or Chinese workforce from the top floor of an empty skyscraper. I really cannot believe that Corporate America is so nearsighted that they cannot see this coming in the next few decades, if not sooner. Higher profits today are better than decades of profit in the future, I guess. Congress sells out the US worker at every turn for the concern of being called a protectionist by the EU or India -- which they hypocritically call us no matter what we do -- and it has done nothing but set the destruction of the American middle class at full speed ahead.

[HughBeaumont]

138. Well, the whole profit thing . . .

. . . they know this, but the fact is that our corporate leaders simply don't CARE. The only thing that matters to them is money, in today's value. Who cares about the future? That's going to be rotting long after they've gone the way of the dodo.

"It seems we're on a path that leads us to a point where the only jobs left will be cleaning up after or providing for a supreme elite class. A class that is managing an Indian or Chinese workforce from the top floor of an empty skyscraper."

If a remake for "Greed" were made, this would be the ultimate result of unbridled corporatism . . . nomadic workers who there are no jobs for hunting selfish and insufferable CEOs who are now third world overseers after the system's been turned into a wasteland.

[Umbral]

114. I guess teachers up next for the chopping block. nt

[mule_train]

124. More garbage about how much 'smarter' Indians are

I've worked with a few bright Indians, but smarter than Americans in general? No way.

I can't blame siliconindia for pushing this stuff, but why is Obama putting down his own?

Stop screwing AMericans with H-1b, and people will go BACK to studying math and science

The first step to improving math and science education in the USA, is to stop slandering Americans

[Deja Q]

143. Wow. If my post (#82) attracted a petty troll,

how come this whole thread isn't littered with other similar responses...

DU has rules... it's high time they obey them, especially for stalking - that inference is a fair one to state under the prevailing circumstances... ditto for keeping bans permanent...

[rschop]

125. re: Obama calls for revamping U.S. education

WHAT?

So we are going to revamp our education system at a big expense and make the American students work real hard for what?

So they can better understand what is going on when they see all of their jobs going to India and China after they finish their education.

HELLO HELLO

Does anybody think these jobs will stay in the US if only we get better at math and science.

It is not the fact we are not educating our American students better, it is the fact that the big US companies can hire people in India and China for less than 1/10 of the cost of a US employee.

All the education in the world in not going to make up this difference in cost.

As a country we are basically screwed! And by the way, this is the bright side!

[DatManFromNawlins]

134. So just give them our jobs, like you already do

We'll go eat sand or something.

[sendero]

137. It's not the education system...

... it's the kids. They are soft, or they are resigned. Some have never seen a hard time so see no reason to ready themselves to compete in the workplace. Others see no hope and see no reason to try.

As my 7th grade math teacher used to say, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. Blaming America's problems on the educational system is ludicrous. People who want an education will get one no matter what, and people who don't care cannot be bothered.