I'm sure we've seen this coming for a long time, but it still hurts to see the reports.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6502725.stm

IMHO, this is one of the biggest consequenses of our current litigious culture of greed.

This is one of the really stupid statistics there is, what happened Sweded tie 2 computers together with a router built by cisco?
Thats like the really idiot statistics comparing education, where they forget to tell you, the US is one of the very few countries that allow all students to advance to high school.

Most countries, japan, Germany, England, Scandanivian countries etc, test students at the end of grade school, and those not deemed able are sent to tech schools. So they only compare their top students with all of ours.

KSKD, we really have slid, haven't we? I think this is a symptom of our ailing educational system. I have a few thoughts.

Since the shrub came in, all of the effort in education has been narrowed to a few goals. The first is a ludicrous one-size-fits-all annual testing standard called ominously, No Child Left Behind. The second is the enforcement of a mixture of theology and science in curriculum. The third is the addition of prayer to the cold war tradition of the pledge of allegiance. Finally, the fourth is providing Federal money to private and parochial schools.

It seems to me that one good reason we are behind is money. We have had a problem with that locally for a long time. It does not help that for well over six years, the public schools have been left underfunded on a national level. To my knowledge, promised Federal education money has not been paid in full since 2000 and most states have had to make up for the shortfall or close schools.

Sorry kids, you get to suffer while our administration gives money to church schools, quibbles about test standards and enforces mythology in science. I know, it is really unfair. There is a lesson in this for you to glean: They do not have to live in the future that you create, so they do not care about you.

Yes, it is apples and oranges to compare us to other countries. Many have college education available to a much higher percentage of young people. Some do not wish to foster a culture of elitism because it reminds them of darker times.

Opportunities are reflected in results. I think that our country has fewer chances for success and advancement in education than it did when America was flourishing. As always, minorities and poor students that do not play sports are getting the squeeze. The many veterans returning from World War II often went to college on the GI Bill, that will not ever happen the same way again.

The new standards and smaller tuition grants will keep many returning vets from campuses when they return from the Gulf. They will have to try to find a job instead. This final factor is a true shame because so many of these men and women have training in computers and many other technical fields. Applying this knowledge to a peaceful future could be a real coup.

Littlesongs, I disagree. I don't think the educational system has failed. I think that our culture had changed from one based on honest hard work to one of entitlement.

Disclaimer: I work in public education. We are busting our collective asses to jack up the accountablity in core classes. Math standards were just raised, where students in HS need three years of post-algebra math. This is a higher standard than we have ever had. Credit requirements have gone up, college entrance standards have gone up. Benchmarks must be hit at numerous grades throughout a students K-12 experience. I haven't seen a slacking of what the public education system is asking of kids.

What I HAVE seen is a growing sense of entitlement by students. Guess which demographic has some of the hardest-working students that I've seen? - Hispanic females. They carry a gender disavantage in a culture that expects them to do little more than marry well and raise kids - absolutely no entitlement, so they know that education is the only real key to personal success, and many of them are taking full advantage of it.

Which demographic is most often seen skipping, doing substandard work, being disrespectful of the teacher and the system? - white males. It is as if being born American gives them some kind of birthright to success in life. That no matter what they do, everything will turn out fine for them. Many of them have few goals or plans for the future, or they assume that wealth (the only goal for mahy students) can be achieved in so many other ways that don't require the work of studying hard or applying oneself. I've taken to calling it the "Lottery Mentality", kind of an offshoot of what was once the "American Dream": Success in life in America is all about being in the right place at the right time. It is not achieved by a lifetime of honest work, but by the right appearance on 'American Idol' or the right Powerball numbers, or the right stock pick, or the killer real estate deal, or Grandma's earrings that you almost threw out but were appraised at $55K on 'Antiques Roadshow'.

Horatio Alger, meet JK Rowling.



*Here's a nice article about the topic:

http://www.borkowski.co.uk/archives/mark/003762.html

Good posts.

I've serious problems with the standardized tests, their impact on teachers, and the less diverse cirricula (is that a word?) they encourage. In general, our education is working, given parents get involved.

Our tech education, at both the middle school and high school level needs some work. I would also like to see more emphasis on critical thinking at these levels as well. It's not bad, but could be better on the critical stuff.

Tech needs more core understanding that can be generally applied and less rote, application / task specific focus.

eg: Learning about what a word processor is and how it works, instead of learning a specific one, with those lower level things implied and or ignored.

Some tech topics I would like to see covered at the High School level:

-difference between software and data
-brief binary math, boolean operations, simple programming, scripting, etc...
-digital ethics
-social issues and implications
(these two could be strengthened in a lot of diciplines)

The idea being to really encourage more self-sufficiency in kids. Employers and parents might not like it at first. Neither will educators, particularly when harder questions come up. But this would help with the entitlement issues.

The entitlement stuff has a much wider scope, and I'm not completely sure what to do about it. I am however, extremely worried about it.

IMHO, this has a lot to do with busy parents and our spend your way out of trouble culture.

Despite a lot of work on my part, I find my kids looking hard for the money solution, and the spoon feeding one where mental facts, figures, reasoning and other challenges are concerned.

They often just don't want to work for it, or they think that somehow they won't actually be the ones working for it!

In the later teen years, I've seen some improvement. After getting jobs and having to manage their dollars for their needs to a higher degree, they will trade work for dollars, but only to a degree.

Personally, I think our media is a factor. I didn't have as much of it, and spent more time doing and building things. Lots of us did. The kids with more substantial parents were seen as spoiled, etc... Most of the people, I grew up with, saw this for what it was and did what they had to do.

Today, that's a status that a lot of kids think they are destined for, or some sort of choice they can make.

(They can, of course choose to work for it, but that's not what I mean.)

Mine, in particular, often have to be corrected when they express the idea that I'm here to provide that for them and that I somehow need to give up my own efforts so they don't have to deal with having to make their own.

(WTF?!?)

Simple things, like changing a tire, or fixing a bike chain are things many kids these days just don't even want to hear about. Good jobs, going to college, making enough money to make them happy, owning very nice things right out of the gate, etc...

Guess I'm rambling... Maybe this makes better sense tomorrow.

did any of you actually read the article?

quote from it
"Despite losing its top position, the US still maintained a strong focus on innovation, driven by one of the world's best tertiary education systems and its high degree of co-operation with industry, the report said. ".

The US still inventws and develops most technolgical advances.

Actually, it says we are working hardest on innovation. That means we are like the idea guy. Can't build squat, but happy to think about things for others to build.

A whole lot of core tech advances are happening elsewhere now. They used to happen here and get made here.

It is a significant change.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/innovation

Innovation means to build new devices.

Name one major innovation from one of the countries listed above us, in that list.

Major U.S. corporations are doing technology innovation around the world. They employ talented people from these countries, some of whom studied here in the U.S. The lines are really blurred about which country is doing the innovation. Conversely, some major foreign corporations come to the U.S. You can't use "innovation" as a standard, it's too vague. You have to (sigh) rely on economic figures about jobs, what they pay, etc. and try and make a fair comparison internationally. With all the outsourcing the Bush administration has supported and in fact indirectly encouraged with no penalties or restrictions, it is no wonder that U.S. students are embracing the notion that entitlement is more important than education. Look at Bush. Ignorant in comparison to many former leaders here and around the world, he has been a business failure as well as a political failure, yet he remains in power. This is what the kids see. Where's the surprise that our underfunded educational system fails to attract more youth into studying hard. The Republicans have always given no more than lip service to funding education, it's a fact.

Edsel, thanks for your point of view. I agree with quite a bit of what you said. I would not say it has failed either, I did say it was ailing. I haven't been employed by the PPS in over a decade, so my POV as a student and employee might be a bit antique. I definitely agree that teachers bust their asses. There are always bad apples, but the ratio of good teachers is still as high or higher than other professions. Tying their hands with a whole lot of conjecture, rules and whatnot is dangerous. In secondary education especially, we need teachers that are frank, truthful and unafraid. Parents who are also open and involved would make this work. Ah, utopia.

You also nailed a big one for me with the white entitlement. In the late 70s and early 80s, I observed that much of my peers private school success was financial and political. You could bust a kid in the nose if you were rich. Later, when I went to Franklin, I remember our speech team working for months to raise enough money for a motel and to chip in on a bus to ride to Albany for the state tournament. Wilson kids did nothing and got a few hundred in mad money on top of it. The elite needn't be smart, just entitled C students. Hmmm. Sounds like somebody named shrub.

Another point I was trying to make was that for this century, and much of the last one, our public schools have had too many students to focus on every one. I was very lucky to have people around me to guide my way to the things I loved, like KBPS and the Post newspaper. My feeling is that that kind of individual attention was eroded then, and outside of a few programs, almost gone now.

Just when creative kids get the focus and power of music, language and other elective classes, they jerk the rug. It's funny, they figured out that thugs are safer when they are busy with football, but turn around and complain when graffiti increases in proportion to art cutbacks. We can spent a helluva lot of money on a war to insure a future of oil, but only a fraction of that money to teach our children to live in that world.

Beyond our ever growing need for weapons, I think that applying our science to a healthy domestic manufacturing base is a thing of the past. I agree, as the world is enslaved to build crap on the cheap, we are just idea men now. This should not stop us from having the greatest ideas and the most talented people.

However, thanks to an ever spiralling LCD, the arts and humanities are replaced by entertainment, originality and innovation through practice is replaced by lazy theft, and rules appear to be merely suggestions. A cynical nation creates few optimists. This compounds a host of problems caused by parenthood being replaced by a pharmaceutically guided childhood and puberty.

What kid is worried about history in the past when he knows he is off to Iraq by next Christmas? What kid wants to make $7.50 plus tips and get her butt pinched all night, when she can spin a pole and get a $100 an hour without anybody pawing her? These are decisions young people are making today, based on their options for college funding, regardless of their field of study or raw natural talent.

KSKD, you made a host of good points, and I too, ought to just take a deep breath and unfurrow my brow. I just like the idea that genius in the shop class, genius in the computer lab, genius in English, genius in band and genius in the gym ought to be fostered equally. Our future depends on it.

Sure, we are innovating in that way. I agree that we are doing well, but not as well as we used to.

What I mean by core tech advances, is fundemental research, particularly on manufacturing techniques, materials and other basic things, is happening in other countries.

That solidifies their manufacturing lead and that worries me.

Ideas and info are one thing. We actually have very aggressive IP law right now to maximize this. However, it's not gonna last longer term.

Those people making things are building real wealth. We are building wealth too, but a lot of it is virtual.

We actually need to purchase tech to power our military from countries that have the manufacturing necessary to build the tech!

If we had a world war scenario, we've far fewer factories from which to build, meaning we must buy. Virtual wealth is not secure in the same way that physical wealth is. Why do we have all the wage pressure? Because we don't make things any more! A service economy is eventually a subservient one, unless it's backed by strong military actions.

Any wonder our Resident is doing what he is?

Truth is, we surrendered our ability to produce for ourselves in many industries. Now we are paying the price for that, and it's gonna get worse. This 'free trade' is responsible for this. We are far better off regulating trade such that we maintain our own more self sufficient economy.

I just visited an excellent manufacturer, here in Portland. The owner of this firm, keeps his pay scales as high as he can. The top person makes no more than 5 times the lowest. They use the best in sustainable manufacturing techniques, strong engineering, and encourage low turn over career positions.

Their branding reflects this and allows them to somewhat compete, largly by making the absolute best components possible.

Despite running lean and mean, their per part costs are 3 times their foreign competetors, who dominate 95 percent of their market.

So, let's put innovation into perspective. These folks are innovators. They are at the top of their game, and get maybe 5 percent of their market. Their competetors used to be located here in the States. When we dropped the tarifs, they relocated to the far east and lowered their costs to a fraction.

Now their employees are gone, the jobs are gone, the dollars they make here are largely gone. The CEO of said competetor makes 40 times their lowest paid person and they pay little, if no tax due to their multi-national nature.

They do little innovation. In fact, they knock off the innovations, one by one, done by our Made in America firm, thus forcing that firm to innovate strongly or die, yet remain unable to capture market share, unless they too decide to surrender jobs, quality of life, wages, and do the same thing.

My point being, our current market rules do not favor the kinds of enterprises that provide meaningful employment for our own people. We do this, so multi-national corporations can maximize profit for share holders, dodge the maximum taxes (that pay for the infrastructure they use to deliver their foreign made products), and keep working wages as low as is possible.

This cycle does us no good, and will end with us being a largely service based economy where the middle class is mostly non-existant.

Should this continue, our fine innovations will eventually move elsewhere as the cost of prototypes and product launch manufacturing will be too high to be practical. The focus will move where core tech innovations are happening and manufacturing is there to leverage them.

Foreign universities and multi-national corporations are already moving research and development overseas. That collaboration will devalue our own efforts here, thus moving the center of attention away from our own instutions.

We then will be left with project management, litigation, IP, etc... as our primary means of building wealth. Most everybody looking to better themselves will find their ability to build wealth here priced out of range, the ideas they need to leverage owned by corporations who have no pressure to license them, and few qualified workers from which to build.

I've been in a position to watch local product design and manufacturing companies for the last 10 years.

Nearly all of them are gone these days. Top people remain to manage and brand efforts done overseas. Our once vibrant manufacturing and innovation culture here in the valley is now a shell of it's former self. Quality manufacturers have gone as well, leaving just a few aggressive ones that now house multiple diciplines to compete (automation, etc...), or manage to survive in the aerospace and related industries that depend on certification, relationships and government contracts where price issues are largely not a worry because tax dollars pay for the differences, and national security justifies the need.

(Even these folks buy a lot of core tech from suppliers overseas!)

My professional life surrounds helping these people improve their processes through software, training and innovation. The amount of work avaliable to me is a small fraction of what it once was 10 years ago.

These free trade practices are at the root of it and it's really starting to show.

They used to buy software, training and consulting services to compete better, leverage their quality people and build more of them. Plenty of technical people here made good money and produced excellent products.

Now they buy collaboration and management software. Why? Because they have moved the core of their business overseas, keeping a shell here to leverage relationships.

The actual technical software and training, which empowers the product development process, is pushed to the lowest price, and ease of use. This, in turn, marginalies quality technical people and it shows in both their numbers and wages today.

The questions I get, related to the product development process are now collaboration related. I'm asked for product dev templates that minor technical people can use, and the training I deliver is focused more on rote, repeatable systems that execute ideas innovated 10 years ago.

It goes on and on and on... none of it is good for us.

However, it is really good for the multi-nationals and the market.

This is the fallacy nobody sees. Huge market gains do not translate to your average American doing better. In fact, they often represent major successes in devaluing our efforts here further to build profit that few people see the benefit of.

It does not trickle down folks, unless we have incentives in place that encourage that.

Of the owner and CEO types I know, only a small fraction actually work hard to share success with their workers. The majority of them see people and processes as overhead to be marginalied so their profits are to the max.

They know they will be fine, what happens to those building wealth is not important to all but a small fraction. People are disposable, and if they are not, then huge dollars will be spent to make them so.

My own skills are devalued as well. Where there once was a strong ROI for process improvement, there now is a perception of overhead. Can't spend too much to capture larger gains later because it makes for a bad quarter. Better to spend the least, put bandaids on things and move things off shore to hide their impact.

I'm moving to accounting and management software now. Engineering and innovation is a dead market, filled with marginal products all designed to make the most of sub-par people. Nobody will buy processes, software and services to build wealth here anymore.

Everybody will buy collaboration software and services that makes leveraging overseas low cost services. Everybody wants to buy better money counting and compliance software so they can cut the number of higher paid people and limit the need for internal checks and balances for compliance, ethics, etc...

Innovation is rapidly becoming IP ownership and management. It's not sustainable in the longer term, and I'm extremely worried about it.