As the New York Times columnist rattled off the wonders of technology -- "Isn't Linux great?" "Wireless is the steroids of the flat world" -- the group was dead silent as it listened to an enthusiastic and joyful Friedman telling the story of how, thanks to a "flat" world brought on by America's "free" trade policy, our country's workers and small businesses must now compete with slave labor and desperate conditions in places like China and Bangladesh.Then it was time for panel discussion. How would our community deal with the "flat world" that Friedman gushed about?
"We need to increase educational opportunity," said Tyler Trevor, an aide to Montana's commissioner of higher education. "We have to create our own educational capital here."
"We don't invest in good teaching practices," said Bruce Messinger, Helena's superintendent of schools. "We have to make sure our teachers are using the best methods."
All said exactly what Friedman said at the end of his videotape: "Kids need to learn how to learn" in order to compete in the "flat world."
Sadly, the hard data tells us that, as comforting as this Great Education Myth is, we cannot school our way out of the problems accompanying a national trade policy devoid of wage, environmental and human-rights protections.
As Fortune magazine reported last year, "The skill premium, the extra value of higher education, must have declined after three decades of growing." Citing the U.S.
government's Economic Report of the President, the magazine noted that "real annual earnings of college graduates actually declined" between 2000 and 2004. The magazine also noted that new studies "show companies massively shifting high-skilled work -- research, development, engineering, even corporate finance -- from the United States to low-cost countries like India and China."
It's not that workers in these other countries are smarter, says Sheldon Steinbach of the American Council on Education. "One could be educationally competitive and easily lose out in the global economic marketplace," he told the Los Angeles Times. Why? "Because of significantly lower wages being paid elsewhere."
TDW posts on Fort Wayne Journal Gazette editorial: Bad news for Indiana. I agree wholeheartedly with TDW's comments:
Economic recovery is a hard thing to manage, but in order to make it happen, you actually have to get in there and get your hands dirty, not just talk about sunshine, lollipops and roses while things continue to go downhill.
I will add three paragraphs from the editorial that TDW did not include in her post:
While economists and politicians can debate the best courses of action indefinitely, Indiana should immediately focus on two fundamental areas: Education and quality of life.
The state’s move to full-day kindergarten was a positive step that should pay off. Efforts to do education on the cheap by combining school corporations and killing common-sense building projects send exactly the wrong message to prospective employers, would-be residents and Hoosiers looking for progress.
As for quality of life, Indiana also jerks away the welcome mat when it relaxes pollution standards for industry and big agriculture. And on a smaller scale, no one is flocking to states where activists seek to kill downtown development and roll back smoking bans.
No, I am not sure if there is one solution to our economic problems but I know sitting on our thumbs is not an option.
Comments for this post
