Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Get the government out of the education system. That would be number one.
Since the federal government got involved in education, US students have been doing a nose dive when it comes to international comparisons.
Now the ACLU wants to have students given weeks of maternity and paternity leave from school. Don't expect kids to actually show up to class of course -- let them lay around reproducing but hand them a diploma because that's nice.
Right on cue. Talk about a completely myopic view.
Other countries with enormous impoverished populations are beginning to train larger portions of their talented individuals in relevant skills.
Here in America, we push an ever-increasing portion of marginal performers into colleges, where they can only succeed in studying criminal justice, art history, and recreational studies. Those who major in the hard sciences and engineering are oftentimes not hired as a result of "American" corporations opting to go after cheap substitutes from India or China.
Give any "technical assistance hotline" a call.
India and China were the first but Vietnam and the Philippines are quickly coming up to speed.
The Philippines is becoming THE spot for company HR departments.
China can do the work but China cannot do any customer interfacing because of language barriers and that is even with them learning English.
And while we are catering more to the Spanish speaking, countries around the world are teaching English to their students because English is the language of global business.
And with all this going on, people refuse to acknowledge it and deal with it. Instead they turn to the government and demand that the government "bring the jobs back".
Uh, I said the slave-wage thing is exactly where I don't want the US to compete. What? Does anyone actually read this at all? The first few responses went on some tangent about social agendas in public school, another one for protectionism and now one about slave-wage advocacy. Does anyone actually read and respond in kind or is every topic just a good place to mash the closest of your repertoire of views?
We already compete w/ the rest of the world, particularly Asia, in those skills you listed. Adding more people w/ those skills only encourages employers to push down wages.
The biggest drain on the economy is demand. People don't have enough money. In the last 4 years, 93% of income gains have gone to the top 1%. That is the biggest drag on our economy b/c there's only so much stuff that rich people can buy that doesn't just get reshuffled among other rich people.
We already compete w/ the rest of the world, particularly Asia, in those skills you listed. Adding more people w/ those skills only encourages employers to push down wages.
The biggest drain on the economy is demand. People don't have enough money. In the last 4 years, 93% of income gains have gone to the top 1%. That is the biggest drag on our economy b/c there's only so much stuff that rich people can buy that doesn't just get reshuffled among other rich people.
No, we don't compete. A lot of tech startups here have way overblown the O visa caps and have to funnel work out to other labs, because we simply don't have enough people here who can fill those jobs. I suppose it's good in some sense that we're doing a brain drain on Asia (though the cap means we do it in limited amounts), but it'd be good to retool at least some of the workforce here to be capable of it on their own. The companies I've worked for had to repeatedly do this though we had put a good deal of effort in trying to get local talent first. It just wasn't there.
Get the government out of the education system. That would be number one.
Since the federal government got involved in education, US students have been doing a nose dive when it comes to international comparisons.
Now the ACLU wants to have students given weeks of maternity and paternity leave from school. Don't expect kids to actually show up to class of course -- let them lay around reproducing but hand them a diploma because that's nice.
I'm sorry, but did you just up and decide that you needed a random place to post? Please make your own topic or at least point to something even tangentially relevant to what the topic is on.
If you want to get involved, tell us about your abilities in regards to mathematics, formal logic, and/or software programming. Could it be better? Are they pretty good? Do you teach your kids those skills?
India and China were the first but Vietnam and the Philippines are quickly coming up to speed.
The Philippines is becoming THE spot for company HR departments.
China can do the work but China cannot do any customer interfacing because of language barriers and that is even with them learning English.
And while we are catering more to the Spanish speaking, countries around the world are teaching English to their students because English is the language of global business.
And with all this going on, people refuse to acknowledge it and deal with it. Instead they turn to the government and demand that the government "bring the jobs back".
India was never really nearly on the same scale as China. Philippines have been at it for a while already, Vietnam is the newer one and other parts of Southeast Asia, including wildcard Burma are on the map. However, these are competing for the kind of manufacturing jobs that I think would be hard for the US to compete in no matter what. I think given the advantages we potentially have, we should try to redirect as many people towards necessary skills and brushing up on fundamentals (both current and future workforce). I think government could to some degree help reverse some trends, but there needs to be some kind of way to do it. However, I don't see that being all that pertinent to the topic. Do you think government could make greater use of these tools for developing skill sets or what? Is that what you're thinking when you brought in government? How do we get people to actually use these? Are these online tools fundamentally flawed? Have you tried any of them?
No, we don't compete. A lot of tech startups here have way overblown the O visa caps and have to funnel work out to other labs, because we simply don't have enough people here who can fill those jobs. I suppose it's good in some sense that we're doing a brain drain on Asia (though the cap means we do it in limited amounts), but it'd be good to retool at least some of the workforce here to be capable of it on their own. The companies I've worked for had to repeatedly do this though we had put a good deal of effort in trying to get local talent first. It just wasn't there.
That is complete bulls&$%. There is an undercover video of corporate speakers instructing tech companies on how to sabotage their domestic recruitment efforts in order to able to use H Visas. We have thousands graduating from the top universities w/ the top software & tech programs in the world EVERY YEAR! Do you seriously think that there aren't enough Americans w/ the skills to fill every domestic tech opening?
The only difference between them & the imported workers is that companies can get away w/ things that an American probably wouldn't let fly.
And of course the usual parade of anti-teacher right wingers with their talk radio marching orders stumble their way into a good thread like bulls in a china cabinet.
There is a wide disparity in schools in the US. School districts where I live are high performing, for the most part, but many people will tell you that's about demographics and not the schools themselves.
I think starting this skills based approach that the OP mentions is where we should begin in the worst peforming schools. Stop trying to teach every kid in the inner city to be a renaissance man/woman. I like English Lit but what's the point if the don't see it as having any function? Teach them something they can use and that the country can use.
That's interesting--so a sort of a strong steer towards more vocational or technical skills for inner city schools? Do you think these kinds of online resources are an effective way to learn from these? What I'm not sure about is how to do monitoring and checkups of people actually regularly using this. I've done this kind of stuff on my own, but I've noticed the drop-off rates are high since these are all voluntary.
That is complete bulls&$%. There is an undercover video of corporate speakers instructing tech companies on how to sabotage their domestic recruitment efforts in order to able to use H Visas. We have thousands graduating from the top universities w/ the top software & tech programs in the world EVERY YEAR! Do you seriously think that there aren't enough Americans w/ the skills to fill every domestic tech opening?
The only difference between them & the imported workers is that companies can get away w/ things that an American probably wouldn't let fly.
Sorry, but you're wrong. Maybe some sectors, but we tried hiring sprees and testing out a lot of people. The local talent pool was not nearly as good as the ones from elsewhere. Have you noticed how many of those students in those most employable of US programs are foreign? How about looking at an example of something similar but with less corporate abuse--how about we look at what makes up both the faculty and student population of graduate school science, math, and engineering programs and see just how disproportionately skewed it is towards foreigners and/or first generation immigrants.
That's interesting--so a sort of a strong steer towards more vocational or technical skills for inner city schools? Do you think these kinds of online resources are an effective way to learn from these? What I'm not sure about is how to do monitoring and checkups of people actually regularly using this. I've done this kind of stuff on my own, but I've noticed the drop-off rates are high since these are all voluntary.
I think it would need to be classroom based, especially when you're talking about kids.
The infrastructure is already there in the public schools, you just need to change the curriculum.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
