States...Ranked...No Teacher Left Standing...

[Owen Densmore]

Here's an interesting article somewhat related to our education  
discussion.  The study reported at the end is fairly interesting in  
its details .. and they would be quite simple and affordable:

October 14, 2005
Op-Ed Columnist
Keeping Us in the Race

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
What if we were really having a national discussion about what is  
most important to the country today and on the minds of most parents?

I have no doubt that it would be a loud, noisy dinner-table  
conversation about why so many U.S. manufacturers are moving abroad -  
not just to find lower wages, but to find smarter workers, better  
infrastructure and cheaper health care. It would be about why in  
Germany, 36 percent of undergrads receive degrees in science and  
engineering; in China, 59 percent; in Japan, 66 percent; and in  
America, only 32 percent. It would be about why Japanese on bullet  
trains can get access to the Internet with cellphones, and Americans  
get their cellphone service interrupted five minutes from home.

It would be about why U.S. 12th graders recently performed below the  
international average for 21 countries in math and science, and it  
would be about why, in recent years, U.S. industry appears to have  
spent more on lawsuits than on R.&D. Yes, we'd be talking about why  
the world is racing us to the top, not the bottom, and why we are  
quietly falling behind.

And late in the evening, as the wine bottles emptied, someone at the  
national dinner table might finally say: "Hey, what if we were really  
thinking ahead? What if we asked some of the country's best minds to  
make a list of the steps we could take right now to enhance America's  
technology base?"

Fortunately, two senators, Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman, asked  
the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering  
and the Institute of Medicine to form a bipartisan study group to  
produce just such a list, which was released on Wednesday in a report  
called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm."

Because of globalization, the report begins, U.S. "workers in  
virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a  
mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, India or dozens of other  
nations whose economies are growing. ... Having reviewed the trends  
in the United States and abroad, the committee is deeply concerned  
that the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic  
leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are  
gathering strength. ... We are worried about the future prosperity of  
the United States. ... We fear the abruptness with which a lead in  
science and technology can be lost and the difficulty of recovering a  
lead once lost - if indeed it can be regained at all."

The report's key recommendations? Nothing fancy. Charles Vest, the  
former president of M.I.T., summed them up: "We need to get back to  
basic blocking and tackling" - educating more Americans in the skills  
needed for 21st-century jobs.

Among the top priorities, the report says, should be these:

(1) Annually recruiting 10,000 science and math teachers by awarding  
four-year merit-based scholarships, to be paid back through five  
years of K-12 public school teaching. (We have too many unqualified  
science and math teachers.)

(2) Strengthening the math and science skills of 250,000 other  
teachers through extracurricular programs.

(3) Creating opportunities and incentives for many more middle school  
and high school students to take advanced math and science courses,  
by offering, among other things, $100 mini-scholarships for success  
in exams, and creating more specialty math-and-science schools.

(4) Increasing federal investment in long-term basic research by 10  
percent a year over the next seven years.

(5) Annually providing research grants of $500,000 each, payable over  
five years, to 200 of America's most outstanding young researchers.

(6) Creating a new Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Energy  
Department to support "creative out-of-the-box transformational  
energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support  
and in which risk may be high, but success would provide dramatic  
benefits for the nation."

(7) Granting automatic one-year visa extensions to foreign students  
in the U.S. who receive doctorates in science, engineering or math so  
they can seek employment here, and creating 5,000 National Science  
Foundation-administered graduate fellowships to increase the number  
of U.S. citizens earning doctoral degrees in fields of "national  
need." (See the rest at www.nationalacademies.org.)

These proposals are the new New Deal urgently called for by our  
times. This is where President Bush should have focused his second  
term, instead of squandering it on a silly, ideological jag called  
Social Security privatization. Because, as this report concludes,  
"Without a renewed effort to bolster the foundations of our  
competitiveness, we can expect to lose our privileged position."

[Michael Gizzi]

The actual report Friedman cites is available for free on the internet from
National Academies Press. Its a 385 page PDF.

If you all haven't read Friedman's book Its a Flat World you should. I
require all of my students to read the 10 page version of it that appeared
in the NYTimes Magazine this spring at the start of the semester. If
students do not realize the threat to their future posed by globalization
and do not do anything to improve their competitiveness, they are all in
trouble.

I have the Times Magazine Piece and will send it to anyone who requests it.
Or I could post it to the list.

Michael Gizzi

On 10/13/05, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote:

>
> Here's an interesting article somewhat related to our education
> discussion. The study reported at the end is fairly interesting in
> its details .. and they would be quite simple and affordable:
>
> October 14, 2005
> Op-Ed Columnist
> Keeping Us in the Race
>
> By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
> What if we were really having a national discussion about what is
> most important to the country today and on the minds of most parents?
>
> I have no doubt that it would be a loud, noisy dinner-table
> conversation about why so many U.S. manufacturers are moving abroad -
> not just to find lower wages, but to find smarter workers, better
> infrastructure and cheaper health care. It would be about why in
> Germany, 36 percent of undergrads receive degrees in science and
> engineering; in China, 59 percent; in Japan, 66 percent; and in
> America, only 32 percent. It would be about why Japanese on bullet
> trains can get access to the Internet with cellphones, and Americans
> get their cellphone service interrupted five minutes from home.
>
> It would be about why U.S. 12th graders recently performed below the
> international average for 21 countries in math and science, and it
> would be about why, in recent years, U.S. industry appears to have
> spent more on lawsuits than on R.&D. Yes, we'd be talking about why
> the world is racing us to the top, not the bottom, and why we are
> quietly falling behind.
>
> And late in the evening, as the wine bottles emptied, someone at the
> national dinner table might finally say: "Hey, what if we were really
> thinking ahead? What if we asked some of the country's best minds to
> make a list of the steps we could take right now to enhance America's
> technology base?"
>
> Fortunately, two senators, Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman, asked
> the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering
> and the Institute of Medicine to form a bipartisan study group to
> produce just such a list, which was released on Wednesday in a report
> called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm."
>
> Because of globalization, the report begins, U.S. "workers in
> virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a
> mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, India or dozens of other
> nations whose economies are growing. ... Having reviewed the trends
> in the United States and abroad, the committee is deeply concerned
> that the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic
> leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are
> gathering strength. ... We are worried about the future prosperity of
> the United States. ... We fear the abruptness with which a lead in
> science and technology can be lost and the difficulty of recovering a
> lead once lost - if indeed it can be regained at all."
>
> The report's key recommendations? Nothing fancy. Charles Vest, the
> former president of M.I.T., summed them up: "We need to get back to
> basic blocking and tackling" - educating more Americans in the skills
> needed for 21st-century jobs.
>
> Among the top priorities, the report says, should be these:
>
> (1) Annually recruiting 10,000 science and math teachers by awarding
> four-year merit-based scholarships, to be paid back through five
> years of K-12 public school teaching. (We have too many unqualified
> science and math teachers.)
>
> (2) Strengthening the math and science skills of 250,000 other
> teachers through extracurricular programs.
>
> (3) Creating opportunities and incentives for many more middle school
> and high school students to take advanced math and science courses,
> by offering, among other things, $100 mini-scholarships for success
> in exams, and creating more specialty math-and-science schools.
>
> (4) Increasing federal investment in long-term basic research by 10
> percent a year over the next seven years.
>
> (5) Annually providing research grants of $500,000 each, payable over
> five years, to 200 of America's most outstanding young researchers.
>
> (6) Creating a new Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Energy
> Department to support "creative out-of-the-box transformational
> energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support
> and in which risk may be high, but success would provide dramatic
> benefits for the nation."
>
> (7) Granting automatic one-year visa extensions to foreign students
> in the U.S. who receive doctorates in science, engineering or math so
> they can seek employment here, and creating 5,000 National Science
> Foundation-administered graduate fellowships to increase the number
> of U.S. citizens earning doctoral degrees in fields of "national
> need." (See the rest at www.nationalacademies.org.)
>
> These proposals are the new New Deal urgently called for by our
> times. This is where President Bush should have focused his second
> term, instead of squandering it on a silly, ideological jag called
> Social Security privatization. Because, as this report concludes,
> "Without a renewed effort to bolster the foundations of our
> competitiveness, we can expect to lose our privileged position."
>
> ============================================================
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> http://www.friam.org
>

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[Michael Gizzi]

For those that care,

I put a copy of the Friedman piece on the web at
http://www.modelingcomplexity.net/flatworld.pdf

Michael Gizzi


On 10/14/05, Michael Gizzi <mgizzi at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The actual report Friedman cites is available for free on the internet
> from National Academies Press. Its a 385 page PDF.
>
> If you all haven't read Friedman's book Its a Flat World you should. I
> require all of my students to read the 10 page version of it that appeared
> in the NYTimes Magazine this spring at the start of the semester. If
> students do not realize the threat to their future posed by globalization
> and do not do anything to improve their competitiveness, they are all in
> trouble.
>
> I have the Times Magazine Piece and will send it to anyone who requests
> it. Or I could post it to the list.
>
> Michael Gizzi
>
> On 10/13/05, Owen Densmore <owen at backspaces.net> wrote:
> >
> > Here's an interesting article somewhat related to our education
> > discussion. The study reported at the end is fairly interesting in
> > its details .. and they would be quite simple and affordable:
> >
> > October 14, 2005
> > Op-Ed Columnist
> > Keeping Us in the Race
> >
> > By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
> > What if we were really having a national discussion about what is
> > most important to the country today and on the minds of most parents?
> >
> > I have no doubt that it would be a loud, noisy dinner-table
> > conversation about why so many U.S. manufacturers are moving abroad -
> > not just to find lower wages, but to find smarter workers, better
> > infrastructure and cheaper health care. It would be about why in
> > Germany, 36 percent of undergrads receive degrees in science and
> > engineering; in China, 59 percent; in Japan, 66 percent; and in
> > America, only 32 percent. It would be about why Japanese on bullet
> > trains can get access to the Internet with cellphones, and Americans
> > get their cellphone service interrupted five minutes from home.
> >
> > It would be about why U.S. 12th graders recently performed below the
> > international average for 21 countries in math and science, and it
> > would be about why, in recent years, U.S. industry appears to have
> > spent more on lawsuits than on R.&D. Yes, we'd be talking about why
> > the world is racing us to the top, not the bottom, and why we are
> > quietly falling behind.
> >
> > And late in the evening, as the wine bottles emptied, someone at the
> > national dinner table might finally say: "Hey, what if we were really
> > thinking ahead? What if we asked some of the country's best minds to
> > make a list of the steps we could take right now to enhance America's
> > technology base?"
> >
> > Fortunately, two senators, Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman, asked
> > the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering
> > and the Institute of Medicine to form a bipartisan study group to
> > produce just such a list, which was released on Wednesday in a report
> > called "Rising Above the Gathering Storm."
> >
> > Because of globalization, the report begins, U.S. "workers in
> > virtually every sector must now face competitors who live just a
> > mouse-click away in Ireland, Finland, India or dozens of other
> > nations whose economies are growing. ... Having reviewed the trends
> > in the United States and abroad, the committee is deeply concerned
> > that the scientific and technical building blocks of our economic
> > leadership are eroding at a time when many other nations are
> > gathering strength. ... We are worried about the future prosperity of
> > the United States. ... We fear the abruptness with which a lead in
> > science and technology can be lost and the difficulty of recovering a
> > lead once lost - if indeed it can be regained at all."
> >
> > The report's key recommendations? Nothing fancy. Charles Vest, the
> > former president of M.I.T., summed them up: "We need to get back to
> > basic blocking and tackling" - educating more Americans in the skills
> > needed for 21st-century jobs.
> >
> > Among the top priorities, the report says, should be these:
> >
> > (1) Annually recruiting 10,000 science and math teachers by awarding
> > four-year merit-based scholarships, to be paid back through five
> > years of K-12 public school teaching. (We have too many unqualified
> > science and math teachers.)
> >
> > (2) Strengthening the math and science skills of 250,000 other
> > teachers through extracurricular programs.
> >
> > (3) Creating opportunities and incentives for many more middle school
> > and high school students to take advanced math and science courses,
> > by offering, among other things, $100 mini-scholarships for success
> > in exams, and creating more specialty math-and-science schools.
> >
> > (4) Increasing federal investment in long-term basic research by 10
> > percent a year over the next seven years.
> >
> > (5) Annually providing research grants of $500,000 each, payable over
> > five years, to 200 of America's most outstanding young researchers.
> >
> > (6) Creating a new Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Energy
> > Department to support "creative out-of-the-box transformational
> > energy research that industry by itself cannot or will not support
> > and in which risk may be high, but success would provide dramatic
> > benefits for the nation."
> >
> > (7) Granting automatic one-year visa extensions to foreign students
> > in the U.S. who receive doctorates in science, engineering or math so
> > they can seek employment here, and creating 5,000 National Science
> > Foundation-administered graduate fellowships to increase the number
> > of U.S. citizens earning doctoral degrees in fields of "national
> > need." (See the rest at www.nationalacademies.org.)
> >
> > These proposals are the new New Deal urgently called for by our
> > times. This is where President Bush should have focused his second
> > term, instead of squandering it on a silly, ideological jag called
> > Social Security privatization. Because, as this report concludes,
> > "Without a renewed effort to bolster the foundations of our
> > competitiveness, we can expect to lose our privileged position."
> >
> > ============================================================
> > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> > Meets Fridays 9:30a-11:30 at ad hoc locations
> > Lecture schedule, archives, unsubscribe, etc.:
> > http://www.friam.org
> >
>
>

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