The Education Myth

    Over and over again, the people of our country hear that the solution to inadequate wages, disappearing heath care, vanishing pensions, and staggering personal debt is quite simple: get educated. It may sound right but it’s utterly phony. Hardly a day goes by when politicians or pundits don’t slip in a plug for a “smarter” workforce.

    Today, Thomas Friedman steps up with his own non-reality-based observations. The most astounding part of Friedman’s column, which muses about China’s education system versus our own, comes when he asks: “Ask yourself this: If the Iraq war had not dominated our politics, what would our last election have been about? It would have been about this question: Why should any employer anywhere in the world pay Americans to do highly skilled work — if other people, just as well educated, are available in less developed countries for half our wages?”

    Yes, that should be the question. But, Friedman’s answer is remarkable, though probably only to people who live in the real world. “In a globally integrated economy, our workers will get paid a premium only if they or their firms offer a uniquely innovative product or service, which demands a skilled and creative labor force to conceive, design, market and manufacture — and a labor force that is constantly able to keep learning,” he writes.

    Yes, employers around the world are moving work around the world in search of the lowest wage possible—thanks in large part to so-called “free trade,” which Freidman has been flogging for years in his column. Wages, not skills or education, are the most important issue facing workers throughout the globe. The disparity is so huge that American workers, no matter how smart they get, will never be able to compete against workers in other countries—unless, of course, Americans are willing to accept a drastic decline in their standard of living.

    Democrats have fallen into this trap, too, because it sounds so easy. One of my absolute favorite Democrats, Rep. George Miller, appeared last night on CNN’s Lou Dobbs, to talk about the party’s plan to cut interest rates in half for college financial assistance. He said, “Well, our priorities are to have a high-quality public schools for our children to make sure that they have access to an affordable college education, that they can then go on to a competitive workplace in this globalized world and they can fully participate in that workplace with fairness in the work place, and then, at the end of the day, they can secure their pensions and their retirements and their dreams.”

    Though I’ve written repeatedly over the years about education as a phony solution, I also understand its allure. First, it appeals to our inner child because, after all, so many of us were told, throughout our school years, that if you didn’t do your homework, you wouldn’t get into college.

    Second, and perhaps more important, it’s an easier solution to grasp. Most of us still think of China and India and other “Third World” countries as places where massive plants turn out lower-skilled products (assembly-line electronics, clothes and other durable goods). Heck, people assume, let them have that work and we’ll just fatten up our brains and corner the market making the higher-end stuff like airplanes and biotechnology products.

    Surprise. China is well on its way to making products up and down the skill level—at a fraction of the labor cost.  In his book “The Chinese Century,” Oded Shenkar writes, “China’s goal, and that of its government is not merely to catch up with the major industrialized powers but to overpass them. No other developing country has sets its sights so high, and none…has laid such a detailed road map to take it there.”

    Third, focusing on education means you don’t have to wrestle with the real challenge: corporate power. Offering cheaper education (personally, I advocate a free, four-year education for every person willing to work their first post-graduation year for a non-profit community group) is a whole lot easier than putting an end to so-called “free trade,” imposing some community investment demands on the flows of capital and demanding worldwide minimum standards that end the most ferocious competition based solely on wages.

    Education is a wonderful thing. Learning new ideas nourishes the human mind and keeps our spirits alive. I’m all for teachers and schools.

   But, education is a cruel lie if it becomes the answer to the challenge of global competition. It’s insulting to workers to feed them the line that they are just too dumb to get a fairly compensated job. It isn’t their fault. And until we are willing to confront corporate power, people may hang diplomas on their walls of their homes even if they can’t feed their families.

Comments

[Richard]

I completely agree with this entire idea. I can't believe that Democrats would tout higher education while allowing corporations to send employees to India for complex surgery. I fear that when our “leaders” finally realize that their allegiance to Corporate America has cost us our livelihood it will be too late. Let's just hope that people can see beyond the smoke and mirrors and realize that they in fact are the engines of change in this country.

[D Flinchum]

Friedman’s free trade-outsourcing-importation of H-1B's is actually leading to fewer US students going into science-tech-engineering careers.

About 3 years ago, I was talking to a Virginia Tech student who was working as a waitress at a local restaurant in Blacksburg, VA. We talked about her major (something in bio-engineering) and I told her that she was smart not to go into IT, which was being hammered not only by outsourcing but also the huge importataion of H-1B's that occurred in the late 1990'2-early 2000's. She agreed and added that recent graduates were not finding jobs in the field, word of same was getting back to students in lower grades, and these younger students were switching majors.

A couple of months later near graduation, the "Roanoke Times" noted that VT was awarding a significantly fewer number of degrees in IT and Computer Science than it had a few years back.

Who in their right mind would want to go 4-6 years of tough science/tech education, assume 5-figure student loans, and then not be able to find a job in the field, while Bill Gates et al are whining daily that they can't find enough IT workers so please, please, please open the door to more H-1B's, that is cheap foreign labor. On the other end, a lot of older IT workers are finding themselves pushed out of the field. If employers aren't after fresh skills (recent graduates) or experience (older IT workers), what are they after other than cheap labor?

[GusRP]

Bill Gates is a liar, he has more investment put forward in China than any other firm. He cares nothing for his country, his philanthropy is all bullshit! That fuckin nerd should be shot!

[John]

You get an interesting perspective on this issue if you enter a formal education program at some college: You'll find quite a few laid-off engineers/programmers, engineers/programmers who can't get that first job, and working engineers/programmers who've been watching the walls closing in and are slowly working on "Plan B".

It's appalling that folks in the education field don't see the downside to this. If a couple of engineering grads from Cornell University (true story) can't find jobs in their fields and are shelling out thousands for a teaching certification to teach high school, it shouldn't be rocket science to figure out that future engineering grads will be facing a similar-to-worse future.

[D Flinchum]

"It's appalling that folks in the education field don't see the downside to this. If a couple of engineering grads from Cornell University (true story) can't find jobs in their fields and are shelling out thousands for a teaching certification to teach high school, it shouldn't be rocket science to figure out that future engineering grads will be facing a similar-to-worse future."

Or more likely not going into these fields at all.

Here is the body of a letter of mine that the WSJ printed in 2005 in response to an editorial regarding H-1B's and their article noting that "tech execs" were having a hard time convincing their children to enter tech, science, engineering fields:

"Reading your May 5 editorial “High-Tech Brain Drain” regarding Bill Gates’s comments on the H1-B Visa program, I was reminded of a sign that hangs above the bar in one of my favorite restaurants. It says, “The beatings will continue until morale improves.”

The unemployment rate among information technology workers is higher than the overall unemployment rate. Still, there is an element of truth in Mr. Gates’s saga of having difficulty in finding high-tech employees: University students are starting to avoid information technology and engineering careers; they’re aware of the risk of not finding jobs in these fields because of businesses’ outsourcing and importing H-1Bs to fill jobs in the U.S.

The children of “tech execs” could reasonably expect their parents not only to pay for their educations but also perhaps to pull a few strings to get them into well-paying high tech jobs. But even these students are apprehensive about taking chances on high tech careers; how much more fearful must be the bright, ambitious middle-class students leaning toward a career in engineering or IT who have no well-placed mentors and who are financing their university educations via thousands of dollars in student loans.

Virginia Tech has seen a significant drop in students majoring in fields relating to IT. Students who graduate with such degrees, often accompanied by large student loans, are not finding jobs in the field. This information gets back to other IT- related majors in their early years, and they switch their majors to something else. The high-tech dearth is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy - it’s the market, pure and simple. One of the best ways to correct this problem right now is to reform the H-1B Visa program and to lower, not raise, the numbers granted.

Morale will not improve until the beatings stop."

[John]

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