Think education is expensive, try ignorance!
Looking over the following article, it appears we must find a better way to “educate”. With Public Education so bloated with overpaid administrators (& underpaid teachers), isn’t it about time to try something innovative?It has been suggested that a 2 year degree will replace the high school diploma as the minimum job requirement. Entry level “Professional” Jobs will require a Masters Degree.
In order to keep Nevadans employed, and to move more people into high skill high wage jobs, Nevada MUST provide, in addition to a University education, a parallel track in vocational / technical education to improve adult literacy. Many states have turned to State Technical College’s. Isn’t it about time Nevada looked into this?
Article (excerpt): America by the numbers by Michael Ventura Minneapolis/St. Paul CityPages
http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1264/article12985.asp
We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function
The United States is 49th in the world in literacy ( New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
"The International Adult Literacy Survey...found that Americans with less than nine years of education 'score worse than virtually all of the other countries'" (Jeremy Rifkin's superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe's Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (New York Times, Dec. 21, 2004). We're not the place to be anymore.
"Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s.... In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent" (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
Oh……… and one more thing…
Statistics on American education tell a dreadful story, the story of an advanced technological society slipping back to a state of ignorance and superstition. If that sentence seems extreme, consider:
The United States once ranked first in the world in high school graduation rates. We have slipped to 17th ( New York Times, Feb. 1).
Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation. -- John F. Kennedy
posted by cl @ 9:01 PM
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