The Best of Both Phone, and Tablet
Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates made a rare visit to Washington to talk about "competiveness"--that is, the lack of it--and called for reduced barriers to foreigners working in the United States. Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett showed up to call for more tax dollars to be spent on basic research.
Politicians being politicians, nothing much happened. But now a serious effort is underway to tackle the so-called "competitiveness" problem head-on.
Rep. Anna Eshoo, a Democrat who represents a good chunk of Silicon Valley, is helping to organize a competitiveness summit that will be held at Stanford University in September. The goal: to bring together smart people in an informal setting and come up with proposals that can be turned into federal legislation next year.
It's "not a meeting with speeches and stages, but a working session with the leaders in the private sector on the whole issue of competitiveness so that we can design a national public policy package in the Congress that can address all the aspects of competitiveness," Eshoo told me on Friday. "We can't be whining about other countries. We have to have a game plan for America to win and American workers to win."
By now, the bleak statistics are well-known: In 2002, China and India graduated five times as many engineers as did the United States, which ranks a dismal 19th in eighth-grade math skills. Japan, South Korea, Norway and the Czech Republic boast far higher high-school graduation rates.
While details are not yet final, a lineup of prominent high tech, biotech, telecom, and venture capital folks will be invited, along with a collection of Stanford economists and other academics. The meeting will not be open to the public.
"We are working with Republicans in Congress on this, too," Eshoo said. "It's a non-partisan issue...We're slipping behind. We're not training enough in the sciences and engineering fields. There is a long list of things that needs to be addressed. They can't be taken up item-by-item legislatively."
Eshoo is right. The United States' onetime dominance of many areas related to technology is over--if it ever truly existed in the first place.
Some ideas that summit participants might wish to consider:
• A simplified tax system, perhaps even a flat tax. It's ironic that former Soviet republics have embraced the idea, but the world's greatest democracy hasn't. Russia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia, Georgia and Romania have all moved in this direction--and their economies have prospered. Give them a few years, and they'll be fierce competitors.
• Public school reform. As I wrote in a column in January, technology CEOs like to talk about better math and science education but tend to suggest milquetoast solutions that are designed to be inoffensive. How about experimenting with more radical solutions like education tax credits and tuition grants?
• Welcome visitors. An influential Chinese mathematician couldn't address a cryptography conference last week in California because she was denied a visa. If this continues, more technical conferences will move offshore. How about amending the portions of the Patriot Act that have alarmed immigrants, and, as Gates said, awarding more H1-B visas?
Whatever the legislative proposals that the Stanford summit eventually coalesces around, the participants will be well-served by being brave enough to take political risks. Education reform will alarm teachers' unions and Democrats, while altering the Patriot Act will draw opposition from President Bush and conservative groups.
But inaction also carries risks, including a decline in the education of generations of Americans over another 50-year stretch. As Rep. Eshoo correctly warns, "We don't have a corner on the market of all ideas."
Biography
Declan McCullagh is CNET News.com's chief political correspondent. He spent more than a decade in Washington, D.C., chronicling the busy intersection between technology and politics. Previously, he was the Washington bureau chief for Wired News, and a reporter for Time.com, Time magazine and HotWired. McCullagh has taught journalism at American University and been an adjunct professor at Case Western University.
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Our schools are bad, where they are bad, for a variety of reasons --one of which is that out government gave out draft deferments to teachers willing to work in inner city schools. Those folk are still in the system. Many of them are there to wait out their pensions.
Another reason is because of social engineering attempts during which basic learning skills were replaced by attitude and concept "learning." This has nothing to do with money. It's simply a matter of bad policy using wistful criteria to teach the wrong material in the wrong way. That's why people who scream about underfunding "No Child Left Behind" make me laugh. It's an oversight program that's attempting to put schols back on course and what those folk are asking for is the government to fund what the local schools should have been doing all the while --actually teaching the kids.
Money is not the solution in the school system. The more you think it is, the worse the problem will get. You don't fund incompetence.
Our schools are bad, where they are bad, for a variety of reasons --one of which is that out government gave out draft deferments to teachers willing to work in inner city schools. Those folk are still in the system. Many of them are there to wait out their pensions.
Another reason is because of social engineering attempts during which basic learning skills were replaced by attitude and concept "learning." This has nothing to do with money. It's simply a matter of bad policy using wistful criteria to teach the wrong material in the wrong way. That's why people who scream about underfunding "No Child Left Behind" make me laugh. It's an oversight program that's attempting to put schols back on course and what those folk are asking for is the government to fund what the local schools should have been doing all the while --actually teaching the kids.
Money is not the solution in the school system. The more you think it is, the worse the problem will get. You don't fund incompetence.
By the way, more tax dollars for basic research? No way. In fact, not at all. You want to talk about underachievers then you have no where else to go but the government. When it gives my money to researchers it has such low expecattions that some of the resulting projects are just plain silly --and then funded anew!
Science needs the accountability demanded by private sector funding, not government welfare programs.
The fact is that the corporations are putting themselves into this situation. Why would anyone want to pursue an education in these fields if the only job oppurtunities are being offshored? Even the research is starting to be offshored. Corporations only pander to the almighty dollar. The farcical whining by these corporations is only perpetrated to cover up their greed.
By the way, more tax dollars for basic research? No way. In fact, not at all. You want to talk about underachievers then you have no where else to go but the government. When it gives my money to researchers it has such low expecattions that some of the resulting projects are just plain silly --and then funded anew!
Science needs the accountability demanded by private sector funding, not government welfare programs.
The fact is that the corporations are putting themselves into this situation. Why would anyone want to pursue an education in these fields if the only job oppurtunities are being offshored? Even the research is starting to be offshored. Corporations only pander to the almighty dollar. The farcical whining by these corporations is only perpetrated to cover up their greed.
Educational investment and R&D could help in providing skills and employment to fit the labor force to opportunities, if they exist and could create them if they don't. Think e-government, e-medicare, biomedical, and energy research. These make sense. Educating people for jobs that don't exist doesn't.
Educational investment and R&D could help in providing skills and employment to fit the labor force to opportunities, if they exist and could create them if they don't. Think e-government, e-medicare, biomedical, and energy research. These make sense. Educating people for jobs that don't exist doesn't.
The only way to get people to go into these fields is to guarantee them jobs. But since protectionism is such an evil word, this will never happen. That and that fact that corporations make tons of money by using cheap overseas labor. They would definitely be against it, despite the fact that since the upper 20 percentile of Chinese workers make $1440 a YEAR (based on a recent PBS show I watched), they are definitely NOT going to be able to buy HDTVs ...
They are making money on the short term and will lose it in the long term.
And the government will foot the bill for all the unemployed ...
The only way to get people to go into these fields is to guarantee them jobs. But since protectionism is such an evil word, this will never happen. That and that fact that corporations make tons of money by using cheap overseas labor. They would definitely be against it, despite the fact that since the upper 20 percentile of Chinese workers make $1440 a YEAR (based on a recent PBS show I watched), they are definitely NOT going to be able to buy HDTVs ...
They are making money on the short term and will lose it in the long term.
And the government will foot the bill for all the unemployed ...
Second, research by Richard Florida & others has shown that tolerant urban communities foster creative workers. Policies focusing on small scale development, not big factories, need to be promoted.
Second, research by Richard Florida & others has shown that tolerant urban communities foster creative workers. Policies focusing on small scale development, not big factories, need to be promoted.
If there was a "true" shortage of talent we would be hearing about fat salaries and benefits being offered to attact it. But it would be much cheaper to import it and that is their aim. Too bad, because rising salaries would attract more students which builds our capabilities, not some other country's workforce.
Those who point out China and India graduate five times more engineers than the U.S. should be whacked up side the head (and sent back to school); their populations are about that factor larger that ours.
There are solutions that need to be found for the U.S. to be competitive but racing to the bottom isn't one of them. Don't support short-sighted solutions that benefit the few.
If there was a "true" shortage of talent we would be hearing about fat salaries and benefits being offered to attact it. But it would be much cheaper to import it and that is their aim. Too bad, because rising salaries would attract more students which builds our capabilities, not some other country's workforce.
Those who point out China and India graduate five times more engineers than the U.S. should be whacked up side the head (and sent back to school); their populations are about that factor larger that ours.
There are solutions that need to be found for the U.S. to be competitive but racing to the bottom isn't one of them. Don't support short-sighted solutions that benefit the few.