America's competency in science is suddenly on Congress' hot burner. The 108th Congress is holding numerous hearings by various committees from education to commerce to foreign relations with numerous witnesses from industry and education to analyze the problem and possible legislative solutions. But the solution they are coming up with is disingenuous!
"Our attention to competitiveness now will determine the kind of job that a five-year old of today can have in 20 years," U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont) said in testimony in a hearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce Wed. March 15. Yet the need to strengthen America's "global competitiveness" is a new idea for many Americans used to global dominance.
There is plenty to be worried about. As Deborah Wince-Smith, President of the Council on Competitiveness pointed out, in 1970 the U.S. enrolled approximately 30 percent of tertiary level students in the world and over half of science and engineering doctorates were granted by U.S. institutions of higher ed; in 2001-2002, the U.S. enrolled just 14 percent of tertiary students. In addition, total scientific papers by American authors peaked in 1992 and has been flat ever since; and federal funding of basic research is now only half of its mid-1960s peak of 2 percent of GDP.
Fostering "innovation" is the solution being pushed.. Analysts seem to think new inventions will solve the problem of America's falling behind in high tech, of stimulating young people to go into math and science, of increasing federal investment in research, and even of addressing the "inevitable" outsourcing of American "gopher" tech jobs that are outsourced to cheap foreign labor both in and out of the U.S.
If innovation is the solution, then incompetent primary and secondary teachers seem to be the main culprit. Less than 30 percent of America's K-12 teachers have backgrounds in the sciences and mathematics, Wince-Smith pointed out. Yet while higher education lobbyists make sure legislation will provide federal support for students who are studying to become science teachers, paying such trained teachers more once they are employed is not included. The only direct benefit for science teachers that legislators support so far are loan forgiveness programs..
I think placing the blame for America's science woes and all the responsibility for student stimulation and American scientific innovation on teachers, is worse than simplistic. CEOs from our leading companies must also take much of the blame and responsibility. CEOs from Intel, IBM and the like readily admit before Congress that their companies are turning their backs on investment in long-term research (down from 30 percent to less than ten in many companies and eliminated all together in others.) because of board members' pressures to increase short term profits. These CEOs see nothing incongruous about coming to Congress and demanding that the feds must make up the private sector's investment gaps in research.
The CEO witnesses also admit that if labor costs and regulations are less in other countries, they of course must outsource. Their bottom lines unquestionably come ahead of American jobs.
American CEOs also argue before Congress that the federal government must increase the number of H1B visas for young foreign educated labor because they can't find young Americans who are up on the latest technologies and willingly will take entry-level jobs in America. They of course never mention that they could invest in continuing education for their mid-level American engineers.already on the pay-role who just need to catch up to the latest technologies. Instead these companies, apparently without a twinge of conscious, lay off mid-level American engineers once they have oriented their foreign cheaper and younger H1B replacements.
Another point rarely heard in committee hearings is that while it is true that the majority of degrees earned in science and engineering are completed by boys not girls, it is foreign boys who are earning them, not American boys. Instead, the CEOs demand that Congress increase the number of foreign students by "attaching permanent immigration permits to all acceptances of foreign graduate students in science and engineering. Public universities love this because they charge four times more tuition to foreign students than to Americans or legal residents.
No one I've heard at any Congressional committee hearing on American competition so far has mentioned the most obvious reason why American boys and girls do not go into science and engineering anymore. Paul Samuelson the renown economist , said it best in a column a few months ago. It's not the education that is turning off American students. It's the bad jobs.
It takes too long to train for jobs in science and engineering where security is nil, the chance to do "exciting, innovative research" is diminishing to nothing, the wages are lowering due to unlimited numbers of foreign workers willing to take the jobs cheaper, the hours are increasing due to underbid competitive contracts, and there is no future. Hardly any American engineers are engineers after the age of 40. Most have experienced heart-wrenching layoffs, no job protections at all (engineers never have belonged to unions in the United States), bitter replacements by younger foreign workers, and no training to keep themselves up with technology. In their 30s, many American engineers have had to move families in the middle of school years or find commute work far from home ... with resultant high divorce rates.
In the lingo of American kids, they don't go into engineering and science because the jobs "suck". I've yet to hear any CEO or legislators suggest what might improve this situation.
It is clear to all but those who don't want to change, that no matter how stimulating and fun and exciting the primary and middle and high school science teachers may become, students will turn off to careers in engineering and science because they see clearly that studying long years for these careers probably will not be worth it. Most will get MBAs and take less numerous and far less innovative management positions in industry, presiding over an almost entirely foreign work-force
It will be interesting to see if the concern for American competitiveness will embolden America's corporate leaders to accept the responsibility to change their own work culture. But it is doubtful in a commercial environment that values profits "ueber alles". And it is far easier and cheaper to send CEOs to ego-inflating Congressional hearings, to seek increased federal funds for research, and to blame everything on lazy, uneducated, and unionized public school teachers.
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