American workers not "best in the world." In fact, we're actually kind of bad.

YF, it's very easy to outsource programming. It's a matter of record. It's really not worth debating.

 

Not debating it. Have said a couple of times already that it's true.

But, look, I played baseball as a kid. That didn't guaranty me a job in MLB. But, the best baseball players earn millions. The same is true with programmers and engineers.

To act like it's not a field worth entering because not everyone will succeed in it is silly. To cross thread, we've got all these parents pushing their kids in sports, hoping for a college scholarship, or pro career, yet we're afraid to have kids go into computer programming and engineering?

That's a formula for failure. That cedes the entire industry to the rest of the world.

And, without the basic programming or engineering skills, it closes off any number of careers in the industry. Nearly every tech company was founded by a programmer.

 

Wait a minute - a country's people, who, in general, had no clue about the negative implications of home equity loans (but did want that big boat, or annual vacation).... a country's people, who, in general, pays usurious-like interest rate charges on simple purchases with their credit cards.... is having trouble producing intelligent workers?

Color me shocked!

 

It's easy to outsource* it, true ... but it's not easy to outsource it effectively. But that's not the point. Programming (and math) skills are just one of many skills that an educated workforce/individual has (or should have) these days. Whether you actually do programming or not is irrelevant; you probably have more to offer regardless of what you do if you have that skill.

*And by outsource I mean get someone overseas to do it.

 

This test measures basic skills. The fact that Americans can't program or sequence DNA are just side effects of the larger underlying problem, which is that they can't read or write or perform simple math. Employees can't trust workers to write a letter to a customer, let alone to streamline the company's operations.

(I'm as at fault as anyone else. I blew off high school math and science because, hey, I was going to be a journalist. Who needs it!)

 

You mean to tell me a country which has been continually lowering standards for the last 20 years for students is now churning out graduates who are two steps above moron? Color me shocked. No wonder our key exports are now selfies and twerking.

 

Pay the going rate for the skills you want. The companies will find no shortage of workers then. They want exceptional skills for cut-rate prices. After they've spent the last generation screwing the working man its no wonder they are being told to get bent.

 

For the purposes of this discussion, our school system would be a lot better off if we were allowed to track kids and make their educational experiences different and, gasp, unequal. The bottom 80 percent of kids are never going to be good enough at math to make a difference in the workforce. But the top 20 percent have a chance to be, yet resources have been diverted from them toward the kids who are below the bare-bones "proficient" measure on the standardized tests.

God, I sound like a Republican!

Seriously, though, we used to have vocational tech programs in high schools for kids who knew they weren't college material but could get a head start on learning a skill. One of the most successful people in my HS graduating class took those vo-tech courses and then went into the power company's training and apprenticeship program.

 

Crimsonace here has posted before about how frustrating it is when students in his high school classes just assume they are going to be able to go out and get middle class wages working some grunt construction or factory job after high school. The idea is embedded in American men. Hanna Rosin wrote a book about it, "The End of Men."

 

If employers would invest in paying for potential employees to learn the skills they need for their business, maybe I wouldn't feel so bad. Everyone wants to get off cheap. Just like the kid wants an entry level job with prime benefits, the employer wants all the skills built-in to a new hire. Pay for training instead of bitching.

 

Employers in Finland and South Korea and Japan apparently don't have to pay for this training. Is Apple going to start underwriting high school algebra courses in Cupertino?

 

Haha, I know you're just trying to make a point, but Cupertino is NOT the place that needs anything underwritten. It's 70 percent Asian and the cultural center of the Tiger Mom phenomenon.