US Losing its Scientific Dominance 1382
ScaredSilly writes "The New York Times is reporting that the US is losing its dominance in the sciences. They cite lowering research budgets, increased military spending and 'reverse brain-drain': fewer techies staying in the US after school. I personally think that our comparatively crappy K-12 educational system, and an increased dominance of military research over core scientific research plays a big role. (It's easy to get DARPA, DoD and DoE funding, but difficult to get NSF funding). What do you folks think?"
Argh... (Score:2, Insightful)
The situation reminds me of 1600s Spain, frankly -- the big consumer, the people who crossed an ocean to "conquistar" (black?) gold. So, has the US entered its decadence phase finally?
Blame Public Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My prognosis (Score:1, Insightful)
So tell me, honestly. Why should someone blindly, without question, love the United States of America?
What is wrong with constructive criticism? If a country is so great, its merits should easily be able to withstand any criticism.
Campus... (Score:4, Insightful)
Innovation and the useful arts (Score:5, Insightful)
12:15pm, "US Losing its Scientific Dominance"
Well duh! Let's spend a load of time doing science, I'm sure we won't have to spend millions on a legal defense when somebody sues us for using an obvious idea...
Military Spending (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, it seems that less Americans want to go into the sciences - they'd rather do easy, joke majors in school like Communications or Psychology... and even further before that, in elementary and middle school, being smart and interested in science/engineering/reading isn't "cool" and people tend to shun those types, while elementary/middle schools abroad tend to rever the more intelligent students.
Globalize (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not surprised (Score:1, Insightful)
Its easy (Score:3, Insightful)
The corporations that are supported by politicians that YOU DIDNT BOTHER VOTING AGAINST helped this happen. If your child is too busy collecting pokemon cards (because you have been guilted by society into working 60 hours a week to buy them) to pay attention to petty things like math or science, well... tough luck.
I don't feel sorry for them. (Score:4, Insightful)
IMHO (Score:4, Insightful)
I work in the College of Engineering at a large university. I haven't seen the actual statistics but my impression is that the MAJORITY of our students are citizens of other countries. Why is this, you ask? It's because American kids are SMART.
Engineering is a DIFFICULT field of study. So are Computer Science, Math, Chemistry and Physics. We have students who graduate and HAVE to go to graduate school because they can't get a job in the US at the B.S. level. They (the jobs) have all been "offshored" to India, China, Malaysia and other low wage countries. American kids are just too damned smart to work as hard as they have to in order to earn a degree in the hard sciences or Engineering if there's no payoff for their four (in most cases five) years of grind.
Just my US$0.02
Hand in hand with loosing technicians/designers (Score:3, Insightful)
I've begun to notice that entrepenuers are following the design and production. This business model is generating hot beds of innovation out side the country. If you follow the history of technological innovation, the production and design areas are critical. Sarnoff, Menlo Park, Xerox Park, Silicon valley, etc. You can't design in a vacuum and being near the technicians and engineers that actually make what you are working on is essential.
The way our military is currently structured, I can't believe that anyone would consider loosing scientific dominance would not be a matter of national security.
Our business here have this wierd notion that China and India are second class academically so it is okay to outsource engineering and techinal work because American's will always be the innovators. I have always thought that this was stupid and I'm seeing now that this is simply isn't true.
Did you go to university?? (Score:5, Insightful)
And also, every year there is a huge *outflux* of morons from first and second years who finally realize they can't hack it.
Every decent university sees this. They encourage it. Hell most overbook themselves on the basis that only 65% of students stay past their first year.
The reason? Why turn away a morons first year tution?
Re:Brain Drain? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Campus... (Score:5, Insightful)
In public schools teachers are encouraged not to fail students who can't perform, it will make them feel bad about themselves. Who cares if a high school senior can't hardly read, let's graduate him just so that the school can maintain its 97% graduation rate. The majority of high school graduates go on to higher education. Do they deserve to? I don't think so but that's a different discussion. These are the people that are our future. I can't say I'm surprised that the US is falling behind in the scientific arena.
I remember my college physics classes and half the class didn't understand basic algebra yet they were going to major in physics. If I were a scientist, I'd go somewhere else to research too.
Economics and research funding (Score:3, Insightful)
Money/Materialistic Culture (Score:5, Insightful)
To me, the problem is, people view a job as something you do to make money, and there isn't that much one can do in the pure sciences beyond research (unless you're exceedingly lucky/brilliant and come up with some essential new product) which for the most part, in my limited knowledge, doesn't pay that well compared to other things one can do w/ a similar education (science/engineering people are VERY desired in the financial industry which often pays VERY well).
Solutions I have come up with: a) make culture less materialistic - not happening anytime soon; b) give a lot more funding to pure research so that it'll pay better and also be easier to do - bigger budget means getting more of the toys you need for your experiments
Re:Post 9/11 syndrome? (Score:2, Insightful)
Every issue has two sides (or more) (Score:3, Insightful)
The article - which I read most of - isn't saying that people in the US are getting stupider. It says that people outside of the US is getting smarter... Quite a different issue, and for the species as a whole, a good one.
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Because sports brings both money and recognition back to the school and increases the public image. What does the science lab do? It costs a hell of a lot of money with no return for the school system (at least in a short term/micro view) . Schools want to be viewed as prestigious institutions, and the number one way to do that is through athletics. Just look in your local daily newspaper. In all of the sections count the number of stories related to high schools in all of non-sports sections that are positive stories. Then, flip to the sports section and read how many stories/reports there are about local area high schools. The ratio is going to be immensly in the favor of sports stories. Local people couldn't care less what their children are learning in their coursework in school. To them, school is just another hoop to jump through for their children to move forward in the real world. Sports on the other hand gets their children and their organizations on the front page of a newspaper section and on the nightly news. When the local sports team does well, the community gains in recognition and prestige. It's no wonder that the money goes to sports and not real education... it's what the community wants.
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that's where the American interests lie. To be frank, a very minimal portion of society actually care about science. In this day and age, there's the attitude that says "Who cares about science when there are more interesting things to do, like watch music videos and make more money?"
Hell, what about 2004AS1? There was a 25% chance that the meteor would hit earth and it's hardly made front page news. The bottom line? Nobody cares.
Science is hard (Score:5, Insightful)
Our culture does not tend to produce such people. America tends to think on the very, very short term (this is an inevitable consequence of allowing corporate/profit oriented thinking to dominate our culture) and it should come as no surprise that the get rich quick philosophy by which we define success is incompatible with good scientific training. There are always some people who will be scientists, but if you want a lot of them you can't just do nothing to promote science and then expect results.
Frank Herbert said it best - "short term decisions tend to fail in the long term". We constantly make short term decisions - we don't accept anything except instant gratification. So as a consequence the hard, long term skills tend to go undeveloped.
The question we need to ask ourselves is - do we care? I don't mean you or me, but as a country, and as a society, do we value science and other difficult skills enough to give up some of our short term gratification attitude in order to socially promote the long term view? If not, then the result is inevitable. I rather suspect we don't care, as long as our quality of life doesn't drop. The future isn't of much interest to America - we're too busy living in the present. Until that changes, and we start to value long term thinking and decisions (like putting ATTENTION, not $$, into education - $$ are just a feel good measure and do nothing to solve the real problem) we will continue to fall behind.
Re:Military Spending (Score:5, Insightful)
Anti-intellectualism is another serious problem, I agree; that's something fundamental in our culture that we really need to fix, but I confess I have no idea how.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this a new phenomena?
-m
Re:Its easy (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't possibly blame corporations for kids' short attention spans. Its not the corporations or the politicians who support commerce and business as opposed to a large, overbearing government that sit kids in front of a tv while the parents catch up on their work or buy them the pokemon cards when they are at the store instead of learning to just say 'no'. If anyone is to blame, its the parents of these greedy, lazy kids with no attention spans. We are living in a society where if a kid doesn't understand something in school its all the teacher's fault and no responsibility lies on the parents to help their child with their homework after school. Where the television has replaced parenting and where the word 'no' is only said in a household by the 6 year old telling his parents that he doesn't want to do his homework (which his parents will make excuses to the teacher the next day for).
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:5, Insightful)
The real problem is lack of parental involvement. If you aren't doing what it takes to ensure your own kid reaches his potential, you can't blame the public school system.
A Few Problems Off The Top Of My Head (Score:4, Insightful)
2. A lack of corporate interest in basic research. If a project doesn't show some return for shareholders in the near-term, it gets no love. This attitude has had a stifling effect on non-government funded research.
3. Shoddy treatment of objective science. Okay, call it bashing, but I have to say that the Bush administration's treatment of science has been apalling. If the research doesn't support the agenda, the scientists must be replaced by industry shills.
4. Lack of funding for basic research from government. This has being going on for longer than the current Bush administration, but it echoes the corporate trend of demanding short-term results. If a program is unlikely to show benefit within the current election cycle, it's hard-pressed to find funding.
5. Complacency. Without an external "threat" (the Soviet launch of Sputnik), science programs like Apollo are hard to fund. This applies in both the government and corporate arenas.
I wish I had solutions to go with my observations.
Bander
Re:Post 9/11 syndrome? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd put a lot of it down to the post-9/11 environment. They would have to dump a truckload of money on me before I'd even think about moving to the US anymore. This isn't antiamericanism - I'd honestly just be scared witless to live there as a foreign national - one no longer has any obvious legal rights. From what I've seen it is apparently quite possible to be thrown in jail for years at a time with no representation, no rights, no due process, etc.
Gah - thanks but no thanks.
It's all about cultural values (Score:5, Insightful)
Those who are born here in the US probably don't even think about it, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks that it's incredibly stupid that when someone does well on a test, his reward is getting called a geek by the basketball players, who are on top of the social ladder.
And this stuff doesn't stop at college, when retards who can throw a football get automatic A's in their classes, and get a diploma and a million dollar contract handed to them (maybe I'm exaggerating there, but you get the point).
And with that kind of social values, what the fuck else can you expect from American education system? The opportunity to learn is there - our university system is one of, if not THE best in the world - but
I can't speak for any other country, but in Russia kids wanted to become scientists and astronauts [up until the 90's, but that's another story]. Here unfortunately, kids just don't want to become scientists, or engineers, or anyone of that sort. They want to become Brett Favre, 50 Cent, and Donald Trump (not that there's anything wrong with wanting to become a billionaire).
So my point is, until we will WANT to excel at science, we won't - it's as simple as that.
Re:IMHO (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless, of course, smartness is measured independent of knowledge.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
Money doesn't ever fix anything...
For instance High Schools are a place of social idoctrination more so then places of learning.
There are still places you can get wonderfull education, but they are private. Public schools are controlled by beuaracrates that want to fuffill feel-good BS like anti-drug education (proven over and over to be 100% inneffective), eviroemental and social bullshit.
That's were the money is going to! Why would giving the schools more computers fix this issue?
My little brother may not know how to spell properly, or not know the basics to geometry and triginometry, but DAMMIT he knows not to smoke pot, change diapers just incase he becomes a teenage dad, and he coughs loudly every time we go to eat and somebody across the room smokes a cigeratte!
Now that's what I want! A bunch of social robots telling me that SUV's kill baby seals. Hell they couldn't name you the rights garrenteed to you in the constitution but they know socialist health care is wonderfull and their teachers need to be paid more!!!
Of course 2 + 2 = 5 sometimes, but after all, that's what computers are for. It's not like they have to think anymore!
Half Empty (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor Nations Stem Brain Drain
US Exports Knowledge Overseas
Will Military Research Yield New Public Sector Products?
You get the idea
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
The real wake up call was getting stationed in Japan and travelling around SE Asia. I simply couldn't believe the work ethics I saw. You can make all the jokes you want about Japan producing mindless robots, but the guys who worked for me didn't just stay after hours until the job was done, they stayed until the job was done right. Most of them were pretty damned creative and willing to try new things too.
I've always been impressed with America's ability to fight back to the top when we realize we are the underdog. The question simply is, when are we going to wake up?
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh yeah, that would be where the parents come in. Somehow, at some point, maybe it was when both parents had to start working, it became better/easier to just give the kids what they wanted rather then laying down the law.
I can understand, it must be hard to come back after a 60 hour workweek to a screaming kid, a spouse who also had an exhausting workweek. Would you have the energy to deal with all that?
Re:The Mess of Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Stip the schools down to reading, writing, math, sciences, and for god's sake Civics. If you want music, art, drama, or sports then goto private lessons or community bands, theater group, art classes, and sports clubs.
Let's get the schools out of the sports business and into the education business.
Modern-day persecution?? (Score:1, Insightful)
Oppression... (Score:5, Insightful)
In the US they were free to publish, free to discuss among their peers, free to do the research that was important to them.
Anyone who follows the news these days can see this is changing. There is much more government scrutiny in all areas of life, and that freedom is beginning to erode.
If things continue along these lines, Russia will eventually be freer than the US.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
Re:IMHO (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no reason to take HARD courses (such as my engineering courses - I'm an engineering major) unless you love them and even then it's discouraging when I can get a B in a classics course I pass-failed to fulfill a distribution requirement without doing any of the reading for the course yet I know I'd fail my Optimization course if I never did any reading for it. Furthermore, pure sciences/math don't pay very well. So it's a lot of work, to get worse grades and not make as much money when you graduate. Where's the logic in that unless a) it's not a lot of work for you because you have an innate talent for it and b) you love doing it, so that enjoyment balances out the poor salaries you'll get.
Readjustment back to "normal" in science fields (Score:5, Insightful)
Problem is, this boom was seriously unsustainable.
What we are seeing now is a readjustment to the more normal situation, but we are still doing substantially better than pre-WWII levels in terms of science spending/graduates/jobs. I don't necessarily believe this is a zero-sum game, our investment over the past fifty years has paid off very well, and I think we are a better nation and a better world as a result.
Just to give an example of pre-WWII science job market: Feynman's first job was as a plastic chemist, and he spent some time as basically a mechanical engineer (albeit a high-powered one) before he got into the Manhattan project. The point is, only for the past 50 years has there been much money at all for "basic unapplied" research.
Re:IMHO (Score:2, Insightful)
Research vs Invention (Score:3, Insightful)
But basic research is less product related.
What is the commercial value of knowing which way a helium atom spins, or how much closer we can get to absolute zero.
How that will later effect us we can't even guess at now.
Re:The key paragraph, IMO (Score:4, Insightful)
But it's really not military power I'm talking about. In the past, Russia has produced some pretty damn impressive science and engineering. These days, the next generation of great scientists and engineers is too busy trying to keep from starving to death to accomplish much of anything. All the money is flowing to crooked businessmen, corrupt politicians, and mobsters. It's like an exaggerated version of where the US is going; I just hope things here never get quite that bad.
Decline in Scientific Prowess (Score:2, Insightful)
immigration the biggest problem (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a testament to the strength of American science that foreign applications to US grad schools have decreased by only 25% in spite of the ridiculous situation placed on us by the current government. Funding issues and stem cells aside, things have to change in November.
Re:Post 9/11 syndrome? (Score:5, Insightful)
The same applies if you are an American citizen in certain circumstances. Right now, I can think of about 10 countries I'd rather live in, if I could even afford to move.
Cart before the horse in the 80's (Score:5, Insightful)
After the 80's this shifted. Whatever you made, it was about making money, and cars, movies, or whatever simply became a way to get the money, but the money came first. The corollary of this is that top management USED to be car or movie men (or women) who also knew how to manage money. Now top management BECAME money men (or women) who *might* also know something about cars or movies.
There are two net results out of this:
* First, it leads our young adults to chase money instead of chasing cars or movies, for careers. It actually denigrates the act of creating cars and movies in favor of managing the money to fund those cars and movies. The best and brightest go where they perceive the best careers are.
* Second, it leads to inferior products. Since those at the top are not really car and movie men, (or women) they don't have the best instincts about their products. Hence you tend get 'follow the herd' products. I can't do too well with the cars, but with movies you get sequel-itis, comic book adaptations, and Michael Crichton movies. Not that Crichton's books are bad, or make bad movies, it's just that you get *too much* repetition of known-good formulas. (Nothing wrong with a known-good formula, we need new stuff, too.)
I've used the samples of cars and movies. I'm sure the
Other causes:
Advertisers and the people to hire them may not even admit it to themselves, but they tend to want to turn us all into consuming idiots who buy their products without thinking. Hence advertising which attempts to bypass the consiousness and go for the glandular reactions.
Another part of the 80's money culture: Get the quarterly report looking good. Research is a drain on this quarter. Of course it's good in the long run, but we must 'balance' the long run against the quarterly results. Guess which way the balance usually ends up tilting.
In the long run, a culture works as long as the most competent rise to the most responsible positions. Education is seen as key in our culture, and we have 'tried' to make it available to all. Aside from the fact that we haven't 'tried' hard enough, take a look at college: It's the gate to the top positions. If you want to take this as a class warfare issue, it's in the interest of the wealthy for colleges to be expensive. That way only the children of the wealthy can qualify for the top positions. In that light, it's simply enforcing a class system while paying lip service to equal opportunity and objective standards. But the real sin to our society is the smart, poor kid who can't afford the education while an academically mediocre rich kid can, and gets the associated opportunities.
Enough.
Why bother? (Score:1, Insightful)
If the K-12 system suddenly improved, the college/university system wouldn't have the capacity to absorb the additional students anyway.
As for our science/engineering dominance declining, you can put the blame on offshoring.
Why study science or engineering if you know there won't be a job for you when you graduate? Those are very demanding, challenging fields... there are fields that pay better, involve less work, and are less likely to be outsourced.
That's also why there's a "reverse brain drain"... foreign students come here for an education, then go back home where they can live like kings on $5,000/year from U.S. companies doing offshoring in countries where the per capita income is $500/year.
Beats having to compete in the collapsing U.S. labor market.
Re:Foreign Exchange Student opinions (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
But I'm sure every generation for the past 200 years has said that, "Kids today aren't willing to work as hard". It can't have been true every time, or otherwise we would have died out by now.
Oh yeah, that would be where the parents come in. Somehow, at some point, maybe it was when both parents had to start working, it became better/easier to just give the kids what they wanted rather then laying down the law.
That makes a lot more sense than the usual assumption that it's just some failure of will on a large scale. The question is what do you do about it? Unless the economy gets so good that one parent can stay home it's not going to get better. And I think the chances of that are very, very slim.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Reason is Why Should I, what opportunities (Score:1, Insightful)
Reason is Opportunity. If Opportunity is there people will go to the jobs.
Another reason is Media. Sports are better because they have a grater $ to effort ratio.
Lost Legacy (Score:5, Insightful)
American culture does not value intellect. In a country dominated by dogmatic religion and banal entertainment, anyone with half a brain is looked down upon for wasting tax dollars or being too "nerdy." Image is what matters, not content.
U.S. schools focus on passing limited tests that show nothing about creativity; teaching real problem solving skills is much less important than shoveling students through an impersonal and over-wrought system.
When was the last time you saw the President lauding a group of scientists at the White House? Unless your research is focused on new and creative ways of killing people, you're pretty much ignored; religious ideology replaces the scientific method, and society devolves into polarized camps that react rather than think.
Perhaps I'm too blunt, but I'm tired of watching my once-great nation devolve into an international bully, abandoning its legacy of achievement.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
We know Japanese work long hours. We also know they don't work nearly as hard as Americans.
I do not agree that laziness is a major issue, as much as greed. Management is the number one issue.
Managers or CEOs make almost exclusively short term decisions to make themselves look better; Then they leave for a better job before the piper has to be paid.
America is capitalist, but we are becomming short term only capitalist. Mortgaging our future on almost every single issue.
Re:Campus... (Score:5, Insightful)
A friend of my mother's is a teacher in the public school system in Georgia. The state of education in GA is not great to begin with, but still. This teacher has actually been informed that she cannot fail a student as long as the student shows up for class. Regardless of whether he or she does the work or falls asleep, as long as the student is present, they pass. Otherwise, the school loses funding.
Sadly, the poor performance of public school tends to widen the class gap. Public schools perform poorly so those who can afford to send their children to expensive private schools. Those kids get what's regarded as a better education at K-12, which gives them a better chance to get in to what is regarded as a better University. Graduating gives them a shot at a better paying job, and the cycle begins anew.
This is not to say that most of these kids don't deserve the acceptance to a better Uni (most.. I'd bet everyone knows someone who probably didn't deserve it), or that even a kid from a poor school can't get in to a good university; they can. But at the same time, I had someone from the admissions office at a highly regarded University in North Carolina once tell me that a 4.0GPA from one of the local public schools was regarded with less merit than a 3.2 from one of the local private schools. Whether this type of evaluation is general practice, I cannot say, as I've only heard from one person at one university.
Gov't Funding for Universites (Score:5, Insightful)
So, unless you're researching something that Monsanto (or any other large corporation) is interested in, you're going to have a hard time finding grants. This is the sad truth.
Yes, K-12, but also private research (Score:5, Insightful)
But, I think a shot at government funded research is missing the target. And, the military research budget as a portion of GDP, is nowhere near a high. It is more visible because they've made the bid process less secretive, but overall, still relatively low in comparison to other time periods in the last 50 years. But, the government has never even been the majority player in research. Private industry has been behind the majority of the research efforts in the US.
Don't forget that we're about 15 years into the aftereffects after the transition away from pure research by many of the large private firms. With the exception of a few stragglers, most corporations now have firm policies that all research must be aiming at a clear corporate payoff. So, true blue sky research has been heavily cut by private industry. This was the shortsightedness of the '90s. We heavily shifted research towards the short term. So we essentially pulled researchers off the task of making fuel for the future, and put them on burning the fuel of the past. This gave us a blazing decade, but has left us with ruins.
Whats wrong with Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Add all the feel good crap like not flunking someone because it might damage their self esteem. Devaluing grades and diplomas by passing people through no matter what. No self discipline in the students(read lazy).
The problem is obvious, the solution will take a minimum of the 40 years it's taken to screw it up. Meanwhile we produce a couple generations of lazy people with no common sense or ability to think creativly.
Re:I concur (Score:1, Insightful)
Compare classic conservative thought with the "new right". With the new right wing, there is a constant disregard and spinning of scientific thought and a seeming reliance upon patriotic and moralistic catchphrases rather than real thoughtful discourse. I'm not the only one who feels that way, and thats why I included that thought as part of the problem.
Regarding the voucher system, all I see is money steered away from the public education system. This, combined with subjective evaluations of who's gifted and who's not makes for bad karma, do you really advance the brilliant kids, or just the conventional kids who the teachers believe are exceptionally conforming?
When you privatize, you do so at the risk of forgetting the public good and neglecting areas that can benefit from public oversight. If you can't successfully evaluate and improve public schools while having every element having public oversight, what makes you feel that privatization is going to work any better, what with the possibilities of removing many elements of the education process from public scrutany.
The US needs to honestly reexamine its value system and this includes the left as well as the right. The current climate of political discourse is simply divisive and excludes deliberate debate of the issues that really matter and focuses on who has the better 30 second soundbite.
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:4, Insightful)
Here's the really, really sad thing about sports. I've read one study and watched a documentary which identified the reason why most fathers push their children into sports activities. It also reflects on why many fathers are willing to divert so many funds to athletics. It's really kind of sad too. The reason is simple. By having their children participate in sports, it's one of the sole activities that fathers in the US do with their children. Everytime a father does this activity, it becomes a comfort activity allow them to regress to the time that they, in turn, did it with their father. In other words, sports are important to most US fathers because it was the only time they spent time with their father. In turn, doing so allows them to feel good because it's one of the few activities that they can associate with their father.
To me, this screams that more emoney needs to be spent on education and encouraging a broader range of social activities rather than wasting money on sports, just so fathers can feel good about themselves again.
Absolutely. (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is good at everything... personally, I had difficulties with some coursework in college. I liked engineering, but realized that my natural proclivities would make an undergraduate degree in engineering a herculean task, so I took a different track in something else that I enjoyed (I had planned on pursuing graduate studies in medicine either way, so no harm done).
Nobody is good at everything, and that's just the reality of life. Some people will never work any job but manual trades, while some people become Stephen Hawking... hold onto an objective standard and wash out the non-hackers.
Sorry to offend the self-esteem crowd, but either you can do the job adequately, or you cannot.
Re:It's all about cultural values (Score:2, Insightful)
Personally, I'm one of those 'publicised' geeks/nerds who openly admit I like computers, etc, but I'm still liked by at least half the grade. Why? Because one just needs the right attitude. It doesn't take much, i.e., play a couple of sports a geek/nerd usually doesn't play (i.e., rugby), get good at it, and you will have friends, trust me. You even might have a reputation that might filter down to the lower grades.
Although the whole Matrix and LOTR being accepted to the general society could be part of it, being a geek isn't too bad at all
Priorities (Score:3, Insightful)
They don't care that most kids can't count, they get calculators in grade school. Music programs are expensive, and the average joe doesn't understand the value of them.
Lots of people have the attitude "I didn't do it and I turned out okay, so my kid doesn't need it either."
I know of kids who got out of required courses because their parents didn't think it was important. They skipped the foreign language requirement to go to play in the gym.
Consider this (Score:3, Insightful)
Our US education system is a joke, kids want to be rappers, skateboarders, sports starts, divas, singers, gangstas, video game heads, etc. Anything but math and science careers like Scientists and Researchers. I partly blame:
#1 Parents for not being strict enough on their children and teaching them a value of a good education and career choice.
#2 Teachers for not encouraging students to do better, or caring enough to guide them and help them to reach their potential.
#3 State, Local, and Federal governments for cutting back on education so they can fund "Pork" projects like Sports Statium building for billionares.
#4 Businesses for refusing to hire US citizes and instead offshoring those jobs, which discourage US Citizens from getting into those type of careers.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
I think sports figures don't intimidate anyone. We all get over a physical beating. But smart students everyone sees as future rich people. And we are all constantly abused by the rich, and its not so easy to get over.
Re:I didn't RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:It's all about cultural values (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of the problem is that the current social climate in public schools suits a number of powerful interests. As a group, these students become excellent consumers and politically inactive constituents. Perfect for Madison Avenue and politicians who want to stay in power.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't say I have actual numbers for this, but in my experience, both Americans and Japanese put the same amount of energy into their work. Where you see a difference is the mentality that their work must be done right and on time... in Japan, the greater-good mentality pushes everyone to work as hard and as fast as they can. In America, the individualism approach tends to make the over-achievers work harder, and the rest just cruise along at mediocrity.
Looking at the broader picture, I think that in a lot of cases, the American school and support system for sciences probably produces a lot of very talented people, but they're less interested in serving the country that helped them than they are in furthering their careers (by moving abroad etc). Which is not a bad thing. In a choice between having a stable life working for a foreign company and staying at home and living in uncertainty, any well-educated talented person would have to choose stability.
It's a question of making the work environment at home more friendly to talent.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
I can tell you from personal experience that this is accurate, at least in high school. But then you grow up and then people realize that nerdiness is a good thing. You get stuff women really want: earning potential and stability.
In exactly that order.
Ahem.
blame blame blame (Score:1, Insightful)
I blame intellectual property, copyright, and patents.
Now you go.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
What did you expect? (Score:1, Insightful)
Now things are so politically correct that in an atmosphere which claims respect for "diversity", it is diversity from far left theology that is not tolerated. If your opinion isn't aligned with the far left then you have no access to the campus forum. Amazing, considerings the hippies protested loudly their 'lack' of free speech by replacing discourse with vulgarity as they rampaged through public buildings.
Now, the chickens have come home to roost.
On the positive side (Score:2, Insightful)
The other positive is that this will probably drive up the value of an advanced science degree in this country. With less "insourcing" of foreign talent, those of us left here will advance science degrees should reap a bit more respect and pay. That our we give up on R & D and basically become a country of investment bankers and lawyers, slowly destroying ourselves
Science doesnt need dominance (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Or has consumer culture made it seem like you have to have both parents working to get a new TV, new car, etc etc.
I've seen families with both parents working who still have credit debt.
Maybe we should try and just live within our means, even if it does mean not wearing the latest fashions, etc?
We make so much money compared to the rest of the world, yet we seem to be working more and more. How can that be? Shouldn't we all be rich enough to enjoy, at the very least, our families?
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:5, Insightful)
In my school and in my teaching career I meet very few teachers who do not care passionately about education and work as hard as they can to educate students in their chosen area of education. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are few and far between. Those teachers who are bad teachers generally get run out of the business.
You cannot properly educate a child who simply does not want to be educated and has no driving force behind him. Students today simply do not care about their education. Nearly all of the students who are discipline problems have one thing in common, they have apathetic parents. One of the most frustrating things for me as a teacher is dealing with parents who simply do not care. I have been told "Hey, he is your problem while he is at school" by parents. I also have difficulty in finding parents in many cases. When the parents do not care enough to discipline their child at home for behaviors at school there is absolutely nothing you can do to the child at school. What most people do not realize is that teachers have no power over students except that power which students give to the teachers. If you suspend a student it does no good if he doesn't care and his parents do not care. Once the suspension is over he is back at school disrupting the education of students who are actually there to learn something.
This would not be so bad if students and parents like this were the exception; however, they are quickly becoming the norm in today's schools. Most parents simply want to send their kids off to school and forget about them for the time they are there. I spend my days battling rude, disruptive and apathetic students rather than teaching. The sad thing is, that these students will grow up without a good education and then blame the "system" for not giving it to them. I have students from other countries where a free education is not guaranteed to you and their school s do not have textbooks, computers, even running water who marvel at the American students and wonder why they are pissing this wonderful opportunity for a free education away.
I also teach another class of students, our district has a special program for the brightest of the bright. All students who qualify for the program come to our school where the curriculum is accelerated and depth and complexity is added to suit the needs of these students. I can tell you the main difference in these students as compared with the regular students, without fail they have parents who are actively involved in their lives and truly care about them. I have no difficulty getting in contact with these parents; in fact, they will usually contact me first. These parents are the ones who actually show up to parent-teacher conference night, open house and attend games and concerts their kids are in. These parents take an active role in their child's life. These parents go out of their way to accommodate their children.
Do not take this as meaning I hate my job, I love my job and can never see me doing anything else. However, it can be extremely frustrating at times. I have much more to say on this subject and did not come anywhere close to voicing my actual and complete views on the subject, however, it is time to go to work. Perhaps tonight when I get home I will expand on the post.
David Culp
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:2, Insightful)
I agree with the original posting but here is the rest of the story (caution flamebait) --- Why are the parents working so hard to give the kids everything. The brain drain is because kids and parents think they need to have everything and have it given to them because they deserve it.
Jobs go overseas because they people there are cheaper for the SAME work. The IT industry is grossly overpaid, that is why jobs are leaving, not lack of skill. Kids do not study because they get everything they want and see college as a right not a priviledge. College is just a checkbox on the resume these days. And then 5 more years of indentured servitude as a Graduate Student? Why do that, when you can get everything you want handed to you. Americans lack the work ethic of people who have worked for a living.
Americans need to live with less, give less material things to their kids and more time to their kids. That is why foreign kids often get ahead. I'm an American and it pains me that the US is going to have to become a second world country before Americans remember that the nation was founded by hard working immigrants.
And this is unexpected why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Similarly, in the last 20 years we've seen South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore emerge as modern economies, and India and China reduce the stultifying power of socialism on their economies. The resulting development has been met with an increase in the amount of science and engineering they produce. Sure, the U.S. "lost its scientific dominance" in that it is no longer so far ahead of everyone else, but the only way to keep it would have been to militarily force the Asians to stay backwards.
How can I claim we've stayed even? Well, when we compare ourselves scientifically to those who were fully developed countries in 1983, we're still ahead, as pointed out in Time Europe [time.com].
The U.S. science establishment is still healthy. It's just that the science establisments in Asia are no longer invalids.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Alot of times it's true. It's the rare case which it isn't. I was/am a geek and am built like a linebacker and played football. I hung out w/ the jocks and the geeks. The biggest problem is that geeks tend to spend most of their time learning/getting better at the intellectual(or whetever) side of things. And believe it or not I think this is the problem. I found that I got lucky and was ok because I worked at the stuff I was bad at, and not what I was good at. I hit the football field, hit the weight room, got to be sociable and know the other side. As a result I was respected by them. The typical geek (and i may get flamed for this but oh well) is somewhat scared/timid, and will retreat to that which they know best and get better at it, and shrink from the rest of the world. In order to change the stereo type, we need to fit in and get better at what we're not good at...
Anywho, just a long random rant.
From a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It's so much easier to bid and get cash... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's all about cultural values (Score:2, Insightful)
If you gain respect for playing sports, having the I-don't-give-a-fuck-what-you-think attitude, and being a good drinker, it's not the same as gaining respect and social status for your academic achievements.
Now, nothing changed. I get respect and social status for earning a lot of money for someone my age, and NOT because I was able to get there by being smart, working hard and becoming good at what I do. IMO, that's a big problem.
Sowing what was reaped (Score:5, Insightful)
A half century of elevating athletic stars to godhood and excusing them any and every crime imaginable. Or pandering to anyone who happened to win the genetic lottery and be born beautiful.
Decades of worrying whether a schoolchild has his chi focused instead of making sure he or she can add two single digit numbers in their head.
And letting the clique situation in schools to progress to the level of the Lord Of The Flies hasn't helped, either. When I was in high school, I saw teacher actively engaging in making some students outcasts (usually because they were smarter). I can't imagine what it's like now with the "let's all be mediocre" mindset.
One through nine, no maybes, no supposes, no fractions. You can't travel in space, you can't go out into space, you know, without, like, you know, uh, with fractions - what are you going to land on - one-quarter, three-eighths? What are you going to do when you go from here to Venus or something? That's dialectic physics.
Re:Decline of Public Schools, or of the public? (Score:2, Insightful)
My family has been working as teachers and staffers in my town's
Small Town, USA. Hicksville. You are right. Parents are to blame, much more so than teachers. Why do peoples' semi-retarded moronic kids act like little hoodlums when they get into a school? Because their parents raised them that way. Public schools doesn't exist to educate. They exist to contain kids while parents are at work. They also exist to entertain parents and children (sports). Education isn't a priority.
If you care about your kids' education, do some basic research, and send them to a good private school, rather than dropping them off at the government-provided school just because it's there.
http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html (Why nerds are unpopular)
Re:I concur (Score:4, Insightful)
If only that were the case. The reality of school vouchers is to put public money into private Christian schools, where such blather as creationism, deities, demons, Heaven, Hell, etc. can be promulgated into the squishy matter of impressionable young minds with the full endorsement of the U.S. Government.
I would otherwise be in full agreement with taking studious young intellectual talent out of the craphole that is public education and funding their development, with public money, in private schools.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Note that, to avoid flames from the Manager-Apologist camp, one has to explicitly point out what the problem is. Management makes short-term decisions, which means they completely ignore the long-term. Thus, instead of spending money on basic research, or even any research at all, they spend it on marketing campaigns, creative accounting, and themselves.
Biggest problem? The (national) Dept of Education! (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is that for all the money spent on education over the last 30 years, test scores haven't moved. AT ALL.
The main problem? There are simply too many hands in the pot. Right now, most school systems get local, state, and federal money. And all of them have different requirements! Where I worked, it was nothing to bus the students around to make as many schools as possible 90% free lunch in order to get more federal money, for example. The others were made into "Magnets", so that although they didn't get that money, they got the initial magnet grants, etc. However, because the city votes for one party and the Governor is of the other, they got less state funds, etc. It's all a big money shuffle.
What needs to be done:
* Abolish the Department of Education, and put everything on a STATE level. Why not a local, do you ask? In my town the BoE already takes 62% of the town budget! I'm not willing to trust an ex-teacher-turned-Selectman with the checkbook. Too much like giving the fox the key to the henhouse.
* The state would handle all bidding for contracts. There is *so much* pork and waste in this area, it's awful. For example, the same bus company serves two adjoingin towns where I live. One town pays nearly 20% more per bus (that's times several trips daily, folks) than the other, because of the wording on the bid!!
* Abolish the unions. They do some good, but more harm than anything else. The poor preformers are saved/coddled/kept around, and the excellent are held back.
Just my $0.02
-Markvs
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing has changed in music, man, nor in kids' attitudes. Smart people DO still get respect if they're not smug about it and have other aspects to their personality. Just because TV shows it the other way around doesn't mean it's true...I can't tell you how many times my brother has talked about some new friend in high school and rounded out the conversation with "He's really smart, too. He gets, like, all 90s and stuff."
Exhausted parents (Score:4, Insightful)
Even now when my kids come home - from high school - there's about a 15 minute window when they spill their guts. IMHO, it has been terribly important for my wife (or me, but it generally falls to her) to be there when it happens. After that 15 minutes they clam up and generally act like teenagers, though more polite and hard-working than many I see. She also works part-time, but in a job that lets her have that contact with the kids at the end of the day.
Re:Post 9/11 syndrome? (Score:4, Insightful)
It is true that foreign students in US have more pressure to "make it", since their VISA status (or rather, continuation of) is dependent on their ability to stay in the program.
But I would like to forward the argument that they are smarter. Why? Because they are pretty much the cream of the crop from those countries that could make it here. In the US, there are so many universities that almost any citizen who wants to go to college could do so (in general). But for a foreigner, the competition to get into a US university is fierce, due to many factors (limited spots, limited financial assistance, LOTS of applicants). The schools here get to choose the best foreign prospects. So in general, those foreigners that ended up in the US schools are smarter than the average US students.
Cheers,
e.
Re:Campus... (Score:3, Insightful)
school teachers are encouraged to pass failing students not because of PC bullshit, but because blame for ANY failing student is placed on the teacher. As in "you didn't do your job". Plus, look into the horrible "no child left behind act" and see how badly it's designed to fuck up public schools.
What do I think? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have entered a technical field. Its great money comparitively when you're first starting out, but then it tops out when you're in your 30s. Most people change careers then.
Now, in the past generations, the techies had lifelong jobs at IBM and GE. In this generation, we're all getting fucked. Its not surprising that attitudes regarding scientists have gone down.
Scientists/engineers are just a slightly more expensive cog in the machine.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Not too many people donate money for new language centers or computer labs or anything else.
Re:It's all about cultural values (Score:3, Insightful)
The entire anti smarts/education deal is pretty bad, and I still see it as an adult. These days its pretty endemic in the culture-especially amongst your management/business types who don't wnat to admit that without the engineers and scientists their company is going to have a tough time competing.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
With our techshare diminishing and our workload increasing I think we are the ones who are becoming mindless robots.
Also I heard an interesting thought from an old interview with Isaac Asimov on PBS - He mentioned that the modern idea of "education" has become something that you "finish" or "complete" rather than pursue throughout your life.
Re:Answer= HOME SCHOOLING (Score:5, Insightful)
homeschooling is NOT the answer. homeschooled children either come out academically great (and/or religiously brainwashed to hell, but i'll say no more about that aspect of it for the moment), but this is for a simple reason: the process is self-selective. those who are excited and passionate about home schooling do it, and thus no wonder their kids turn out better than average.
homeschooling simply doesn't scale to a population. period.
Re:Did you go to university?? (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason? Why turn away a morons first year tution? :P
The othe reason: beyond a certain point, its impossible to tell how well students will adjust to university. I know students who got straight-As in high school and failed out inside a month in university. I know students who were hovering in the C range in high school who jumped up to A-range in university becuase they finally felt motivated to apply themselves.
So they admit more people than "strictly" necessary and set up the first/second-year curriculum to filter out those who can't hack it. Though a lot of Computer Science programs skipped the "filter" step during the boom to get the graduation rate companies were demanding, and are paying for it now with departments loaded with total morons.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that is funny. People assume that Americans work the hardest and are the strongest in various areas. What the NY Times article is pointing out should be a wake up call for most.
Things have changed. It really suprises me how much they have changed. One of the richest people I knew personally was a billionaire, literally. He was my Great Grandfather who was also President Trumans right hand man. In an interview he once responded to the question of how he obtained his wealth as: "The key is to work harder than everyone else and you will succeed." Up until the year 2000, I would have agreed with that statement.
There are two falicies to his logic though. There is the first falicy which is opportunity must be present for that to work, and secondly that you have a clear view of how much everyone else is doing so you can do better. What this article points out is that we have ignored the work other countries do.
Your comment on how Americans work harder was the case in some generations. In the youngest and up-coming generation, I do not believe that is the case. Look at the mentality and work force that is coming up. Where is the emphasis on higher education, in particular graduate studies?
Part of the problem I believe comes from the mentality that the youngest generation was raised with. They are the product of a highy successful, rich and full economy that is now crumbling. Many of them have the "World owes me" attitude. What they fail to realize is that noone owe them anything and being lazy will not pay off.
So to your statement, even though some people work hard, the average person in the work force in the US does their 40 hours and goes home. They don't put in long hours for free. I routinely have to put in 60 hour weeks and longer if emergencies arise. I also have to tell myself that it is ok and that I shouldn't make a big deal of the fact I am salaried and will NOT get compensated for those hours.
In other countries, they don't have to tell themselves that. The compensation for innovation, hardwork, and effort is viewed differently in other cultures.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
The solution? It is not the economy, it is the choices that the parents make. When parents realize that they are sacrificing thier kids well being to the alter of "I must have a bigger house, and SUV", they might relize they do not need two parents working full time. Why have kids if you cannot spend the time with them to raise them? Kids today are just another check box to many people. Spouce? Check. SUV? Check. Bigger house? Check. Children? Check. Happiness? ummm?...
The first victims of the war on terror (Score:3, Insightful)
For decades the United States have relied heavily on immigration to sustain their technological dominance.
In the fourties, fifties and sixties they had the top notch european scientists which either fled europe during world war II (e.g. Einstein) or were "picked up" by the allied forced after the breakdown of Nazi germany (e.g. Wernher von Braun). Also the increased military spending during the cold war added much to the technological and scientific leadership.
And nowadays the united states benefit from Immigrants leaving China, Korea or India to come tu the US. And there are still enough euroipean scientists which choose teh US because of the excellent working conditions there compared to most european countries. Try a scientific search engine of your choice. A high percentage of the scientific papers you'll find there have at least one co-author which is not a american.
Mind you this doesn't mean that there are only immigrants doing your scientific reasearch but the US relies heavily on those brain drain of other countries.
Alas since 9/11 the US is doing everything it can to stop those immigrants from coming over to their country. Strict immigration laws. Surveillance of immigrants from countries which might be allied to the axis of terror or which didn't bend over when the US asked, etc. pp.. The first casualties of the "war on terrorism" were those scientists which wanted to work in the US.
So immigration has dropped 25% percent in the last year and the Ivy-League Colleges and Universities are already complaining because student echange programmes are not very much sought after. Many of my colleages who two years ago wanted to go to the US are now considering to work elsewhere.
The american educational system is not able to produce enough scientifically skilled people to satisfy their own demand so immigration of highly skilled people is vital to their economy.
With all the sanctions regarding immigrants these skilled people turn to other countries and are lost to the US.
Jeff
p.s. just to prevent spelling and grammar flames: I am not a native speaker.
Why study when the jobs are outsourced? (Score:3, Insightful)
Capitalism 101 (Score:5, Insightful)
The powers that shape our culture (media, advertising, big business) have a vested interest in making sure that the citizenry are a bunch of uncritical consumers -- people who will ultimately buy the goods that the market pushes. Since non-artisan, commodity goods are the easiest to produce in volume (and thus the best engines of capital), it is these, along with a general consumer lifestyle, that are marketed heavily (glorified, if you will) in portrayals, analyses of and references to our culture that bombard us every day: movies, music, television news, magazines, etc., both content and explcit "advertisement" formats.
It is in not the interest of capital and its engines to produce scientists, thinkers, or other critical consumers who will only do "research" that is not profitable in the short term.
It is in the interest of capital and its engines to produce uncritical drones who will work in the same product mills that they also support with their earnings, never noticing that a continuous percentage of their time and labor (cleverly disguised as "profit margins" by these product mills) are skimmed off the top by the ultra-wealthy.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:1, Insightful)
Lawyers as a class contribute very litte to the GNP - but they enjoy high and protected wages.
Doctoring (hate to say it) but doctoring is a statistically self defeating enteprise (We ensure the ability of the weakest genes to survive and procreate - increasing the number of weak genes and polluters - creating more desease, war, famine, and additional work for doctors) This is challenging - but doctoring does not affect the quality of life as much as (for example) good plumbing.
I think we over invest in technologies beyond the point of diminishing returns.
Look at cars and roads - wider roads means faster commutes means more people move away from work creating longer commute, more congestion - and finally the need for more cars and more roads.
We are spending our wealth in self-defeating enterprises. (Welfare encourages larger families of dependancy minded)
etc
AIK
"Reverse" brain drain? (Score:2, Insightful)
An informed opinion... (Score:5, Insightful)
To begin with, yes, there are some teachers who shouldn't be in the classroom. However, I would say that this number is at worst, the exact same percentage as people in any field. Where I teach, I'd say there are about 3 teachers who should have found a different job a while back, out of a staff of about 75.
Those who want to abolish teachers unions have a point. They do tend to keep those who should go. But without the unions, teachers would be expected to be at every single school event without any extra pay. I've been at schools with bad contract negoations, and teachers were expected to supervise football and basketball games, work ticket booths, work consession stands, and clean up afterwards just to keep their jobs. All this while they're expected to get their master's degrees, keep educated on current trends in education, and in their subject area. What other profession are you expected to get up to your master's degree, but clean tables as well? If it weren't for the unions, it would be worse.
Next comes the pay. Again, with all the education, yet so little compensation. What other profession would tolerate it? People demand qualified teachers, teachers who have degrees in their subject areas, yet get upset at paying for someone who has that level of knowledge.
I'd also like to mention the students. In case any of you aren't around teen-agers on a regular basis, let me share with you. They are not always easy to deal with. I'm not saying all kids are bad. It is a difficult and confusing time in their lives, and this often leads to frustration, and they share this with whoever they come in contact with. It is also a fact of human development that teens concentrate more on themselves than anything else. They expect adults to both understand everything about every aspect of their lives as they see it, while at the same time, they don't wany adults to have anything to do with their lives. Find any human development book that discusses Freud, Piaget, and Erickson and you'll get a better picture.
Finally, there is a general trend in the US to spoil our kids. I think it comes from the depression. People were kids then decided they didn't want their kids to grow up like that, so the baby boomers were treated better than any generation before them. This has mutated into parents blindly backing their children, sometimes in ways that are not int the child's best interest. The most irritating example I run into is the old standby "I don't understand.". I've seen kids successfully pull this with their parents on the simpelest tasks. One student in my algebra class refuses to do any problem that will require him to write down more than one step. The same kids who will play "Prince of Persia" for 5 weeks straight to figure out how to get past a difficult section refuse to take 60 seconds to read a word problem, and possibly another 30 seconds to think about it.
The fault lies everywhere, not with just one group, or one person. Until everyone starts doing their jobs like they should (politicians, teachers, administrators, students, and parents), things are going to continue to go downhill.
Agreed... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, aspects of racism and injustice have been dealt with (or at least recognized as a problem), but it's been replaced increasing violence and ignorance in other areas. None of which furthers the cause of education. The music is just the reflection of a sad reality.
corporate research goes after low-lying fruit (Score:2, Insightful)
The USA has become a corporate vassal, whereas the other Western nations still look to govt sponsored research.
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Our school had a level system, level 1 being honors, level 2, accelerated, level 3 general, level 4, special needs. When students started failing out of level 4 (which is as basic material as you can get, essentially ABCs, and basic math), they didn't attempt to address why the students were failing. Instead, they created level 5, where the students essentially sit there. In addition, they spent a bunch of money on a program where these failing students would learn by computer. They would get a quick electronic lesson, then were presented with a quick multiple choice quiz. If they passed these courses with a reasonable grade within 3 months, they got a high school diploma, with the same recognition as a regular student who passed all level 1 courses with straight A's.
Seems more schools these days are more concerned with sheer numbers- number of graduates and grades vs. quality of education.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure it happens but in my experience a persons intelligence, work ethic, and areas of interest have little do with it. Back in highschool most of the people in my AP and advanced classes were involved in school either in atheletics, cheering, or school government. I guess the point is most bright, intelligent, people are not harassed and being an achiever is not the cause of the problem.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe the reason kids and schools are more worried about social activities and sports is because they want to have successful careers!
In America, MBAs think scientists and engineers with master's degrees who make as much as MBAs are overpaid. And since MBAs make all the decisions and have all the power, well you figure it out. Students are doing just what their culture rewards. Technical prowess is usually a one-way ticket to the middle class (not knocking it, personally I'm happy that way) but many of us Americans are gamblers and want a chance at the big time.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:2, Insightful)
Is there anything wrong with that? Life isn't about work, and it's not about making money. If you've worked enough to put a roof over your head and food in your belly, then enjoy the sunshine on your face and grass against your soles. You've earned it.
Re:The Mess of Education (Score:5, Insightful)
Cut the sports budget by a lot, but keep up with physical education. Students need to have physical activity, especially in this country of morbid obesity and fast-food instant gratification. In fact, I would go as far as to say that mandating four years of P.E. would go a long way in keeping kids healthy, and would help in keeping many important blue-collar fields supplied; it's hard to be a plumber if you can't lift the 5lb wrench.
Ditch competitive sports in high schools, though. We don't need multimillion dollar stadiums for kids who can't read. All you need for a PE program is a couple of retired drill instructors, a field, a swimming pool, and a small weight room. We're talking maybe a few hundred thousand to start this kind of program *from scratch*, and most schools already have the equipment and personnel to handle things now.
Don't scrap art. Or music, or drama. These are all important parts of education, because they are important parts of the human experience. Shakespeare, Strauss, and Michelangelo are all as important facets of our culture as Science, Math, and Civics. Especially for developing minds. Kids, even up through high school, need creative outlets, and often don't have the ability to seek these on their own -- it's not easy being a sixteen year old guy and telling your parents that you want to paint, but signing up for an art class because you 'have to' is easy.
Cut the multimillion-dollar stadiums, stop spending millions on computer upgrades, stop buying into the latest educational trends, and stop buying new textbooks all the time -- basic algebra hasn't changed in fifty years. Just pay the teachers well, give the schools the ability to discipline students who step out of line, and watch education get back on track.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:1, Insightful)
If you work 40+ hours running your OWN BUSINESS, then you should be commended for your good work ethic. You are building your skills, wealth, and the economy. Nothing wrong there.
Would you accept less money to spend more time with your family? Obviously not, since your compaint is that people "aren't working hard", since they don't log enough hours.
Let's have an experiment. I'll work a 10 hour week in a coal mine. You work a 40 hour week debugging. The pay will be the same. Let's see who is considered to have "worked harder". If you really think you work harder programming, let's trade- you could use those extra 30 hours a week with your family, right?
Re:From a teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Examples: child enters first grade with his brand new notebook, pens, pencils, sharpeners, erasers, crayons, glue, tape, etc. First day in class teacher collects everything and hands it out on an as needed basis because not everybody in the class can afford all the supplies they need.
That is NOT how real life works. I know it's not every school that does this, but it happens and it's wrong, and does not teach a student how to succeed. It also subtly influences children is ways you might not think at first - the child realizes that his parents may work extra hard to give him what he wants and needs, but the other kids parents do not - yet they are receiving the same necessesities. In other words, you don't have to work to get what you need.
In GA, where the idiot superintendent of schools recently wanted to change "evolution" to "biological changes over time", we have what they call the HOPE scholorship. You need minimum grades to get it. A majority of teachers are found to be guilty of grade-inflation simply so that they won't be the ones responsible for a child... scratch that, a young adult losing their scholarship.
Again, what does that teach? That you don't have to work hard to get by.
In New York you have teachers unions and a lot of parents complaining about grade 3 testing. If the student fails the test
I know these aren't the only issues, and I realize that what the child learns at home is probably much more important; that's why I work at least two days a week with my son on learnign (Hooked on Phonics, or writing, for example). In preschool HE read a book to the class. HE helps the other kids learn how to spell and write their names. It's not just stuff like "Hooked on Phonics", but playing games like Monopoly Jr. (counting) and even playing video games with him.
There are a lot of kids who simply do not want to work hard because they will be thought of as geeks or nerds (hey, we were all there, some of you still), and they won't be "cool." However, there are a lot of subtle (and some not so subtle) bad influences in school.
There are also too many deviations from core studies. We must never forget the basics: reading, writing, math, history and science. ANYTHING beyond that should not in any way, shape, or manner, take away from that core. Is phys-ed important? Music? Of course, but those things are gravy to the meat and potatos of the core curriculum.
I could go on about how history is being butchered in the name of political correctness, too. Just keep in mind the famous saying: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. (George Santayana)
Anyway, that's the side of the story from my perspective. I think too much effort is wasted on things that are not core and are, in many ways, detrimental.
So yeah, it works from both sides, but I guess what I'm really asking is if, as a teacher, do you see a lot of politics revolving around political correctness and how students "feel," and do feel pressure to promote students when they may not otherwise deserve it?
K-12 Problems, World Freedom, Mobility (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Campus... (Score:3, Insightful)
I also blame calculators for most of the math problems kids have today. They are learning how to use the calculator too soon and not how to use their head for math. Last year I knew a College Sophmore who we were trying to help out with a basic algebra problem. The first thing he did was read for the calculator.
So Freaking What? (Score:3, Insightful)
And, despite the wide recognition of the failure of the "publish or perish" paradigm, it continues to be the single most important factor in judging someone's scientific worth, while the value and implications of much of that make-work science is ignored.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, but it's HIS CHOICE to be a tool, if that's the choice he wants to make.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
- Musicvideos
- Internet
- TV News
etc.
Are all influencing the way the world is perceived. So even IF the lyrics haven't changed that much the impact they have clearly has changed because the context in which they are absorbed has changed.
Re:US politics (Score:5, Insightful)
This trend is actually at least half-century old. There is at least one known case of a Nobel prize lost by Americans due to politics. It's the case of Linus Pauling attempt to break the gene code. Pauling would most likely do what Watson & Crick did later, but he had no access to the X-Ray photos of the DNA crystal done by Maurice Wilkins & Rosalinde Franklin. He was in the "land of the free", the photos were in the good ol' UK. Pauling wanted to go to UK to see the photos, but was denied passport [orst.edu] according to the infamous McCarran Act [upenn.edu]. That's how the USA lost the race [exploratorium.edu] for at least one Nobel. However, there were more less direct cases like this - Maccarthyism destroyed the status of America as the worldwide recognized icon of liberty, gained in 1930's. The brain drain surely continued aftewards, but the scientists coming to the USA were coming for the dollars, not freedom.
one wonders (Score:1, Insightful)
I too am sure glad to be home.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
You have rightly identified one symptom. However, the markets and business schools are driving that thinking. Analysts only care about today's profit. Immediate results are everything. And they keep reinforcing this notion to American investors.
By extension then, thinking long-term is frowned on. This is picked up in the business schools and pushed out to management types. It also clouds the thinking or freezes the action of the boardroom.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyhow as part of the teaching certifcation process we had to take courses re history and sociology of education. The big thing that changed from the 60's to the 80's have a lot to do with what we see now: ( no order of signifcance)
1. parents railing ( and sueing) against students being held back a grade
2. Working jobs during school year that rob study time. 3. ( the one i found most telling and experienced while in school as well while i was teaching) that being smart is a talent, so studying is a waste and doesn't really help - ie the idea that since one cant be the best one doesnt have to waste time studying). This perversion of academic success is in my mind the biggest issue.
Of course, these are all generalizations but they exist. And there are other factors as well, all contributinig to this phenomena. this issue often does get hidden, because we do have a large pool of students, and a large pool of talented people that obscure the overall decline in teh educational system.
Re:I concur (Score:4, Insightful)
I mean, look.. if a kid is not getting the basic skills in one grade, how can you expect them to perform in the next grade. This doesn't even need "scientific proof"... it just "makes sense".
Also, regarding the NEA, I said they spend more money lobbying politicians than performing REAL functions like promoting the education of their own teachers. If Microsoft was doing this, you'd think there was a problem, no? Also, do you know how much the President of the NEA makes? Maybe you should look at up, because it's very interesting.
The bottom line is People get what they want (Score:2, Insightful)
The rest of the points being made in this thread are valid but off the mark. Talk to the people who live around you and look at what you do yourself. Where have you put your money? Your time and effort. What have you been willing to sacrifice? This is how we know what you want.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, one other point, is that in America we put very little funding into education. Most students are required to put an increasing amount into education. And, well, our high school system is an entire waste of time. So, I don't blame them for not wanting to "give back". I wish we had a society that cared more for it's young, rather than creating a bunch of anti-social automotons, but hey, that's America, richest country in the world.
As far as layoffs go, let's not kid ourselves, no one, and I mean, absolutely no one, not even people such as yourself, can compete with someone who is able to live on 10% of your yearly salary. It is absolutely impossible, and no one, not even the proponents of free trade, would expect an American to work for $6,000 a year, which would hardly be enough to provide a roof over one's head in a studio apartment in a small town, much less a large urban area. Even the proponents of free trade wouldn't say something as stupid as, "Gee, you just need to work twice as many hours per week, and then you might be able to afford food and clothing." The argument they have made is that other jobs will come down the pike, which hasn't happened.
I can't blame my fellow IT workers, many of whom dropped half a mortgage on their college education only to have their career evaporate, for not embracing another degree. Who in their right mind would take that kind of a risk on a degree, given the fact that the job market is so turbulent? I think the biggest problem is the fact that the rich in our country, who benefit from these highly educated workers, are unwilling to spend any of their tax dollars on educating them. Then, when things go wrong and they need talented, educated workers, they whine about the educational system. Well, there's a solution, spend your billions on education. There is no excuse not to do what other, poorer countries have managed to do much better.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
His teachers do need to be paid more. Teachers make such crappy salaries, it's no wonder good ones are hard to come by. I would love to teach, but since I would have to work harder and get paid about one quarter of what I make with a real job, it just isn't practical.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
You've hit the nail on the head. I was exactly this way growing up. I avoided a lot of social situations and spent my time around a small group of (equally socially inept) friends.
I think it's important for men to have a certain quality to their personality that's hard to describe. It's a form of aggression, recklessness, or self-confidence. You have to have the bravery to step up to the plate no matter what you're facing. Because trying matters most, even if you're defeated. You must be willing to put your safety on the line when it matters. That's character. You must also project the image of self-confidence. You must be sure of who you are and how you will allow yourself (and not allow yourself) to be treated by others.
I wish I had known this when I was growing up. I was smaller than everyone and constantly bullied, because they knew I would back down every time. I wish I could go back and tell that kid that he doesn't have to be bullied. Had I leveled the playing field with a 2x4, maybe I would have won, maybe not. And maybe I would have gotten busted for using a "weapon". But it would have ended the bullying then and there.
I'm teaching my sons the right way to be and act, so that it never goes that far for them. I'm teaching them to be strong, but compationate, agressive when necessary, but calm and even-handed in all things. In short, I'm not raising a pussy like my parents did.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
Arg! And this doesn't sound too terribly like a troll.
Ok. Listen unto me and repeateth:
Evolution is change in a species due to a change in the environment. There is nothing magical, nothing heretical, and nothing planned about it. We will not evolve into SuperGods just by waiting around a few million years. If our environment doesn't change, then we will be exactly the same come Judgment Day.
You do not and cannot know the ramifications of eliminating genes from the pool. A quirk today will be a lifesaver in the future. The gene that we think of as "weak" and "polluting" will be the genes that resist infection or the onset of a new disease in the future.
Perhaps simpler terms are called for. Take legos. Legos are genes, the building blocks that have collected together and streamlined over time to form us. Sure there are pieces that don't seem to fit, or that we can't possibly imagine a use for, but you'd sure be sorry if it's been tossed when you do think of a use for it.
By preserving our diversity, and encouraging it, we guarantee that we as a species will survive anything that our planet throws at us and gives us a fighting chance against anything from Out There that could be a little deadly to us critters.
Re:From a teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
That's it, hand the country to know-nothings (Score:5, Insightful)
That's exactly why America is going down the fucking tubes. People use the intellectually lazy excuse that all candidates are the same. You may laugh at "the proles" but your elitist attude is EXACTLY why the NASCAR and God crowd has taken over the American political system.
Do you seriously think that Kerry and Bush are undifferentiated? Do you think that Kerry would have decided that the best way to take down terrorists was to attack Iraq? Do you think social programs that marry religion with social work would be emphasized so much in a Kerry administration? Do you think tax cuts at all costs would be Kerry's method of pumping economic growth?
Intellectual arrogance may make you feel better about yourself, but it won't do a fucking thing to change the state of American politics.
Refocusing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:From a teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, if a child is actively participating in sports outside of school (and they mostly all should be), then why is PE necessary?
Also, while I think music is an amazing thing for children to learn, those who are serious about learning to play an instrument generally have private instruction, or a great deal of practice outside of school anyway.
I just think our priorities need to be lined up and satisfied. How often will people have a fundraiser to raise money for a school music program, compared to having one to raise money to buy new history or math books?
People scream bloody murder when a music program gets cut, but say "oh well" when their kids have to use outdated history books for another year. People get violent when you talk about cutting PE and extracaricular sports (like HS football), but they shrug when you cut science spending.
I Mostly Agree, But... (Score:3, Insightful)
Get ahead of what, or whom, precisely?
I thinks there's plenty of room under the tent for the Trumps and Gates, as well as folk to whom a job is a means to get a nice little place and tend the garden on the weekend.
Re:Argh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Those guys are the top 1% of the top 1% - always have been, always will be. The bottom 90% of the American student body can be a bunch of druggies listening to bad music (see also : the 60's (hippy movement), which also coincides with NASA putting men on the moon) and the elite of the elite will still be worlds apart and above, quite bluntly 'the best.' We have the same people in the workforce we had five years ago - their education hasn't changed one bit, unless it has gotten better via continuing education. Regardless of what is happening in K-12, the American workforce is still full of the same people that brought you all of the wonderful technology the Benedict Arnold CEO's are now saying they can't find anybody smart enough to work on here in the States. Bullshit. Complete bullshit.
What has changed? The work atmosphere, the opportunities available, the ability for those brilliant American employees to find jobs that can sustain a family in a country where the first $2,000 each month goes to taxes, the next $500 each month goes to health insurance, and the next $2,500 each month goes towards a mortgage payment, property taxes, fixed bills like electricity, water, phone, gas, etc. That is $60,000 a year before you even think about putting food in your mouth or getting in a vehicle to drive to work or putting on clothes to work in
It has nothing to do with whether or not a school has a science lab, and everything to do with whether or not there are jobs out there in science labs doing work, research. If the Benedict Arnold CEOs out there want to point fingers for lack of progress in R&D they can point them at themselves for cutting R&D budgets. The people are there to man them, same people that brought you all those nifty tech toys you currently enjoy - where the fsck are the jobs in R&D?
Anybody that thinks that American students on the average are a bunch of clueless stupid losers is correct, inasmuch as that has ALWAYS been the case. Anybody that honestly believes that the top 1% isn't easily as sharp, intelligent, and eager to excel as the top 1% of previous generations is a stupid motherfscker that needs to go visit the kids at MIT, CalPoly, etc.
Re:Argh... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Answer= HOME SCHOOLING (Score:4, Insightful)
But you're assuming the primary reason people homeschool their kids is religious in nature. I've never heard this. Usually it's to avoid a by-the-numbers education.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:5, Insightful)
People looked upto the guy who went to science fairs and won prizes, and the guy who could solve differential equations by graphs.
Coolness was not a factor - how geniune a person you were and how smart a person you were was what mattered. Social life was not a function of how well you pretended or how well you could throw a ball - it was a function of who you were as a person.
Geek and nerd were used as complimentary terms - the smart ones were called "genes" or "genies", a friendly term respecting their intelligence and skills.
I come here and notice that being smart or good is being made fun of - this, despite the fact that I'm in one of the US's top engineering schools. The ones with the social life are the ones who show off or the ones who throw ball. Even here, being really smart or nerdy is looked down. People do not respect the need for some of us to be introverted and reclusive, and people are branded as obnoxious or stereotyped as nerds or geeks, most often in a derogatory manner.
Am I bitter? Absolutely.
I come from an environment where both my parents went to grad school, half the people in my family are PhDs and my uncle is a quantum physicist at CERN. When I was in middle and high school, I wanted to be a physicist or a mathematician. Social life was not an issue, it was always a given.
I thought that the US would be a haven for scientists and engineers, but I come here and see that except for some people in the academia, people do not really respect science. People like to use the work that scientists do, but do not like them - the populace is either scared or jealous of really smart people.
The haven that is equal for all that America once was is gone - today, all that I see is people who are scared of most foreigners, and people who discrimate against the very smart ones in your own country.
People like Jack Valenti are willing to sacrifice the rights of the smartest of America for the profits of a few. People want to justify that not going to school and getting experience is somehow better than people who work their asses through grad school. Money is your new God and Television is all that America seeks.
The guy who used to sit next to me in class and had won International Math and Physics Olympiad championships got a fellowship at CMU, but dropped out because his research needed defence approval. He is now in Tel Aviv working on the same stuff, with no hassles whatsoever.
As I write this, I see an ad on TV advertising for ITT Technical Institute saying how they will change your life, and saying how a career in IT will get you the hot babes and the cool cars. Is that why you want to do science? I wanted to do science because I loved science. I wanted to do science because since childhood, I enjoyed doing it. I did not do it because I wanted the cool cars or the hot babes (although, I did know that I will have a better salary than most and that did help a little).
If you want to set your system straight, look at the problems. Make sure the next generation knows that science and engineering saves lives and improves our quality of living. Throwing a ball does not matter, its not going to pay your bills when you are 40 and has no more entertainment value than a clown. Actors and entertainment artists are given importance. I do not see people going to Orchestras, I see people flocking to Britney Spears.
I grew up in an environment where USSR was India's friend, and had Russian comics. Misha was a popular one, and all the kids in my generation wanted to be like Yuri Gargarin. We all wanted to be as smart as Einstein. Kids wrote essays about winning the Nobel Prize. We grew up in an environment where our parents and teachers helped us make Tesla coils in our middle school, so that they can demonstrate the effects of electricity.
My school libr
100% corrrect! (Score:5, Insightful)
My fiance and I have already discussed this and decided that I (I am the male in the relationship) will stay with the kids full time until the youngest is in school and then I will retrain as a high school physics teacher (I am currently a research engineer) so I can get summers off. To accomplish this we plan to buy a house that we can afford on her salary alone. My salary for the time before we have kids will go towards the education of our future children, and our retirement. We also plan on buying that house in a location that makes it easy for one of us to walk to work (she is currently getting her PhD in astro-physics and plans on being a proffesor, universities tend to be easier to live near...).
Anyway the important point is that you need to figure out what you need and what you want, and decide if what you want is worth the time with your kids.
It's even worse (Score:5, Insightful)
This means more than paying them more. It means making them *respected* and not mearly perpetuating the mad scientist or nerd sterotype. Unless the United States starts electing intellectual figures (like tony blair rather than george bush) and stops making fun of nerds it will keep falling in it's scientific prowess.
Heroes of Science (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:From a teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
First of all, the passing grade is what? Like 40% or something? Then there's also an appeals process... the child CAN potentially take the test a second time if they fail the first. It would be months apart, and having taken the test, would give the student the ability to prepare. Moreover, the test isn't just random stuff, it's got to be information that is the core of the curriculum. Teachers and parents should know this - they should know what to expect.
Now, the way I look at it is not how it will affect those who fail, because I know it will hurt, but I look at social promotion and how it will affect those who are working hard to excel. I feel that promoting children who are not ready to be promoted will be a drag on those who are.
Perhaps the testing could be better, and more comprehensive, but it should absolutely be totally objective, otherwise you have problems like I outlined about GA and the HOPE scholarship where teachers give unearned grades.
The other point is, as you say: "No matter how well the child does in school that year, if they fail the test they're left back."
The problem is that they may be passing by the teacher's standards, but not the school system's standards. And, especially with problem students, don't tell me there aren't teachers who will promote students just to get rid of them. Also, even if the work is done in class, you cannot always be certain it was the child alone who did the work. Group projects are important, but there's almost always one slacker in the group that gets propped up by the others. What good does it really do that child to get promoted?
Maybe a series of tests might work better, but I would be wary of anything that wasn't 100% objective. Attendance and good discipline will score a lot of points with teachers, but it doesn't mean the child is prepared to move on.
The US is already in decline... (Score:3, Insightful)
Basically I look at science/math performance in our schools, which every 2 years or so is compared to EU and Japanese kids' scores (we always lose big-time), then point to the focus on consumerism demonstrated by things like Pizza Hut contracts with schools and insane levels of advertising everywhere. Taken together what are these facts telling us? The future of this country is being taught that it's cool to buy lots and lots of stuff, but not to work for the money.
Then I look at the tricks our govt plays to keep us on top. Examples ... the US controls so many satelites flying over Latin America that US companies have used satelite imagery to pinpoint the best farmland and buy it. The native populations don't have access to these pics (at least they didn't 5 years ago when I read about this). Sweatshops, crypto export laws, IMF debt and regulations, and under Bush the military...without these type of "cheats" to slant the playing field in the US's favor I think we would fall rapidly behind the EU and maybe even China in the upcoming decade.
It looks to me like we are living off of the momentum of WW2 generation, and that momentum is running out. I know some flag-wavers are going to get pissed at this and maybe even tell me to love it or leave it [liberalhedonism.com]. But insulting America is not the point.
The point is that when these congressional cheats are removed or overcome, I'm afraid the US won't be able to stand on its own two feet.
Re:Lost Legacy (Score:2, Insightful)
American culture does not value intellect. In a country dominated by dogmatic religion and banal entertainment, anyone with half a brain is looked down upon for wasting tax dollars or being too "nerdy." Image is what matters, not content.
Dogmatic religion was the origin of public education and our major universities. Harvard was founded to train protestant missionaries. Collective schooling was intended to assure that Protestant church members had sufficient education to read the Bible for themselves without having to depend on a priest for interpretation. Those goals later expanded, but don't get your history wrong on this. Without dogmatic religion, little of what is good in American education could have come to be.
Your comments about creativity and standardized testing miss the point -- standardized testing is an attempt to return to an older educational standard that emphasized learning necessary information in primary and secondary education as a foundation for more creative problem solving later. You can't test creativity, and frankly, you can't really teach it. You can encourage it, and that is a good thing. But information is necessary for creativity. There's nothing wrong with trying to hold schools accountable for teaching facts so that students have the knowledge they need to be creative in useful ways.
Public education is inevitably impersonal. This is where the decline is living standards hurts us as a nation. Those two-income households lose the contribution that a stay-at-home parent could make to the children's education through personal attention. Some people poo-poo traditional households, but the successes that home-schooled children achieve in testing are a clear indication that parents are the single most important factor in a child's education. Maybe we Americans should stop chasing free-market fairy tales and focus on securing tangible economic gains for ordinary people that directly relate to quality of life.
Your comment is largely a rant against the Bush administration, and problems with the American educational system considerably pre-date the present administration. You disregard history.
American preeminence in scientific advancement is largely a creature of the Second World War. The tremendous industrial base and enormous sums of money that the U.S. had to spend on super-weapons programs inevitably cascaded downwards.
But there is more to it than that. Look at the names of scientists and engineers in the Manhattan Project or various space programs such as Mercury or Apollo, and you will see a lot of foreign names.
The U.S. has had the benefit of being able to draw the best and brightest from other lands. They came to live here because of comparitive intellectual freedom and better living conditions. Nazi Germany and a racist Imperial Japan did tremendous damage to their own war efforts because they drove away or supressed scientists whose race or class or beliefs didn't meet their standards. The Communist bloc hampered their own scientists and engineers, or lost them to us outright through defection or flight.
I expect that extreme Islamic countries shall experience the same problem. However, conditions have improved in many other places, and not surprisingly, we can no longer count on folks choosing to stay in the U.S if things are okay at home. The ironic side effect of making the world safe for democracy is that it has made the world safe for bright and creative people to do what they do in places other than the U.S.
Oh, and to suggest that the U.S. is being a "bully" is simply silly. Again, your comment lacks historical perspective. Go read a good history book on what the British did in Ireland and India, or the Dutch did in Indonesia, or the French did in North Africa, or the Germans did in East Africa/Tanzania before you bash the U.S. The U.S., for a great power, has proven remarkably restrained and generous by historical standards.
Yes, it
Re:Argh... (Score:4, Insightful)
The US has approximately a 5:1 ratio of jobs shipped into the US by foreign companies vs. jobs shipped out of the US by US companies. In other words, we gain far more jobs from foreign companies shipping jobs overseas than we lose by shipping jobs overseas.
Of course, there is a slight lag in the types of jobs being equatable. When people started complaining that jobs in the automobile industry were being shipped overseas, there was a period during which there weren't many foreign auto makers opening new plants in the US. Now, though, if you buy a Japanese or German car in the US, it's almost (or possibly more) as likely to have been built in the US as an American car.
As was the case in the past, the jobs being shipped overseas are most often jobs that require fairly limited skills that are easy for people to pick up. Additionally, people were getting used to getting paid fairly well for those jobs (in the past due to labour unions negotiating wages too high to be sustainable for the corporation--the same thing happened in some companies in the Asian auto industry in the last decade; in the case of tech jobs due to the
The simple reality is that there are fewer openings available for people in those positions, even when you include all of the openings that are now appearing overseas. Furthermore, because we've managed to reduce the expectations of customers to the point where even the higher levels of tech support are handled with fairly simple scripts, the lowest levels of support, where you'd normally hire the most people with the least amount of education, can, in many cases, be completely replaced with a computer and a handful of more highly educated individuals to support and maintain that computer (maybe even the upper-level support staff can handle some of this burden, such as adding new questions/answers to it's database).
Declines in the education system can probably be addressed with a completely new post. It's really almost irrelevant because many of the people these jobs are being shipped to are being educated specifically to perform these jobs (improving their English and studying linguistics to remove accents as best as possible in a short time), and because the level of education comes down to less than that expected (but not always shown) from a high school graduate.
Re:Argh... (Score:4, Insightful)
More than half the technical people working at NASA were not born in the United States. So, you are entirely correct.
Lack of good ecosystem for science (Score:4, Insightful)
We have no real respect for funding, advancing and promoting the layers 1 and 2. Most people don't even understand what happens in those layers. How could we not understand what gravity is at every level? Don't we know what atoms are made of? Didn't Einstein figure all that out? Until we respect, value and understand basic research there will be more interest in congressional hearings on steroid usage in sports and bare bossums on television than hearings on best US super-collider sites.
We have more respect for the management team at GE that decided to go ahead with the oven idea. In fact we have much more respect for the attractive eye-candy spokesmodel that shows off the appliance at some trade show. The fact that the two guys at stage 1 that discovered the phenomena recieved a Nobel prize some six years later doesn't even register.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure if you really mean that having enough food to eat and a place to stay is some sort of fashion, although I do realize that many, many out there MUST supply the obscene fashion industry, among other things with money(because it is huge and outrageously *everywhere*). But a lot of the people I know who have massive debts, didn't ever make enough to survive on in the first place. (And they are usually the hardest workers, too [slashdot.org]) I'm lucky to live where cost of living is fairly low, but even then...if you only make 2$/hr...you can't exactly afford 500$/month rent for a small single room apartment easily. Especially if you have children.
NSF funds only universities (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a great pity that the NSF is so restricted, it should be changed. I would like to be able to apply for non DoD grants for ReiserFS, and have security not be the only thing I can officially get funded.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
I graduated from college with a Bachelor's in Geology and Geophysics. I then went into the USAF and flight school, and eventually became an instructor, teaching people on the ground, in the simulator, and in the air.
After I left the USAF, my old high school contacted me about possibly coming back to teach.
And I was interested.
But the hoops I would have had to jump through, going back to college for 2 years to get "certified", when I already had been certified to teach people to deal with life-and-death-level situations, but it wasn't sufficient credentials to teach in a public school.
It's a pity. The old Earth Science teacher was about to retire, and they had the chance to get a bona-fide geologist into the job. . . but bureau-crap kept it from happening.
And THAT was 15 + years ago. . . it's gotten worse, as I see what the schools have become, from seeing my children in them.
Which is why my wife and I now homeschool: the oldest is coding Python and starting Java to prep her for coding in C, and the youngest taught **HERSELF** HTML, Photoshop, and a bunch of other graphics applications. . . they may lack "socialization" skills, but they code better than I do. . . (ok, I'm a security geek nowadays...)
US Losing its Scientific Dominance (Score:1, Insightful)
If that film 10.5 isn't enough to convince you of our lack of scientific knowledge, then I don't know what is!
Re:immigration the biggest problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Back when I read the stories of Germany kicking out (or gassing up) its best scientists in the days before WWII, I always thought: what kind of dumb nation would expell its best minds at the time it needs them the most?
Little did I know that I'd get to see the same thing played live, with the US expelling and shunting some of its best scientists in similar fashion to WWII Germany.
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Point 2: Why does athletics not matter? Just because it doesn't matter to you doesn't mean it doesn't matter in general. Many people derive lots of pleasure from participating in, or even just watching, sports. Why should school teach to the technology industry but not to the entertainment industry?
Point 3: We live in a (theoretically) capitalist society. If a father wants to spend his money so his kid can play baseball after school, regardless of the underlying reasons, who are you to say he can't? According to your alleged study, lots of fathers want to do that. If its their taxes that pay for the school, what they vote to spend them on is none of your business. For that matter, I don't really see whats so objectionable about fathers wanting to watch their sons play sports because thats what their fathers did for them. Seems natural to me.
Re:Military spending always advances the sciences (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know for sure, but I'd put money on it that some aeronautical or guidance advances are used by private corporations in the US due to research on the apache or tomahawk.
Re:Answer= HOME SCHOOLING (Score:2, Insightful)
The scale used to judge the skill levels of the students was removed because it made the low performing students 'feel bad about themselves', meanwhile more and more of the money that was readied for the schools was diverted for 'administrative purposes' or in other words the people who ran the districts decided that they needed a new mercedes and gave themselves a raise.
Many schools became just ways to get a large number of students attending, and a good average grade on the SAT since those are the ways that the school gets its funding.
I can't tell you the amount of time that my teachers in junior high and high school spent drilling us on the SAT instead of actually teaching us.
A number of factors could help the school system in America.
Re:From a teacher (Score:3, Insightful)
PE, for example, is not so bad - and it doesn't really cost the school a whole lot compared to, for example, science experiments. What really bothers me about sports at schools is the extracaricular sports, which often take precidence over academic studies - it happens all the way up through college, and often costs schools enormous amounts of money that they make up for in merchandising and sponsorship (often corporate).
It's not that after school sports are bad, it's that they get often get more emphasis in kid's lives than core studies.
Music is the same way. Instruments cost a LOT of money, and what happens is kids give more emphasis to the music program than the core studies.
There's nothing "wrong" with music, but you have to decide which is more important: math or music.
So once you decide math is more important, and needs to be emphasized more than music, you can still have music with the understanding that if it comes down to doing math homework or practicing trombone, you do the math homework first.
And if schools really are in such a conundrum, perhaps PE and music can be sacrificed for extra studies of the core subjects. For example; instead of three music classes a week, make it two and make one of them a math lab. I know music and fitness are important, but as for what the school is responsible for I believe they are second to the core curriculum.
Re:Argh... (Score:5, Insightful)
"All", you say? After 48 seconds of googling, I found that at a minimum, 32 of the aerospace engineers were Canadian. From this site [islandnet.com]:
Many of the engineers who lost their jobs with the Arrow's cancellation went to other aerospace firms, and 32 joined the U.S. space agency NASA, where they helped put American astronauts on the Moon.
What else did your superior U.S. education teach you?
BTW, I thought it was common knowledge that the best rocket scientists in the U.S. during the space race were Germans brought over after WWII.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:2, Insightful)
I graduated from High School 8 years ago (class of '96). Our class valedictorian was a very respected student, one of the nicest girls I knew in the place. I'm not sure what she's doing today, I didn't keep in touch with most of the people in school and moved across the country 2 years ago. Still, I was always impressed by how hard she worked to maintain her GPA, and that she still had time to work part-time and volunteer in the community.
But today it's just more extreme. People got beat up in school or about something that happened at school that never got settled, not often but it happened. Today people get killed in school,not often but it happens.
When I was in school, people got beat up, generally at the beginning and end of the school year, when it was 100 degrees outside and everyone tended to be a little short on temper. My first year of high school, someone brought a gun to school with the intent of shooting one of the Vice Principles (who was generally hated by many students, not that it justifies anything). Someone saw the gun in his bag and reported it before he did anything.
3 years after I graduated, someone brought a gun to the other high school in the same city, and shot a few students. Within hours people from all over the country were discussing why the school should have metal detectors and security officers and this and that. Anyone that ever attended high school in San Diego County (outside of the city schools) could have told them that metal detectors wouldn't work, because every class room's door opens to the outside (as do the bathrooms, where the shots were fired). Security officers were on campus at every school in the district when I was attending, as well as when the shootings took place (but they increased the numbers almost immediately afterwards). A couple of weeks later someone shot at the administrative building at another school in the same district.
In many ways, students have been treated like prisoners from the time I started attending school. In high school I was required to take 5 courses every semester, regardless of what I needed to graduate, simply because a student has to attend for a certain number of hours to be counted for the cash the state hands out to public schools. Students couldn't leave campus for lunch, and were confined to a particular area of the campus to make sure they could be watched. The zero tolerance policies for violence mean that students looking to commit violence know that there's a good chance that the student they want to attack will not fight back, as both students will be punished if that happens. No lockers were supplied to students because they would be expensive and were found to lead to increased drug use and violence (as students kept drugs and weapons in their lockers). But without lockers, students were often required to leave their posessions in classrooms during assemblies, so that searches could be made of their bags without large protests, often with drug dogs brought in to speed things up. One student's parents sued the school because they had signed a waiver allowing the school to force their daughter to take a drug test; they were under the impression (somehow) that they had to sign and submit the permission slip to prevent the school from performing the drug tests.
There is a big difference. The popular songs talked about alot of things. Sex, drugs, love etc. Now I hear songs that talk about popping a cap in someones ass. Or a dead girl friend in the trunk. Things are different, while alot of themes are similiar, it's just alot more extreme.
Most popular songs are still about sex, drugs, love, etc. The extreme ends, or the things that people get up in arm
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know where you went to school, but I have to call BULLFUCKINGSHIT! Where I went to school, if you were smart, your best bet was to hide it, or to stay as hidden as possible so as to not get harassed. I spent almost all of my lunches at school in the computer lab with other smart friends because it was dangerous to go to the cafeteria (and, no, it wasn't just because of the food).
Add in to this the fact that American institutionalized education today is not designed to educate, but rather to make people conform [everything2.com], and you have a recipe for the decline and fall of an empire.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought the US would be like this, but after coming here, its been a disappointment. I'm just very sad, because given your resources and your intelligentsia, you could be so much more.
My only question is, what ever gave you the idea that America (outside the NASA research labs) would be some sort of scientific mecca? It's all over the news these days about all the craziness our administration is doing. Ask any Frenchman what he thinks of American culture. And didn't any of your Indian compatriots call you and tell you what it was really like here?
For some weird reason, immigrants have been coming to this country for over 100 years with some idea that this place was paradise, the streets were paved with gold, etc., just to wake up to bitter reality when they got here. Don't you guys ever watch the news? Or better yet, talk to other people that have already come here? Wake up! This country isn't any better than most out there. If you're looking for a better situation in your life, maybe you should try cleaning up your own backyard instead of abandoning your home and moving someplace else because you've heard some myths about it being wonderful there.
DARPA & DoD funding aren't the problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Plus military research has a habit of taking previous ideas and prototypes, and turning them into reliable machinery, like large aircraft, submarines (think exploratory subs), and even cars and trucks.
If you want someone to blame for the loss of scientific dominance, then blame ourselves. We allow government institutions like the patent office to continue stiffling innovation with meaningless patents (like software patents). We allow our representatives to draft and pass crazy laws like the DMCA that prevent reverse engineering so that our aspiring engineers cannot learn from the works of those that preceeded them.
Don't blame the budget, don't blame the government, blame us. We are the ones that allowed it to happen.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Excuse me...what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, we'd have an elephant that wasn't savagely electrocuted for no reason, and Nikola Tesla may have had a more prosperous career, giving us advances and technologies even more wonderous than the AC power system we now rely on.
Edison is a terrible example. Sure, he created a few interesting little inventions like the motion picture projector, but his destructive ego also hindered a lot of progress.
My view as a scientist... (Score:5, Insightful)
I got my physics Ph.D. five years ago, and the trends mentioned in the article are both readily apparent and not unexpected.
It's important to understand that the USA has been a relatively minor player in basic science for nearly all of its history. Since World War 2 there has been a temporary reversal of this situation, because:
Because of these factors as well as a relatively liberal immigration policy, good scientists flocked to the USA beginning in the late 1930's. Others have pointed out the critical role these folks played in the early US space program, the Manhattan project, etc. Now, with the rest of the world catching up in living standards and the Cold War ending, the USA is returning to its position as a relatively minor player in basic research.
The root cause of this secondary position is cultural. The USA tends to see everything through a very pragmatic lens, where applications are valued much more than the underlying knowledge. The people who can turn basic research into successful applications are held in highest regard, people like Thomas Edison and Jonas Salk. As a Ph.D. student by far the most common question people would ask is, "But what is your research good for?" -- the implication being that if there isn't another breakthrough product or hot IPO coming out the other end, it's just not valuable.
Europe and Asia, by contrast, have long traditions of valuing scholarship/knowledge for its own sake. The role models are Einstein, Darwin, Maxwell, Confucius -- discoverers rather than inventors. They have a greater cultural willingness to fund basic research, and a more highly-educated general population to understand the results. A large fraction of CEOs in Germany have Ph.D. degrees, more evidence of a greater cultural emphasis on academics and research.
Experimental high energy physics is a good example of the differing cultural attitudes. In the USA, this research was always justified on the basis of military advantage, or at least avoiding military disadvantage. Consequently, the end of the Cold War has meant the end of this research in the USA; in another 3-4 years the USA will be effectively out of the accelerator game, with no next-generation facility to compete with CERN's LHC. If you are an experimental high-energy physicist, better start learning French.
The PhD pyramid scheme is collapsing (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:2, Insightful)
I love this attitude that sports don't matter or that they are worthless ect. While I aggree that to much money is spent on them, they are infact a great thing for a person to be involved in. They teach things like teamwork, strategizing(sp?), getting along with people you don't like, discipline.. ect ect. If I was a parent, I'd rather have my children play sports than participate in mathclub. Learning Math and sciences are not essential (and there is plenty of time later to learn those things) to growing up. Learning the things you do playing sports are.
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
The vast majority of dual income families have less free income at the end of the month that those same families would have if one of them stayed home.
Child care, added vehicle costs, more days of takeout food for dinner all adds up, quickly. Very few dual income families have the lower of the two incomes actually high enough to come out ahead, completely ignoring the factors around the happiness of their children, their own personal happiness, etc.
Why is everyone so hot to bag on home schooling? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, you're right to a large extent. The US is not a scientific community. You won't earn respect from everyone just by being smart. But this isn't the picture it's painted to be.
US culture emphasizes excelling on all fronts and being an individual, exercising your freedom. This means that you follow your own passions, go where you want to and be good at every facet in your chosen path and in life.
If you're smart, that's a large step to getting there. But you also need passion and individuality. Second, you need life skills. A scientist is a wonderful thing, but a scientist without the ability to effectively communicate with someone not in his field is only good in the lab. You have to have social skills to relate, business skills to sell yourself, mental skills to do a good job and passion to do it well on your own will. Standing on your own feet and presenting a good face on all sides is what we value here. Some do a decent job of faking it -- it sucks, I know some of them. But most off, it's trial by fire. Sink or swim.
Jealousy, envy, rejection of 'being-smart-is-good' mentality? Sure. That's life. Some people are stupid and you'll never get rid of them. Deal with it.
Drug-heads? Boozers? Party animals? Sure. I can't call you wrong here. A lot of our culture emphasizes 'having a good time', 'being a kid', etc. especially during the college years. That said, you can't blame your whole experience on this.
As for your comment about leaders, I believe that it is misplaced. Leaders do a great job at organizing things, but culture is what drives who an American is and what our country values. Leaders do not. If our culture emphasizes 'having a good time', which unfortunately it does in some circles, the leaders can hold all the meetings they want and (in the case of a politician) pass law after law, but it won't do a damn bit of good. The people make a country great, not its leaders.
And in respect to you not growing up here, the opinion of a foreigner is very valuable, as is asking your neighbor or a friend what he thinks of you. But in the end, with all due respect, people who grew up in our education system have more of a right to speak to its merits with a critical eye. You must live the life and be critical to be qualified to give a valuable opinion, but it is not possible to be critical and not live here yet do the same. I think perhaps some Americans would do well to think about who is really qualified to give an opinion on all things American.
For me personally, I've had a number of run-ins with people who hated the smart folks. One year I picked up the nickname 'brain'. I was always the kid walking in just before the bell so I could grab 5 minutes with my science and history teachers to discuss nuclear physics, quantum theory, the Nazi political machine and the like. I am a geek.
When I looked around me, though, nobody seemed to share my passion. Nobody seemed to value doing their best and knowing as much as possible. I felt like the only kid in the school who cared. It was quite disconcerting.
But when it came down to it, my perception was due to my focus on specific interests and my lack of a non-bitter social face. I was hard to approach and deal with -- skills that I spoke of above. My school was not a lab environment, my school was a people environment with folks from all walks of life, not just the upper crust. When I learned to present a more friendly and open social face and attempt to relate to others instead of expect them to join me in my shell, things got better and I saw that people really did care, just not in the way that I did.
I doubt that my post will hold much meaning for you, you appear fairly set in your take on the situation, but perhaps an alternate view from someone in a similar situation might shed some insight on your experience here. Regardless of all, my best of wishes to you, from geek to geek.
Cheers
Re:Blame Public Education (not funding) (Score:3, Insightful)
I would strongly diagree with this. They shouldn't be considered as 'day-care' workers. The fact that at many times people view them as such in no way helps the U.S. educational system. Children in these grades can learn quite rapidly - with good teachers. That's why those teaching the youngest students need to be bright and creative, and have good training. The parents are at fault for not doing their part in educating young children. Just letting the kids sit in front of the boob-tube when they're not in school is not a way to ensure their success later in life.
Re:Misleading (Score:2, Insightful)
It is blatantly true that the closer you are to the money in the US, the more money you make. This goes for lawyers, executives, and the entire management class. Unfortunately, it is also generally true that the closer you are to the money the less you have to do with the actual creation of wealth and the more you have to do with the reallocation of wealth.
To use a somewhat flawed analogy, those who recieve the highest compensation in the US are involved in trying to increase thier share of the pie (or the share of the organization whose interests they represent). While engineers and scientists who are actually *increasing* the size of the pie for everyone are compensated significantly less.
So I completely agree that the US is still one of the dominant players in both theoretical and applied science, but the issue is that it has become increasingly less *rewarding* for individuals to involve themselves in creating these advances.
This disparity between the compensation of those who *create* wealth and those who *redistribute* wealth is one which has continued to grow since the 1950s, and it is not clear that this trend will change. Especially since the management class is strongly motivated to support the status quo, and the relative societal and cultural valuation of management activities versus engineering and scientific activities has continued to trend toward managment.
Before responding off the cuff, take a moment to look at how much your close acquaintainces are compensated as well as what they actually do. There is something wrong with our system of compensation when folks doing innovative work in computing, material science, industrial chemistry, biotechnology, et al, make significantly less than folks doing mortgage underwriting, accounting, money management, real estate, etc.
Personally, the right answer to this conundrum seems to be to do *both*. Unfortunately, there is very little overlap in the skill sets required to exploit innovation and to innovate. In addition, acquiring both is not only rare, but the few folks who do are generally so much better rewarded for exploiting innovation that they have a hard time making a logical case for doing anything else.
Fortunately, most of the folks who innovate do so for emotional and intellectual reasons rather than financial ones. It is sad, however, that the financial rewards for innovation are disproportionately smaller than those for exploiting it.
Re:100% corrrect! (Score:3, Insightful)
You said one thing that really made me question your devotion to acedemics: Maybe that education was wasted on you? There is no such thing as wasted education! Even if I had never worked a day as an engineer, I feel greatly enriched by the knowledge I obtained in my undergrad. And if I do go on to teach physics (we all know even the best plans can change), I will only need to go to school for a year to get the missing courses, and in many states I would be able to start teaching right away and go to night school for the education degree becasue of the science teacher shortage.
And the sibling of this post is correct, I met my fiance during my senior year of college.
Re:Blame Public Education (Score:3, Insightful)
I think you have gotten that confused with things that matter to you and things that matter to other people. In the REAL grand scheme of things, we're all going to be dead and returned to our component molecules. Whether you believe in a heaven or hell or not (I dont I'm an atheist) whatever we do on this planet and in this life just really does not matter in the end.
That being said whats the distinction between playing sports and studying to become a doctor? You completly disregard the excitement factor. Becoming a doctor who cures some disease is great and all, really it is. But being the quarter back who throws the winning pass or the reciever who catches it is something people tend to not forget, not those playing, not those watching.
You are also undercutting familiar relationships. Men relate to other men by DOING things with each other. We don't sit around and discuss our feelings like women do. Dads and sons build things together, fix things together, play sports together, go on trips together, hunt together....etc. Men (really all people) also like to see their children do the same things they did if those things were enjoyable in the first place. This is why if a guy played football in school he'll try to get his son interested.
As for wasting time, whats wrong with wasting time? We're doing that right now just by sitting in front of our computers when we could be outside playing sports! We have a right to waste time! Why he hell shouldn't we? Whats so important that it must be done all the time?
Sports also polarizes people. Whole cities, towns, schools unite under their team against someone else's. We've all heard people say "My team beat your team" or "My school's team won the championship and yours didn't". Can you imagine hearin this however? "Hah my school cured cancer and yours didn't! WOO HOOO LETS GO HAVE A KEG PARTY TO CELEBRATE!!!"
Life just doesn't work that way.
Re:100% corrrect! (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny. The reason we both work is that we both love our jobs, both derive a sense of purpose from them, and would both be bored silly if we stayed home all day. (We don't have kids, mind you)
You said one thing that really made me question your devotion to acedemics: Maybe that education was wasted on you?
Ah, I lament the loss of the fine art of sarcasm... Both of the responses to my post neatly ignored the parenthesis that came after. You know, you've been suggesting that one of us should give up a career and stay home with the children. I ask you, how often do you honestly think that will be the man in the family? In practice, such advice is simply a way to keep women at home. And you may or may not remember, but back in the good old days, one argument against letting women have acceess to places like Caltech and Harvard was "that education is wasted on them. They are just going to stay home and have babies."
Re:100% corrrect! (Score:3, Insightful)
I understand your comment now...
The situations I was speeking of wrt the 2 PhDs were specifically involving people where one of them had to work a job in industry doing work that was not a topic of great interest to them. One specific example is a friend of mine who has his PhD in Computational Fluid Dynamics having to make grids all day instead of actually being able to do fluid mechanics, while his wife (an industrial engineering professor) works for a university 40 miles away from where he works.
I love my job too, now that I left the big corporate situation for an academia position. I just know that once I have kids, my priorities will change.
BTW do you and your wife plan on having children? If I didn't I would not have any intention of not working full time...