Education Matters

My readers (all 11 of them) know how concerned I am by the anti-results, anti-science, touchy-feely culture that pervades our educational system. A report delivered to the National Academies on Thursday provides some concrete evidence that competition in the intellectual arena is heating up. Financed by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, which “…strive[s] to foster an environment nationwide in which entrepreneurs have the information and tools they need to succeed” (from their web site), it reports on a survey of over 200 multinational companies. The survey aimed at uncovering the factors that drove outsourcing. Key graf from the press reports:

The study contended that lower labor costs in emerging markets are not the major reason for hiring researchers overseas, though they are a consideration. Tax incentives do not matter much, either, it said.

Instead, the report found that multinational corporations were global shoppers for talent. The companies want to nurture close links with leading universities in emerging markets to work with professors and to hire promising graduates.

In other words, America is no longer the premier source of talent — many other countries now have talent pools that look very attractive to these companies, and the trend is for that to be even more true down the road. When our children get a shoddy, short-changing education, we are as a nation crippled in our ability to compete in this arena. This is the core of what worries me on this issue.

The report’s author also had this to say:

"The United States would seem to have a comparative advantage in maintaining its innovative leadership through the high caliber of its scientists and its strong protection of IP,” said Lesa Mitchell, vice president of Advancing Innovation at the Kauffman Foundation. “Industry and universities must be alert to removing obstacles to joint research, or emerging countries will overtake us in innovation breakthroughs, and the burst of discovery that has been driving our economy for the past half-century will be over."

Another public policy implication of the findings, say the researches, is that the United States must focus on highly skilled worker immigration.

"We are educating the best and the brightest, but make it impossible for them to stay in America and immigrate. We need major immigration reform that welcomes, instead of pushes out, highly skilled workers,” said Dr. Marie Thursby.

That first point, about the collaboration between universities and companies, is new to me … but it certainly makes sense, and it jibes with my own experiences in Estonia. The point about our immigration policies stupidly preventing us from importing talent is one I whole-heartedly agree with. If we can’t educate our own children (through our own mismanagement of the education process), well, the next best thing would be to allow (and encourage!) the world’s best and brightest to become American citizens. Why any current American citizen would object to that is beyond me…

A presentation about this report is available here. The report itself is currently undergoing peer review; when it is actually published I’ll let you know.