America's Growing Educational
& Job Nightmare
Friday, November 11, 2005
By Frosty Wooldridge
Most
Americans over 40 witnessed the dumbing down of our schools in the
70s 80s, 90s and into this century. As a teacher, I was ‘encouraged’
to pass minority students who did not work for excellence nor did
they study toward academic success. Students quickly learned they
didn’t have to study for learning or passing grades. Thus, they coasted
from grade school without effort and finished high school with spurious
diplomas. Recently, Lou Dobbs of CNN, presented Americans with some
disturbing facts on our schools.
What
erodes America’s foundation?
Fifty
percent of black and Hispanic teenagers do not graduate from high
school. The United States does not stand in the top ten industrialized
nations of high school graduation rates. Robert Reich, former labor
secretary, said, “Our children are not going to do as well as we are
doing because they won’t be able to command decent paying jobs. And
that’s the first time in many years since the Depression.”
The
facts show American students rank 28th in math while trailing China,
Finland and Korea. America is no longer the most college educated
nation in the world. Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institution, Stanford said,
“I think it tells us something about the long-run prospects if we
don’t in fact take a new tact and improve our schools. Other countries
are pushing very hard at developing their human resources and skills
of their populations.”
According
to the Dobbs’ report, 37 million people live in poverty. Functional
illiteracy affects over 35 million Americans. One in five American
children lives below the poverty level. Each year, 1.5 million unwed
women give birth.
What
are the inevitable results? The American Dream degrades to lower and
lower expectations. Wages stagnant, mortgage defaults rise, 47 million
Americans lack health insurance. Frustration and crime accelerate.
What’s
causing the demise of our educational systems? Four aspects of our
Constitution erode every single day of the year because of massive,
unrelenting legal and illegal immigration. What does it take to run
a successful American society? First, it takes a highly educated populace.
Two, everyone must buy into and adhere to a similar moral code. Third,
each citizen must appreciate and abide by the same ethical system
and finally, a single language is imperative to discuss, debate and
evolve solutions for the common good. We continue losing all aspects
with massive immigration from Third World countries.
America
is a constitutional republic invented by very intelligent men such
as Hamilton, Madison, Adams and Jefferson! However, it takes a highly
educated public to advance that brilliant piece of governance. We’re
losing that ability on all fronts.
A
prime example stems from a report by the Rocky Mountain News, May
16, 2005, ‘What Happened?’ www.rockymountainnews.com ; In 1999, 5,663
students enrolled in Denver Public Schools. In 2005, only 1,884 graduated
from high school. That studied showed more than 65 percent flunked
out or dropped out. What caused such a massive failure rate? The report
showed that 30,000 illegal alien kids attended school with little
to no ability to speak English. Their parents suffered functional
illiteracy in English and Spanish. Additionally, the classroom experience
suffered such degradation that one in five teachers quit or transferred
out of DPS system every nine month cycle.
With
1.3 million illegal alien children in schools across America and hundreds
of thousands of ‘anchor babies’ born to illegal mothers who cannot
and do not speak English, it’s little wonder America classrooms suffer
similar problems across the country.
Writer
Vicky Davis brings this national educational and job nightmare to
a burning focal point when she said, “Assume the following are true:
America has a population of about 300 million people. Minimum wage
is between $5.00 and $7.00 per hour. A computer programmer makes an
average salary of about $60,000 per year.
Davis
declares facts about overpopulated countries like India and China.
She knocks you upside the head with the following realities facing
American workers:
“China
has about 1.3 billion people,” she said. “A common wage for a manufacturing
job is about 50 cents per hour. India has over 1.1 billion people.
A computer programmer makes between $7,000 and $10,000 per year.”
Question
1: If you were a corporation, where would you locate to ensure
the highest profits assuming that there are no barriers to re-importation
of your products and services back into the U.S.? Answer: China or
India.
Question
2: Will more education for America’s children solve the problem
of the wage differential between China, India and the United States?
If so, explain how. Answer: Frightening!
Question
3: Consider the following as one option for solving the problem
of the wage differential: Encourage massive immigration of foreign
workers - labor and professional into America so that the cost of
labor decreases by simple supply and demand rules. How many people
would the United States have to import to equalize wages between China,
India and the United States? Answer: You don’t want to know because
you’ll get sick to your stomach.
Bonus
A How many new people would need to be added to the U.S. population
to equalize wages between China, India and the United States?
Bonus
B What would that do to the standard of living in the United States?
Bonus
C What would be the impact on American Workers?
Bonus
D What would happen to American culture and values?
Question
4: Assuming that more education won’t solve the problem and the
selected remedy is to lower wages in the United States to match those
of India and China, consider the following and answer the questions:
a.
Explain the impact of the increased population on our natural resources.
b.
Explain the impact of the increased population on our infrastructure.
Question
5: One argument used to justify free trade with China is that
American consumers reap the benefits of being able to buy cheaper
products produced by the Chinese. Considering that American workers
are also American consumers, explain how cheaper products are a benefit
to the consumer if the consumer must work for wages that are competitive
with the Chinese and Indians and they must pay for the increased infrastructure
costs and loss of natural resources to accommodate the increased population.
Question
6: Who benefits most from ‘Free Trade’ and the global economy?
Question
7: Define the vision you have for the future of America and for
America’s children. Is this vision possible if the U.S. policy is
‘Free Trade’ and competition in the global economy?”
With
Davis’ sobering pop quiz, how do you think America’s Middle Class
will survive the free trade onslaught with the continuing development
of a highly uneducated population?
Short
answer: It won’t. It will no longer remain the Middle Class. It will
become the lower class.
Why?
We don’t have enough educated people willing to take action to stop
insourcing, offshoring, outsourcing and downgrading of American jobs.
Who
did this? Look to the president of the United States and Congress.
Last
week, senators Teddy Kennedy and Specter promoted Senate Bill 1932
bringing another 350,000 H-1B visas foreign workers into the USA with
green cards to work American jobs. That’s on top of the already 1.1
million legal immigrants they approve annually. And, that’s on top
of the 1.0 million H-1B, H-2B and L-1 visas ALREADY HERE! Bush did
not raise a finger to stop last week’s addition of another 350,000
that insanity. He must get a kick out of seeing Americans lose their
jobs to foreigners!
In
the meantime, even Democratic Senator Byrd of West Virginia got so
sick of the 350,000 H-1B visas that he offered an amendment to strip
the bill of the visas. Your Senate voted to delete Byrd’s amendment
and passed the 350,000 H-1B visas by 84 to 14 votes. Your own senators
voted to screw 350,000 American workers out of a job.
It
leads me to the following quote by Mark Twain, ““Sometimes I wonder
whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us
on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
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