Intel's CEO hammers U.S. education system

[mahatmakanejeeves]

<http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/2005-03-01-intel-usat_x.htm|Intel's CEO hammers U.S. education system>

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Posted 3/1/2005 10:10 PM

Intel's CEO hammers U.S. education system
By Michelle Kessler, USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Intel CEO Craig Barrett on Tuesday used one of his last public appearances as head of the No. 1 chipmaker to criticize the U.S. educational system and anti-business government regulations.
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•Education. "The biggest ticking time bomb in the U.S. is the sorry state of our K-12 education system," said Barrett, a supporter of the No Child Left Behind Act. "It's the educational quality of our workforce that will determine our competitiveness."
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Barrett plans to lobby after retirement. His wife, Barbara, is a Republican activist who once ran for Arizona governor.
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[The_Nick]

1. Fuck them both.

No Child Left Behind was just a bait-and-switch to get military recruiters more and better access to public school children.

[hedda_foil]

2. Was it yesterday or the day before that Bill Gates said the same thing?

Could there be a bit of coordination here? Poor technocapitalists just have to move all their high-priced, high skilled high tech jobs to India and China because we have too many high school drop outs.

Yup, that sounds about right. It's our fault that our schools suck so badly that they have to take our jobs away.

[bpilgrim]

3. bullshit - it's the RACE to the BOTTOM driven by the BOTTOM LINE.

http://images.globalfreepress.com

peace

[Tux]

4. It is bad

I have an interview for a job that has a reading test of around 6th grade level and they still can't get adults to pass the test.

[punpirate]

5. This sounds very much like the complaints...

... offered up by Bill Gates, Jr. earlier.

These guys want the educational system to supply them with an unlimited supply of over-educated youngsters so they can skim off the cream and pay them less than they would if the labor market had shortages, but they don't retain highly-educated people with lots of experience, they encourage shipping jobs overseas, and bringing in H1B labor at reduced costs, and then, on top of it, lobby government for every tax break and subsidy they can possibly think of so they don't have to contribute to the infrastructure--including education--that benefits them (note what Barrett plans to do after retirement).

Not only do I not believe them, I don't think they really believe themselves. This is just more stumping for Bush's empty educational "reforms."

[bookman]

6. How about our science students...

"It's the educational quality of our workforce that will determine our competitiveness."

The right's move to change science makes us the laughing stock of the educated world. How can we compete with that?

[podnoi]

7. Worked for Intel -They Don't hire Americans much anymore

I hate it when I see the bull that Americans aren't cutting it. Um... how did the industry rise here in the first place. American Tech companies are selling out the labor that built the industry!

PS. They have been basically on a perpetual freeze for Americans for years but are constantly hiring from other countries.

[LdyGuique]

8. We have long term educational problems

I worked for 5-1/2 years on the phones in tech support for a national ISP. During that time, I not only talked with people from all over the country of all ages and backgrounds, but I overheard quite a few co-workers and their interactions. Co-workers were generally younger and some as young as 17.

I know for a fact that many of the customers who called in were not only deficient in computer/internet skills, but they lacked the curiosity to even have a learning curve. In 5-1/2 years, I only talked to TWO people who had clicked on HELP in any program to try and solve a problem or learn a skill. I only talked to maybe a half a dozen who'd admitted to buying ANY computer manual to aid them with their Operating System or specific program. A virus would be sweeping the world and getting a lot of media coverage and still I'd get callers who had no idea that viruses could exist. I had people who had not updated their Anti-virus program in 3 years -- cus they didn't want to pay for upgrading. The list goes on and on.

I recognized that many were not computer savvy and would lead them patiently through very precise step-by-step instructions -- some were highly repetitive in terms of needing to repeat the same beginning steps -- it was the rare person who was ready to do those steps by the 3rd or 4th time.

My co-workers were equally ignorant once they got beyond technical issues -- they had no concept about other cultures, geography, and many couldn't type effective notes to log their calls. Yet, many displayed incredible arrogance about all of the "stupid" people they talked with.

We have a big problem.

[MojoXN]

9. Hmmm...

Dont blaim mee, Eye wunted two gow two skool en Canada, wair dey dunt gots no chlid lefft bee hynd. howdee jorge bush, eye shur wernt lefft bee hynd

MojoXN

[lanlady]

10. It's true

US education leaves much to be desired but why is it solely the schools' fault? We have very little respect for education but are we supposed to blame the teachers? The constant bombardment of our kids with ads, diversions, MTV, distractions, more ads, Paris Hilton/Britney Spears bullshit, commercials, you name it, all this has been on a steep upward curve for the past several decades. We've polluted society with the ugliest run-offs of corporate greed and culture, and yet we expect an enlightened, well-educated populace to rise like the Phoenix from our collective electronic trash?

How typical of Republicans to go blaming the wrong group--teachers, who may well be America's last bulwark against our total intellectual collapse (and no, I'm not a teacher).

[Igel]

12. Part of it is the schools' fault, and you're right, we shouldn't focus

exclusively on that. Some teachers are essentially blocks of wood, but you don't have to have a MS to teach high school physics.

But we see what happened to Crosby when he said that black underachievement was at least partially the fault of the kids and the parents. The problem is, the word "black" is completely unnecessary in that sentence--but if you leave it out, white and Asian parents get riled up.

Politicians can't have that, now can they? Better to whine about funding and blame the teachers.

[Selatius]

11. I blame politicians and the corporatists

The system wouldn't be this way if it wasn't being chronically underfunded and poorly managed for the last 30 to 40 years. They bitch and whine about it, yet they would rather not pay the taxes that go into education. No, that goes into tax shelters in the Bahamas instead. They cannot have it both ways, and the sooner they realize it, the better off everyone will be.

[LdyGuique]

13. Another way to look at dropout and truancy rates

My personal opinon is there are three main groups of educationally-challenged people in the U.S.: 1) Those who fail to complete K-12, aka dropouts; 2) Those who complete high school but fail to achieve any sense of excellence or desire to learn; 3) Those who complete college, but fail to achieve any sense of excellence or desire to learn. The last two categories are the D and C students, or those who barely pass. Unfortunately, I believe that the vast majority of the population falls in one of those cateogories.

http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm">High School Graduation Rates

The report's main findings are the following:

The national graduation rate for the class of 1998 was 71%. For white students the rate was 78%, while it was 56% for African-American students and 54% for Latino students.

Georgia had the lowest overall graduation rate in the nation with 54% of students graduating, followed by Nevada, Florida, and Washington, D.C.

Iowa had the highest overall graduation rate with 93%, followed by North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.

Wisconsin had the lowest graduation rate among African-American students with 40%, followed by Minnesota, Georgia, and Tennessee.

Georgia had the lowest graduation rate among Latino students with 32%, followed by Alabama, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Less than 50% of African-American students graduated in seven states and less than 50% of Latino students graduated in eight states for which data were available.

The highest rate of graduation among African-American students was 71% in West Virginia, followed by Massachusetts, Arkansas, and New Jersey. The highest rate of graduation among Latino students was 82% in Montana, followed by Louisiana, Maryland, and Hawaii.

Among the fifty largest school districts in the country, Cleveland City had the lowest overall graduation rate with 28%, followed by Memphis, Milwaukee, and Columbus.

Fairfax County, VA had the highest overall graduation rate among the districts with 87%, followed by Montgomery County, MD, Albuquerque and Boston.

Cleveland City had the lowest graduation rate among African-American students with 29%, followed by Milwaukee, Memphis, and Gwinett County, Georgia. Cleveland City also had the lowest graduation rate among Latino students, followed by Georgia’s Dekalb, Gwinnett, and Cobb counties. Less than 50% of African-American students graduated in fifteen of forty-five districts for which there was sufficient data, and less than 50% of Latino students graduated in twenty-one of thirty-six districts for which there was sufficient data.

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) finds a national high school completion rate of 86% for the class of 1998.

The discrepancy between the NCES’ finding and this report’s finding of a 71% rate is largely caused by NCES’ counting of General Educational Development (GED) graduates and others with alternative credentials as high school graduates, and by its reliance on a methodology that is likely to undercount dropouts.

http://www.americanoutlook.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article_detail&id=1152">Skipping School for Fun and Profit