Re: Algebra I for all 8th graders

[Le1212@aol.com]

I find it "interesting" that the California Board of Education has again  
set-up public education to fail. 
 
It is time for California residents and educators to take issue with BOE  
decisions.  First, the BOD needs to appropriately define "proficiency' so  that 
it reflects, not the current college preparatory level of  education, but a 
truly basic education level.  Clearly, a basic  education level should be one 
that assures basic literacy and not the current  pie-in-the-sky, high-flying 
zoloff, every-kid-is-above-average level of  proficiency.  And, an emphatic NO, 
this does not reduce our effort to help  students learn important things. 
Realistic goal-setting is part of effective  instruction.  Unrealistic goal-setting 
harms all of us; in many ways.   We have been harmed.
 
Here's a recent reasonable statement related to the need for advanced math  
(high tech jobs myth) by Paul Craig Roberts the Father of Reaganomics,  former 
editor of Wall Street Journal, and tied to [gasp] Hoover and Cato.  

_A Work  Force Betrayed   : Information Clearing House - ICH_ 
(http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20259.htm)        
Watching Greed Murder the  Economy

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The collapse of world  socialism, the rise of the high speed Internet, a 
bought-and-paid-for US  government, and a million dollar cap on executive pay that 
is not  performance related are permitting greedy and disloyal corporate  
executives, Wall Street, and large retailers to dismantle the ladders of  upward 
mobility that made America an “opportunity society.” In the 21st  century the 
US economy has been able to create net new jobs only in  nontradable domestic 
services, such as waitresses, bartenders, government  workers, hospital 
orderlies, and retail clerks. (Nontradable services are  “hands on” services that 
cannot be sold as exports, such as haircuts,  waiting a table, fixing a drink.)

Corporations can boost their  bottom lines, shareholder returns, and 
executive performance bonuses by  arbitraging labor across national boundaries. High 
value- added jobs in  manufacturing and in tradable services can be relocated 
from developed  countries to developing countries where wages and salaries are 
much lower.  In the United States, the high value-added jobs that remain are  
increasingly filled by lower paid foreigners brought in on work  visas.

When manufacturing jobs began leaving the US, no-think  economists gave their 
assurances that this was a good thing. Grimy jobs  that required little 
education would be replaced with new high tech  service jobs requiring university 
degrees. The American work force would  be elevated. The US would do the 
innovating, design, engineering,  financing and marketing, and poor countries such 
as China would  manufacture the goods that Americans invented. High-tech 
services were  touted as the new source of value-added that would keep the American  
economy preeminent in the world.

The assurances that economists  gave made no sense. If it pays corporations 
to ship out high value-added  manufacturing jobs, it pays them to ship out high 
value-added service  jobs. And that is exactly what US corporations have  
done.

Automobile magazine (August 2008) reports that last March  Chrysler closed 
its Pacifica Advance Product Design Center in Southern  California. Pacifica’s 
demise followed closings and downsizings of  Southern California design studios 
by Italdesign, ASC, Porsche, Nissan,  and Volvo. Only three of GM’s eleven 
design studios remain in the  US.

According to Eric Noble, president of The Car Lab, an  automotive 
consultancy, “Advanced studios want to be where the new  frontier is. So in China, 
studios are popping up like rabbits.”

The  idea is nonsensical that the US can remain the font of research,  
innovation, design, and engineering while the country ceases to make  things. 
Research and product development invariably follow manufacturing.  Now even business 
schools that were cheerleaders for offshoring of US jobs  are beginning to 
wise up. In a recent report, “Next Generation Offshoring:  The Globalization of 
Innovation,” Duke University’s Fuqua School of  Business finds that product 
development is moving to China to support the  manufacturing operations that 
have located there.

The study,  reported in Manufacturing & Technology News, acknowledges that “
labor  arbitrage strategies continue to be key drivers of offshoring,” a  
conclusion that I reached a number of years ago. Moreover, the study  concludes, 
jobs offshoring is no longer mainly associated with locating IT  services and 
call centers in low wage countries. Jobs offshoring has  reached maturity, “and 
now the growth is centered around product and  process innovation.”

According to the Fuqua School of Business  report, in just one year, from 
2005 to 2006, offshoring of product  development jobs increased from an already 
significant base by 40 to 50  percent. Over the next one and one-half to three 
years, “growth in  offshoring of product development projects is forecast to 
increase by 65  percent for R&D and by more than 80 percent for engineering 
services  and product design-projects.”

More than half of US companies are  now engaged in jobs offshoring, and the 
practice is no longer confined to  large corporations. Small companies have 
discovered that “offshoring of  innovation projects can significantly leverage 
limited investment  dollars.”

It turns out that product development, which was to be  America’s replacement 
for manufacturing jobs, is the second largest  business function that is 
offshored.

According to the report, the  offshoring of finance, accounting, and human 
resource jobs is increasing  at a 35 percent annual rate. The study observes 
that “the high growth  rates for the offshoring of core functions of value 
creation is a  remarkable development.”

In brief, the United States is losing its  economy. However, a business 
school cannot go so far as to admit that,  because its financing is dependent on 
outside sources that engage in  offshoring. Instead, the study claims, absurdly, 
that the massive movement  of jobs abroad that the study reports are causing 
no job loss in the US:  “Contrary to various claims, fears about loss of 
high-skill jobs in  engineering and science are unfounded.” The study then 
contradicts this  claim by reporting that as more scientists and engineers are hired 
abroad,  “fewer jobs are being eliminated onshore.” Since 2005, the study 
reports,  there has been a 48 percent drop in the onshore jobs losses caused by  
offshore projects.

One wonders at the competence of the Fuqua  School of Business. If a 40-50 
percent increase in offshored product       development jobs, a 65 percent 
increase in offshored R&&D jobs, and a  more than 80 percent increase in offshored 
engineering services and  product design-projects jobs do not constitute US 
job loss, what  does?

Academia’s lack of independent financing means that its  researchers can only 
tell the facts by denying them.

The study adds  more cover for corporate America’s rear end by repeating the 
false  assertion that US firms are moving jobs offshore because of a shortage 
of  scientists and engineers in America. A correct statement would be that the 
 offshoring of science, engineering and professional service jobs is  causing 
fewer American students to pursue these occupations, which  formerly 
comprised broad ladders of upward mobility. The Bureau of Labor  Statistics’ nonfarm 
payroll jobs statistics show no sign of job growth in  these careers. The best 
that can be surmised is that there are replacement  jobs as people retire.

The offshoring of the US economy is  destroying the dollar’s role as reserve 
currency, a role that is the  source of American power and influence. The US 
trade deficit resulting  from offshored US goods and services is too massive to 
be sustainable.  Already the once all-mighty dollar has lost enormous 
purchasing power  against oil, gold, and other currencies. In the 21st century, the 
American  people have been placed on a path that can only end in a substantial  
reduction in US living standards for every American except the corporate  
elite, who earn tens of millions of dollars in bonuses by excluding  Americans 
from the production of the goods and services that they  consume.

What can be done? The US economy has been seriously  undermined by 
offshoring. The damage might not be reparable. Possibly, the  American market and living 
standards could be rescued by tariffs that  offset the lower labor and 
compliance costs abroad.

Another  alternative, suggested by Ralph Gomory, would be to tax US 
corporations on  the basis of the percentage of their value added that occurs in the 
US.  The greater the value added to a company’s product in America, the lower  
the tax rate on the profits.

These sensible suggestions will be  demonized by ideological “free market” 
economists and opposed by the  offshoring corporations, whose swollen profits 
allow them to hire “free  market” economists as shills and to elect 
representatives to serve their  interests.

The current recession with its layoffs will mask the  continuing 
deterioration in employment and career outlooks for American  university graduates. The 
highly skilled US work force is being gradually  transformed into the domestic 
service workforce characteristic of third  world economies.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the  Treasury in the Reagan 
administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall  Street Journal editorial 
page and Contributing Editor of National Review.  He is coauthor of The Tyranny 
of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:  paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com







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