It is now
conventional wisdom that the world is “flat” –
Friedman’s clever shorthand for the fact, as he puts it,
that “the global competitive playing field [is] being leveled”
by technology, trade and large populations of well-educated people.
You can barely get through a speech or an article these days without
hearing some variation on that theme.
And most
often it’s cited as a reason for some sort of Marshall Plan
for education. In his State of the Union address, President Bush
called for a renewed push for science and engineering education.
Out in the states similar calls are being heard. Michigan’s
Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, in her recent State of the
State speech, said the path to rebuilding Michigan’s shattered
industrial economy lies through “a quality education, and
today that means an affordable college education.”
Friedman
himself calls for “an all-hands-on-deck, no-holds-barred,
no-budget-too-large crash program for science and engineering
education immediately.”
Now nobody
would disagree that our schools – and parents – could
be doing a much better job. But this isn’t the first time
that there have been calls for “no-budget-too-large”
approaches too education. Can anybody spell Sputnik?
After the
Soviets launched the first satellite in 1957, Washington flooded
campuses with money for science and engineering. But by the late
1980s and early 1990s, there were complaints among science and
engineering grads that there were too many people competing for
their jobs – including foreigners. Even today, half of scientists
and engineers wind up going into management rather than the laboratory.
Besides,
it wouldn’t appear that America is in serious danger of
being eclipsed in the area of technological innovation. Fifty
two percent of all new patents are filed in the United States.
That’s down from 60 percent in recent decades, but it hardly
suggests a crisis. And the surprising strength of the economy
in recent years has been attributed to sharply rising productivity
as a result of massive tech investment.
In my home
state of Michigan there has been a lot of gnashing of teeth over
the fact that the proportion of adults who hold a college degree
is only 22 percent. But nationally it’s only 26 percent.
The real source of Michigan’s problem, if indeed it is a
problem, is found in a different statistic: Only 73 percent of
Michigan 9th graders finish high school in four years.
And while
the world may be flattening, in the sense of drawing closer together
as a result of digital technology, there are still plenty of commanding
heights – and even Friedman concedes that America occupies
many of them. American capital markets are far and away the mightiest
in the world. American labor markets are still the most flexible,
allowing human capital to flow to its highest uses. English is
the international language of choice, reflecting America’s
economic, military and cultural power.
And it’s
not as if America is falling behind other countries in educational
spending. Indeed, America spends far more than most other countries
on education; K-12 spending in my home state of Michigan, for
example, has been rising faster than inflation for decades. And
despite the flat-line performance of its students, its teachers
are in the top five in terms of compensation.
Additionally,
the governor is proposing $4,000 bribes – excuse me, Merit
Awards -- to anybody who finishes two years of college with a
modest grade average.
But wait
a minute: economists have been telling us that the “returns
to education” have been rising sharply. Anybody who completes
college can expect sharply higher lifetime earnings than mere
high school graduates, much less dropouts. So why should we be
handing out money to people for doing what’s in their interest
to do on their own?
Friedman
and other big spenders would be more persuasive if they were proposing
a “no-holds-barred” reform of K-12 education. Alas,
Friedman, like most liberals (and lots of suburban Republicans,
to be fair), has virtually nothing to say about the subject. Too
bad, because it’s a fair question whether American can sustain
its dominance in the flat-world economy of the 21st century with
a flat-earth education system dating to the 19th century.
