MORE BALONEY FROM ARNE DUNCAN: schools and skilled workers

In a May 2012 speech Arne Duncan claimed that: "America's economic recovery is stymied by a lack of skilled workers. Today, something like three million American jobs are unfilled. In fact, I talked this morning with a group of small business owners. Their biggest concern is a lack of talent for them to hire. We in education have to take that challenge very, very seriously."

Is that really what U.S. educators should be concerned about? Let's do a reality check. In the first place these complaining small business owners might be able to find the talent they want if the wages they offer are competitive. Then there is a far more basic issue that becomes crystal clear as soon as we look at a particular skilled job like computer programming. This technical specialty used to be a bright spot in the employment market. There were lots of jobs. Now American programmers are being laid off. But not because they don't have needed skills or can't do the job. No, they are being pink slipped because U.S. employers now are permitted to import much cheaper help from third world places such as India.

Skilled labor is being imported from India and causing Americans to lose their jobs? Yes, believe it or not, a U.S. government program, pushed through Congress by corporate lobbyists to ease a bogus shortage of domestic programmers, is causing skilled Americans to be pink slipped. "Patriotic" businesses like Bank of America are replacing them with cheap help brought in on work permits. (Bank of America isn't completely heartless, though. They're not terminating their American talent immediately. They get to train their foreign replacements first — or lose their severance package if they refuse.)

So, while hand-wringing politicians like Arne point an accusing finger at America's schools for not training specialists, Congress has been busy enabling the firing of American specialists in favor of imported third worlders.

And let's not forget outsourcing. Previously, only back-office business processes were being outsourced to foreign lands. Now knowledge processes also are being moved offshore by "American" multinational corporations who have as much patriotism as mosquitoes have conscience. And not only has Congress been indifferent to this outsourcing, it actually has made it more profitable.

Pray tell Arne, what is the point of preparing kids for jobs that will end up in the hands of cheap imported labor or be off-shored? You've got it all wrong. U.S. schools should not be preparing kids to be knowledge workers. There are lots of bright, highly skilled people in the third world who are eager to do that work a whole lot cheaper. U.S. schools should be preparing kids to be home health aids, truck drivers, security guards, retail clerks and the like, because these sorts of jobs will soon be the only ones left for Americans.

In a top-down era of rubrics, standards, and bureaucracy, and in an unprecedented atmosphere of teacher-bashing, NEW EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS will offer independent and alternative voices. Get a complimentary copy here. http://www.newfoundations.com/NEFpubs/NewEduFdnsv1n1Announce.html