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Schools need to teach engineering, math and science

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JM Schell, Arvada

Published August 7, 2008 at 6 p.m.

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Is Vincent Carroll (On Point, 7/16) seriously suggesting that America meet its engineering, math and science needs by giving “permanent green cards” to the tens (hundreds?) of thousands of foreigners who come here every year to attend college in those disciplines? Did it occur to Carroll that should we force our schools to start teaching American kids these skills again, as we did just after Sputnik, that these foreigners would already be ensconced in these jobs?

American firms facing a shortage of Americans for these jobs, rather than throwing the doors open to the millions of Chinese, Indians, Pakistanis and other foreigners (who’ll work for a fraction of the normal salary), should demand more of American schools. Why not a plan that encourages more home grown graduates in science, engineering and math while allowing foreigners to fill these jobs only so long as no qualified American is available? That’s the way the places these foreign workers come from do it.

Educating foreigners and allowing them to live and work here for however long, earning fifty or sixty times what they’d earn back in Asia, is reward enough.

Comments

  • August 7, 2008

    8:08 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Sweetpickle writes:

    The well paid can afford servants to care for their needs, so why not hire others to think for them?

  • August 7, 2008

    10:48 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Uno writes:

    Schools are too busy right now teaching kids more important stuff, like how to participate in the "free" political process by supporting the DNC only, how to experiment with sex and drugs and hide it from parents, how to become a good little atheist commie who thinks that both God and profits are evil. Except of course if you're an Edwards, Kennedy, Gore, Oprah, Obama, Soros, Fonda, or Sheen (just to mention a few) than suddenly having lots of money is no problem as long as they engage in some liberal-approved political activism. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, the left is a good example of that.

  • August 8, 2008

    4:25 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SheikYurBooty writes:

    You can rake in a lot more $$ as a lawyet or MBA than as an engineer. Reason? Engineers create wealth, but lawyers and MBAs decide who owns and benefits from that wealth. And guess who they decide needs some economic TLC?? Lawyers and MBAs.

  • August 8, 2008

    10:37 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    SheikYurBooty writes:

    bhaney01 - right you are. Those who can't create.... litigate.

  • August 8, 2008

    12:59 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    me2 writes:

    I watched my grandson struggle with the Algebra taught to him in high school. The same way my students in college needed tutoring, he needed help because the books are terrible. The subject is not taught in the way the textbooks of the 40's did it.

    The best math instructors I had in college, printed out handouts from old books, but they were still bound by the testing methods they needed to fulfill.