主题：【美国教育】工作外移并不可怕，可怕的是数学分数低下 -- 西风陶陶

Greenspan Worries About Math Gap, Not Wage Gap: Andy Mukherjee

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Alan Greenspan has added a new twist to the ongoing debate on jobs outsourcing.

Last week, the U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman told the Senate Banking Committee that the real threat to standard of living in the U.S. isn't from jobs leaving for cheaper Asian locations. The bigger worry is a drop in U.S. educational standards.

U.S. students ranked 19th in a 1999 study of mathematical ability among eighth-graders in 38 countries. Four years earlier, as fourth-graders, the same cohort of U.S. students had ranked seventh. Students from Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan completed the Top 5 list of 1999. China and India didn't participate in the study.

``What will ultimately determine standard of living of this country is the skill of the people,'' Greenspan told the senate committee. ``We do something wrong, which obviously people in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan do far better. Teaching in these strange, exotic places seems for some reason to be far better than we can do it.''

And what about the jobs that are being lost to the two most- populous nations: China and India? It's true that an Indian software engineer takes $20,000 for the same job that would pay $75,000 in the U.S., prompting companies such as Intel Corp. to move more work overseas. Even then, the wage gap shouldn't matter, as long as American workers can convince employers of their superior skills, Greenspan argued.

Math Gap

Over the next 15 years, 3.3 million U.S. service-industry jobs and $136 billion in annual wages will move to India, the Philippines, China and Malaysia, among other countries, according to a study by Forrester Research Inc., a Cambridge, Massachusetts, consulting company.

Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, was roundly criticized by Democrats last week after he termed outsourcing as ``just a new way of doing international trade.''

Greenspan sidestepped the minefield by adding a ``math gap'' spin to what has so far been a wage gap debate. After all, if American students under-perform their Asian rivals in acquiring intellectual capital, why should corporate America pay them premium wages?

Educators, involved with the nuts-and-bolts of academic issues, explain just how ``strange, exotic'' Asian countries may be stealing a march over the U.S.

One such educator is Sumit Gupta, a post-doctoral researcher in computer science at the University of California, Irvine. Gupta has studied in both India and the U.S., and has taught undergraduate classes in the U.S.

Self-esteem

``The American education system,'' Gupta notes, ``is designed so as not to hurt the self-esteem of any student in class. So, nearly everyone can pass the high-school level.''

This leads to inadequately trained high-school graduates, and has a bearing on the quality of college education.

If American education places too much of importance on preserving students' self-esteem, the Indian system, which ``completely ignores students' feelings, opinions and ambitions,'' can easily break their spirit, Gupta says.

A middle path that would combine the best of both the systems might be ideal, though, like all middle paths, it won't be easy to find.

Ayn Rand

Now, consider where Greenspan is coming from. In his youth, he was a disciple of novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand, who, for all her commitment to laissez faire, was nonetheless a champion of teachers exercising control over students.

Most followers of Rand don't believe in fads like ``whole math'' -- a system of math instruction adopted in California and other U.S. states starting in 1992 in which the role of the teacher was severely minimized, all computation was left to calculators, and students were encouraged to think that there were no right or wrong answers to mathematical problems.

There is some indication that U.S. educators now realize that they've gone too far with ``whole math,'' and they see merit in a more traditional Asian curriculum. According to a report last year in Singapore's Straits Times, at least 200 schools across the U.S. are now using Singaporean math textbooks.

A few examples have had to be tweaked to give the books an American context. So, ``durian'' -- a fruit specific to Southeast Asia -- has been changed to a more widely understood ``jackfruit.''

How much further should the U.S. go in emulating Asia? Bear in mind that Singapore's attainment of rigorous standards comes at a price. The city's education system pushes students hard and doesn't leave any scope for late bloomers. Students who don't perform well on exams are weeded out at age 12 and told they won't be attending university.

Clarinet Player

Would U.S. education be any better off, trading its inbuilt flexibility for such rigidity?

Greenspan ought to consider that question, using his own example as a test case. In any Asian nation, it would have been rather difficult for a teenager to select a musical career, tour with a professional band, give it up, go back to college, study economics and surface at the helm of the country's central bank half a century later.

In other words, if Greenspan were Asian-born, he might still be playing the clarinet in jazz concerts. And not by choice.

To contact the writer of this column:

Andy Mukherjee in Singapore, or {[email protected]}.

To contact the editor of this column:

William Ahearn in New York, or {[email protected]}.

Last Updated: February 16, 2004 19:23 EST