I was only mildly surprised that this article appeared on the Washington monthly website. It’s a generally good site, but there is an establishment bent that can’t be denied. The article is by Robert D. Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. One suspects an industry front group, but lets put that aside. Mr. Atkinson pleads for half loaf immigration reform if we can’t get the real thing, given the absolutely desperate need in this country for “high skill” immigrants:
Some, particularly Democrats, want to tie any movement on high-skill immigration reform to comprehensive immigration reform, recognizing that if a high-skill bill were to pass, the pressure to pass comprehensive reform would lessen. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to let more years pass without reforms that address the need for more high-skill immigrants, particularly in science and engineering. If comprehensive reform goes belly up, which hopefully it will not, Congress should at least pass a stand-alone bill that liberalizes and reforms high-skill immigration or we risk falling further behind our global competitors.
High-skilled immigration has played a vital role in U.S. innovation by making up for the deficits in our current education system in turning out more scientists and engineers. While STEM jobs play a key role in supporting U.S. economic vitality, the U.S. underperforms in STEM education. In 2006, the U.S. had 26 percent of the OECD’s K-12 students but just 14 percent of high-performing math students. Between 1997 and 2009, enrollment in the music theory Advanced Placement test grew by 362 percent, while enrollment in the Computer Science AB test grew just 12 percent. It’s so bad that three times as many students take the Art History AP test as the Computer Science test.
In fact, we appear to be well down the path John Quincy Adams predicted when he said, “I must study politics and war, that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.” The only problem is while art history might be personally satisfying it does nothing to make our economy innovative or competitive.
(via The Washington Monthly)
Actually, I believe it was John Adams himself that authored that quote, but put that aside. Oh, what the heck, in fact, I’m sure it was Adams, Sr., , but that’s my useless liberal arts background showing.
This is all a smokescreen to allow our high tech companies to pay low tech salaries to workers that come here under the H-1B program. The workers are exploited, and they replace American workers that, our overlords assure us, don’t want to, and can’t, do the jobs they must train their replacements to perform. I don’t know if his figures on our educational system are accurate, but the reasoning sure is specious. The mass of parents out there have not earned their bread through “mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture”. They have earned it, and lately been unable to earn it, by the sweat of their brows, and if their kids don’t study those subjects its because people like Atkinson would much rather deplore the state of the American educational system than do something about improving it, other than breaking unions and pushing the odd meme that we can improve our educational system by creating for-profit schools, paying rent seekers a bundle, and paying teachers even less. Of course, he has a solution for that, I’m sure, exploited H-1B teachers to replace the home grown variety.
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