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We are convinced, totally, that we can beat China (and the rest of Asia) in the current clash of civilizations. After all, we have more social justice warriors, more lawyers, more bureaucrats (per capita), more diversity officers and more environmental activists. And, let's not forget, we have greater self-esteem.
How can we possibly lose?
David Goldman offers a glimpse at the Chinese educational system. I am assuming that he calls the Chinese meritocracy ruthless, ironically. It is a fair system. Winners win and losers do not. Outcome is all that matters.
China is a ruthless meritocracy. 10 million high-school students take the gaokao (college entrance exam) each year, with math questions a lot tougher than our Graduate Record Examination. The average Chinese family spends the equivalent of a year’s income on tutoring. A third of Chinese undergraduates major in engineering, and China graduates six times as many STEM BA’s as the US each year–more than the US, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Europe combined. A lot of their teachers hold doctorates from top US universities, where we trained up a world-class faculty for Chinese universities (which now rank among the world’s best in STEM according to all the Western ratings).
How are we competing against these armies of scientists, engineers and techno-wizards? Why, the University of California is ignoring standardized tests. It is aiming for diversity. And it is hardly alone. To have more diversity we will dumb down the curriculum, wasting the talents of some of our best scientific minds. In truth, nearly all the graduate students in American universities are Asian anyway, so the train, as they say, has long since left the station.
Goldman continues:
Meanwhile the University of California is “phasing out” standardized exam (SAT and ACT) scores as a criteria for admission, in order to build a Potemkin village of equality. China is building up its universities and we are destroying ours. Who do you think will run the world a couple of decades from now?
Duh?
3 comments:
It's never the raw number of engineers and scientists that produces great technical leadership. Remember the Scots.
It's (1) freedom of inquiry, (2) a robust reward system, and (3) intense competition.
China fails on (1), and possibly on (2).
But California and the Ivies are about to fail on (3) and get a bad case of Murray and Herrnstein's Revenge. It's like Montezuma's Revenge, but it's passed along in the Kool-Aid. :-D
Why do colleges hate smart people? Maybe because they've been bought by our enemies?
Sam,
Primarily because a significant number of the 60's generation never actually earned the degrees, which helped them to get their Ph.Ds. Once they had control of the academy degrees became more political and ideological vice educational excellence. NOTE: Does one not see demonstrated the true lack of logos exhibited by most demonstrators? The failure of the education system is right there for everyone to see.
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