Re: Intel Chairman Barrett: we need teachers, not PCs in school
- From: "Jerry Okamura" <okamuraj005@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 06:30:55 -1000
It seems to me this is one of those issues, where the saying, "you can bring a horse to water, but you cannot force it to drink" applies. Students need to want to take these courses that this guy is saying they should take. And it seems to me parents have a role to play in what subject amtters their children study. If parents do not care, then the odds are the children will not care. The courses he is talking about are all the "hard" courses. If you can get that diploma by taking the "easy" courses, it would seem to me pretty obvious, most children will take the easier courses, because in the end, they still get the same piece of paper.
It is also a matter of what happens if you take these "harder" courses. It seems to me it is not good enough to say that more children need to take these courses for the good of the country, because these children are not even that concerned about what is good for the country. It takes a whole lot of "brainwashing" it seems to me to get more chidlren to want to major in this area. Of course that would be helped a whole lot if they felt they could make a whole lot of money in that profession, which of course is not true. You can make a whole lot more money, majoring in something else, and that major is a whole lot easier to major in, than engineering or science.
"arthur wouk" <awouk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:1223059878.97533@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Bits - Business, Innovation, Technology, Society
Steve Lohr
Someday, assuming the financial crisis eventually eases, the nation needs
to confront the longer-term issue of economic competitiveness. It's an
evergreen subject, but also an important one -- the only way to revive the
economy and deliver higher living standards in the years ahead.
This was the subject Craig Barrett, the chairman of Intel, wanted to
discuss when he dropped by the other day. He bemoaned the way that America
seemed to be neglecting "the infrastructure to be competitive," and he
focused in particular on education.
"We're bailing out Wall Street, we'll be bailing out Detroit soon, we're
bailing out the agricultural sector with high subsidies at a time of record
crop prices," Mr. Barrett said. "Where is the public outrage that the U.S.
education system is failing our kids?"
Mr. Barrett is co-chairman of Achieve Inc., a nonprofit led by state
governors and corporate leaders that is seeking to raise the performance of
K-12 schools. The challenge, he said, resides mainly at the state level,
because America's education system is controlled and financed at the local
and state level. "The Feds have a bully pulpit in education, but the
governors have to take the lead in this," he said.
The keys, Mr. Barrett said, are high expectations, improved teacher
competence and measuring results. On the touchy issue of measurement, he
said it was necessary, but national testing remained politically
off-limits. "The Republicans oppose anything called `national,' and the
Democrats oppose anything called `testing,' " noted Mr. Barrett, a
Republican.
Again, Mr. Barrett insists, the answer is collective work largely at the
state level, setting rigorous state standards that have a common core. The
approach is explained in [4]a recent Achieve report.
In citing the nation's shortcomings, Mr. Barrett points to international
comparisons of student performance, such as data from the 2006 Program for
International Student Assessment, where American 15-year-olds ranked 23rd
of the 36 countries measured.
The No. 1 country in that international test, and some others, was Finland,
where, incidentally, Mr. Barrett's wife, Barbara, became the United States
ambassador in April.
Which brings up the subject of technology in education. Finland, according
to various studies, is perhaps the most wired country in the world,
measured by broadband access, cellphone use and personal computers in
homes.
In its schools, Finland has computers, but typically not in the
one-PC-to-one-pupil ratio that is being tried in parts of the United
States. Instead, the real Finnish edge seems to lie elsewhere -- with high
expectations and respected teachers. In his 2007 book "Innovation Nation:
How America is Losing its Innovation Edge, Why It Matters and What We Can
Do to Get It Back," John Kao writes: "Finns have come to cherish gifted
educators as Texans do ace quarterbacks. The country's teacher training
schools have 10 applicants for every opening."
Mr. Barrett, whose company promotes the use of computers in schools, takes
a similar view. "PCs aren't magic," he said. "Good teachers are."
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company
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