Presidential Perspective
Forget about illegal aliens -- U.S. workers face a much
bigger threat from skilled workers overseas
by James Gentile
President of Research Corporation
Eighty-five percent of Americans interviewed in a recent poll said the influx of cheap labor is the greatest threat to U.S. competitiveness.
They’re wrong. Our greatest threat, and one that is growing rapidly, is the development of a more skilled workforce overseas.
But that widespread and wrongheaded attitude isn’t surprising considering only 31 percent of those polled believe math and sciences classes offered to students not majoring in those fields are “very relevant” to life after graduation.
Only a slight majority, 54 percent, believe all U.S. students should have to take more math and science courses.
The national survey of 1,000 registered voters had a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent. It was commissioned by Solutions for Our Future, a national campaign to increase public awareness of all that our colleges and universities do for the American public.
Fortunately, many national leaders understand the major threat to the American workforce is not unskilled Mexican labor.
Increasingly, they’re worried about maintaining America’s overall competitive advantage in the global economy. And a number of our leaders lately have proposed meeting the challenge by emphasizing education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called “STEM” fields.
Most recently the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) issued a “must-do” list to help graduates succeed in the hotly competitive global environment.
Their report, “College Learning for the New Global Century,” recognizes today’s bottom-line truth: The quality of learning, not the mere possession of a diploma, will determine whether our children build the lives they want for themselves and their families while keeping our economy and our democracy strong.
The report panel, of which I was a member, working under the AAC&U’s National Leadership Council for Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP), agreed on these vitally important points:
- Colleges need to give students a well-rounded education as well as the knowledge and skills necessary in a specific field.
- They need to teach students how to work in teams, think critically and communicate effectively.
- All students require wide-ranging knowledge of science, cultures and society, but they also need more practice applying this knowledge in the real world.
- It’s time to stop channeling students into narrow tracks that prepare them only for their first jobs. They must also be prepared to tackle a wide range of future challenges. Thus, engineers need to know how to communicate, scientists need teamwork skills and computer programmers need to understand the real-world situations in which computers are used to solve problems.
The LEAP report also calls for educators to renovate K-12 and college curricula to ensure students get more practice in writing, research and projects that require them to integrate and apply what they learn. And it strongly recommends that we must stop counting courses completed – mere quantity—and start measuring the quality of learning students achieve in our schools and colleges.
Business leaders and policymakers have a key role to play in building public support for the extensive overhaul our educational system needs. There is no time to waste. The new generation of college graduates will shape America’s future, and we owe them the very best education our nation can provide.
James Gentile, gentile@rescorp.org, is president of Tucson-based Research Corporation, America’s first foundation for the advancement of science.