The Two Million Minutes Blog

School Reform in the Kingdom of Happiness

This essay was published in the Super Bowl edition of the Indianapolis Business Journal

Much as the explorers in “Lost Horizon” stumbled into Shangri-La in the Himalayas, I found myself in the small Kingdom of Bhutan last October. As this tiny place moves into the 21st century, it has committed itself to be a society centered on the pursuit of happiness.

Poignantly, they measure Gross National Happiness, not Gross National Product. With goals of good health, community vitality, good governance and sustainable development, they are also creating a unique education system. No modern country has taken so much time to ponder, puzzle over and promote happiness in its schools.

I’ve been passionate about education from my first documentary film in 2007, “Two Million Minutes,” to my most recent, “The Finland Phenomenon.” Eager to learn about teaching for happiness, I spent several weeks touring Bhutan talking with parents, meeting the minister of education and interviewing teachers.

I was surprised by how the idea of happiness is woven into the fabric of everyday lives. And when conversation turned to schools, people were passionate that educating for happiness be the goal.

My visit to Bhutan and my research in China, India and Finland have caused me to ponder more deeply the purpose of school and the policies and practices that best support it.

China and India educate for commercial advantage, and each country has more than 200 million school children. Our 55 million kids will face extraordinary competition. But we can’t just teach the way they do. Our culture and our kids won't allow it. Nor is the Asian way the best for our children. Preparing our kids to be the world’s innovation leaders, and reviving our middle class, requires a uniquely Western approach.

Another country, similar in size to Indiana, has found a way to elevate its students to first in the world in problem solving, scientific literacy and math—Finland. What works in its schools is the muse of open-ended projects where kids learn by doing. Testing is included, but in moderation.

But the Finnish model only works if you have amazing teachers. And amazing teachers only come through a recruitment and training process that is highly selective and rigorous.

In Finland, just 10 percent of applicants are accepted into one of only eight colleges of education. By contrast, Indiana has 45 colleges offering teaching degrees and enrolling is easy. Where Indiana has thousands of teachers leaving each year, Finland has less than 1-percent attrition. Carefully selected and trained, great teachers stay in the profession.

With some effort, Indiana has made progress in raising the standards to become a teacher. Graduates from colleges of education must now have more comprehensive content knowledge, for example taking biology courses from the biology department, not the teachers college.

Also, industry professionals can finally be recruited into teaching as well as recent graduates with degrees in physics, biology and chemistry. Progress to be sure, but with a long way to go.

Bhutan’s approach is also worth pondering. Remarkable teachers can bring joy, inspiration and delight to American education. Schools that help kids find passions and purpose lead them toward happier lives. It also is the only way our kids can meet the Asian challenge. 

Over 235 years ago, another country considered “the pursuit of Happiness” so important that it included that goal in its own Declaration of Independence. In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “The care of human life and happiness is the first and only object of good government.”

We had it right when we started. Perhaps it’s time to revisit our roots and consider the direction the Bhutanese are taking in the Kingdom of Happiness.●

Compton was a new venture investor in Indiana for 20 years and was Chairman of ExactTarget. He now lives in Washington, DC, where he produces documentary films about education and innovation

 

ABC NEWS: Trend of Foreign Workers Leaving Likely to Accelerate as Economy Struggles

Foreign Students, Workers Face Tough Decision Between Going Home, Staying in U.S.

By HUMA KHAN
Nov. 7, 2008

Job losses and fears of a recession could lead more foreign workers and students in the United States to move back to their home countries -- and that has some economic observers worried.

Vivek Wadhwa, an executive resident at Duke University and a senior research associate at Harvard, believes that the United States is headed for a massive reverse brain drain.

Wadhwa, who led a Duke study on foreign-born professionals, said there likely won't be a short-term impact of loss of skilled expatriates, but it will have significant implications in the long term.

"It's a ticking time bomb for the U.S.," the former entrepreneur said. "If they [foreign nationals] go back to their home countries, not only will we lose critical talent we need for the future, we will also bolster our competition."

Skilled foreign workers and entrepreneurs comprise a significant portion of the U.S. workforce.

The study by Duke University and the Kaufman Foundation found that in more than 25 percent of technology companies established in the United States from 1995 to 2005, the chief executive or lead technologist was foreign-born.

In Silicon Valley, the percentage of immigrant-founded start-ups had increased to 52 percent in 2005. The study found that all companies founded by immigrants from 1995 to 2005 produced $52 billion in sales and employed 450,000 workers in 2005. Indians comprised the largest group of skilled foreign workers.

More than 1 million skilled foreign workers compete for 120,000 permanent U.S. resident visas each year. Each country has a seven percent limit, so, for example, India and China are given the same quota as Iceland.

According to the study, in U.S. engineering schools, 60 percent of Ph.D candidates and 42 percent of master's candidates are foreign nationals.

In the current climate, when hiring has declined, visa restrictions -- which make it harder for workers to stay in the U.S. without a job -- create significant challenges for foreign workers.

Large companies that traditionally recruited foreign talent on visas has declined as many have cut back on hiring. And unlike citizens, immigrants can lose their visa if they are laid-off, making it difficult for them to look for another position.

Reverse Brain Drain?

But does that mean the U.S. could potentially face the problem of reverse brain drain?

Foreign students and workers tend to go back to their home after a certain period of time -- often because of family -- but that trend is likely to accelerate.

Vinay Lekharaju, 24, came to the United States for a masters degree and a desire to expand his engineering career, but is discovering fewer opportunities than he originally anticipated.

"I don't see many companies wanting to take international students," the Duke University student said. "Looking at these difficult conditions [fewer jobs and visa issues] puts a lot of pressure on us."

It's usually the best and brightest who come to U.S. universities to study, and when they go back to their home countries, they tend to move to industries that compete with those in the United States, such as engineering, information technology and research and development.

"They are fuelling the rise of India and China," said Wadhwa, who predicts that in the next five years, 100,000 Indian and Chinese workers and students will move back.

That would be a considerable number, given that it matches the amount who have left over the last 20 years.

But it is not just the economic downturn and visa issues that are keeping foreigners from working in the United States.

Educators say opportunities abroad, specifically in Asia, also are luring both foreigners and U.S. citizens.

It's all about relative opportunity, said Ron Hira, a professor at Rochester Institute of Technology and author of "Outsourcing America: The True Cost of Shipping Jobs Overseas and What Can Be Done About It."

"Opportunities in India and China are much better than they were a generation or 10 years ago, which is attracting a number of people to go back," he added. "The new term that's being used is 'brain circulation' -- that people are moving back and forth."

The loss of foreign nationals has both advantages and disadvantages. The United States may lose some of its brightest, but that may open up more opportunities for U.S. citizens, Hira said.

The issue of visas is not a new one, but the current economic conditions are bringing it to the forefront. When foreign nationals who are on a work visa lose their job, they have no choice but to leave the country.

Full article...

University of Maryland Helping China Create New Companies to Compete With U.S. Companies

Apparently unsatisfied that the United States already has a cumulative $1.5 TRILLION TRADE DEFICIT with China, the University of Maryland is helping the Chinese develop a new generation of entrepreneurs to create new companies in China!!

I'm impressed that a state-supported college in America would go to such great lengths to help our Chinese friends.

Beijing, China & College Park, Md. -- The University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business has announced the winners of its fourth annual China Business Plan Competition. The announcement puts a cap on the year-long contest, which began with more than 200 entries that judges narrowed to 20 semi-finalists before selecting five finalist teams.

CreditEase, which facilitates peer-to-peer loans, was the $25,000 grand prize winner, while Vendiamax, which combines vending machine services with point-of-purchase advertising, took the $15,000 runner-up prize.

The competition, now in its fourth year, aims to support entrepreneurship in China, where the Smith School also runs programs in conjunction with the University of International Business and Economics.

Since its inception in 2005, it has attracted more than 600 entries and awarded more than $195,000 in cash and prizes, making it one of the largest and most influential entrepreneurship competitions in China.

A main focus of the competition is sharing best practices from the Dingman Center and Smith School with individual entrepreneurs in China. In keeping with this the Dingman Center offered a series of free workshops in Beijing leading up to the competition’s final event and awards ceremony with the aim of helping Chinese entrepreneurs gain experience, confidence and knowledge for launching a new venture.

http://www.rhsmith.umd.edu/news/releases/2008/102908.aspx  

Why Indian scientists might return to home: Imaginative, Inspiring Scientific Goals

Bangalore, Oct 29 (IANS) The successful launch of India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 has inspired many Indian space scientists working abroad to return home for a promising career in the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), a top official said.

"Our moon mission has aroused tremendous interest in the scientific community the world over. The launch has made many overseas Indian space scientists think of returning and working in our organisation to further their career prospects," the official told IANS.

Though the state-run ISRO's human resource department is yet to receive applications from abroad, the official who didn't want to be named confirmed that enquiries for job prospects in the space agency started since the Oct 22 launch of Chandrayaan from Sriharikota spaceport, about 80 km north of Chennai.

"There have been some enquiries though at a personal level. For instance, Chandrayaan director M. Annadurai got e-mail from scientists, mostly of Indian origin, congratulating him for the lunar mission and offering to join the space agency," the official pointed out.

Many persons of Indian origin (PIOs) currently working in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in the US and the European Space Agency (ESA) in Europe or at Kourou in French Guiana, South America, began their career as scientists in ISRO or in Indian academic/research institutes before migrating in search of greener pastures.

"Some Indian space scientists working in NASA may be mulling to come back to work on our projects. They might be keen on applying for a suitable post in commensurate with their experience and expectations. We welcome them on merit," the official noted.

But the official added that as a policy the Indian space agency did not recruit foreign nationals.

"Indian born scientists and PIOs are, however, eligible to apply in ISRO. To our knowledge, barring a few, not many Indian scientists are working in ESA. If any, they may be second or third generation Indians with European nationality," the official hinted.

Annadurai has said scientists from NASA and ESA, including PIOs have sent feelers expressing interest to work for ISRO, even at lower salaries. Annadurai could not be reached for his comments.

ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair had told reporters at Sriharikota that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had put in place packages for scientists working in the space organisation and the atomic energy agency on the basis of the Sixth Pay Commission.

"We are in the process of getting these things (revised packages) cleared at the final approval stage. But I don't think we can give the phenomenal salary offered by the IT firms. We will give respectable living conditions in line with society," Nair affirmed.

In accordance with the Sixth Pay Commission's recommendations, the government has revised pay scales of space scientists and engineers to Rs.31,000 from Rs.18,000 at entry-level posts; to Rs.60,000 from Rs.43,000 at middle-level posts and to Rs.70,000 from Rs.45,000 for the top posts - director and above.

The 36-year-old ISRO, headquartered in Bangalore, with multiple locations across the country, has a total workforce of 16,500, including about 10,000 scientists and engineers. About 6,500 are employed in administrative and auxiliary services.

"Our attrition rate is less than the best of IT companies. Though there is a dearth of outstanding science or engineering graduates opting for a career in space science/technology, we are able to manage the demand-supply gap fairly well," the official observed.

To ensure a steady stream of supply to its various departments, ISRO has commenced a space university at Thiruvananthapuram this academic year where about 150 students with science background are offered a five-year course in space technology and applications.

"The graduating students will have a five year bond to serve with the organisation. They get oriented to work on space application and programmes, with opportunity to do projects at our various facilities," the official added.

About 90 percent of ISRO scientists/engineers are home-grown, having graduated from Indian Institutes of Technology, National Institutes of Technology, Bits Pilani or other top engineering universities/colleges.

The Race Between Education and Technology

October 5, 2008

– New York Times

Off the Shelf

Minding the Inequality Gap

By STEPHEN KOTKIN

DURING the first 70 years of the 20th century, inequality declined and Americans prospered together. Over the last 30 years, by contrast, the United States developed the most unequal distribution of income and wages of any high-income country.

Some analysts see the gulf between the rich and the rest as an incentive for strivers, or as just the way things are. Others see it as having a corrosive effect on people’s faith in the markets and democracy. Still others contend that economic polarization is a root cause of  America’s political polarization. Could, and should, something be done?

Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz, two Harvard economists, think yes. Their book, “The Race Between Education and Technology”, contains many tables, a few equations and a powerfully told story about how and why the United States became the world’s richest nation — namely, thanks to its schools.

The authors skillfully demonstrate that for more than a century, and at a steady rate, technological breakthroughs — the mass production system, electricity, computers — have been increasing the demand for ever more educated workers. And, they show, America’s school system met this demand, not with a national policy, but in grassroots fashion, as communities taxed themselves and built schools and colleges.

Beginning in the 1970s, however, the education system failed to keep pace, resulting, Ms. Goldin and Mr. Katz contend, in a sharply unequal nation. The authors allow that a decline in union membership and in the inflation-adjusted minimum wage also contributed to the shift in who partook of a growing pie. But they rule out the usual suspects — globalization (trade) and high immigration as significant causes of rising inequality. Amid the current calls to restrict executive compensation, their policy prescription is to have more Americans graduate from college.

If only it were that easy.

The authors’ argument is really two books in one. One offers an incisive history of American education, especially the spread of the public high school and the state university system. It proves to be an uplifting tale of public commitment and open access. The authors remind us that the United States long remained “the best poor man’s country.” A place where talent could rise.

The other story rigorously measures the impact of education on income. The authors’ compilation of hard data on educational attainment according to when people were born is an awesome achievement, though not always a gripping read.

They show that by the 1850s, America’s school enrollment rate already “exceeded that of any other nation.” And this lead held for a long time. By 1960, some 70 percent of Americans graduated from high school — far above the rate in any other country. College graduation rates also rose appreciably.

In the marketplace, such educational attainment was extremely valuable, but it didn’t produce wide economic disparity so long as more people were coming to the job market with education. The wage premium — or differential paid to people with a high school or a college education — fell between 1915 and 1950.

But more recently, high school graduation rates flatlined at around 70 percent. American college attendance rose, though college graduation rates languished. The upshot is that while the average college graduate in 1970 earned 45 percent more than high school graduates, the differential three decades later exceeds 80 percent.

“In the first half of the century,” the authors summarize, “education raced ahead of technology, but later in the century technology raced ahead of educational gains.”

Proving that the demand for and supply of educated workers began not in the time of Bill Gates but in the era of Thomas Edison is virtuoso social science. But wasn’t a slowdown in rising educational attainment unavoidable? After all, it’s one thing to increase the average years of schooling by leaps and bounds when most people start near zero, but quite another when the national average is already high.

The authors reject the idea that the United States has reached some natural limit in educational advances. Other countries are now at higher levels.

What, then, is holding American youth back?

The authors give a two-part answer. For one thing, the financial aid system is a maze. More important, many people with high school diplomas are not ready for college.

The second problem, the authors write, is concentrated mostly in inner-city schools. Because the poor cannot easily move to better school districts, the authors allow that charter schools as well as vouchers, including those for private schools, could be helpful, but more evaluation is necessary.

Data on the effects of preschool are plentiful, and point to large returns on investment, so the authors join the chorus in extolling Head Start, the federal government’s largest preschool program.

Providing more children with a crucial start, along with easier ways to find financial aid, are laudable national objectives. One suspects, though, that the obstacles to getting more young people into and through college have to do with knotty social and cultural issues.

BUT assume that the authors’ policies would raise the national college graduation rate. Would that deeply reduce inequality?

Averages can be deceptive. Most of the gains of the recent flush decades have not gone to the college-educated as a whole. The top 10 or 20 percent by income have education levels roughly equivalent to those in the top 1 percent, but the latter account for much of the boom in inequality. This appears to be related to the way taxes have been cut, and to the ballooning of the financial industry’s share of corporate profits.

It remains to be seen how a reconfigured financial industry and possible new tax policies might affect the 30-year trend toward greater inequality.

In the meantime, it is nice to be reminded, in a data-rich book, that greater investments in human capital once put Americans collectively on top of the world.

What if the U.S. won no Olympic medals?

As I prepare to go to the Beijing Olympics, I wonder what would happen if the U.S. came home with no medals. From the first Olympic Games in 1896 through 2006, the U.S. has always fared very well, leading the world with 973 gold medals and 2,405 total medals won. No other country on Earth, big or small, comes even close to America’s athletic prowess.

But as I pack my bags, I wonder – what would happen? What if the U.S. won no gold, no silver and no bronze medals? Even worse, what if the U.S. team finished 25th in the medal competition – way behind both smaller and larger countries? Would we handle it with the same nonchalance we have about our children ranking 25th in the world in mathematics? Would it merit a Blue Ribbon panel whose recommendations are never implemented? Would it generate a brief mention in the news and then pass from our minds?

No way! Dropping to 25th in the world at the Olympics would be a national embarrassment. There would be an outcry of humiliation from Americans. The President, Congress, Governors, in fact every elected official worth their salt would demand “athletic reform.” Experts would be appointed to analyze our programmatic weaknesses compared to other countries, and every American would expect serious, measurable changes to take place within four years before the next Olympics. We would muster the will and exert every effort never to lose again in the global athletic contest of the Olympics.

So why are we so apathetic about the decline of our children’s intellectual achievement – where 24 countries outperform U.S. students in math, arguably a more important contest than any sport. Each year our children’s ability to compete academically in the world gets worse, and each year Americans seem to care less. Elected officials give the illusion of caring, but no truly hard choices are made, and no meaningful improvements are seen.

Fortunately, America has been relatively unchallenged economically for the past 50 years. During that time our country won the race to the moon, won the Cold War and became enormously wealthy – on the strength of science, engineering and industry that produced the biggest, the fastest, the best of everything. But times have changed.

Our accumulated wealth and a historically liberal immigration policy have allowed us to ignore how rapidly other nations are enhancing their intellectual capital. China, for example, has gone from the extreme poverty and illiteracy produced by the Cultural Revolution to become the fourth largest economy in the world – in a mere 30 years. That’s right – only 30 years! Today, the U.S. has a trade deficit of $1.5 trillion with China, and China holds $150 billion in U.S. Treasury securities, second only to Japan. China has become both our supplier of goods and our banker. Does that worry anyone else out there but me?

China and India, the two most populous nations on Earth – each four times our size – are producing more and more well-educated young people, particularly in math and science. Their cultures revere, recognize and reward academic excellence, and so they are perfectly tuned to the global technology competition of the 21st century.

As Americans we believe in being number one – in sports, technology, innovation, creativity, the military and in the global economy. But all of that success is based on being number one in educating our children – something we are no longer achieving.

Isn’t it time we admit to ourselves this is more serious than the Olympic Games. Americans traditionally rise to the challenge and prevail. It’s time to rise to the challenge of educating our children to the highest level in the world and ensure they bring home economic gold medals.

Go U.S.A.!

6 Out Of 10 Americans Cannot Locate Payless Shoes On A Mall Map

From The Onion: America's Finest News Source

WASHINGTON—An alarming new study conducted by the Department of Education has found that 60 percent of all Americans are unable to locate the major retail outlet Payless Shoes when presented with an ordinary shopping-center map.

Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who personally monitored the study, said that the United States ranked behind 130 other nations when it came to mall-map comprehension—an embarrassment considering one-third of the countries surveyed didn't even have shopping centers.

"The drop, Spellings said, is especially evident in the sciences, with countless men and women lacking the rudimentary math skills needed to follow an episode of Deal Or No Deal."

"Our nation is every bit as educated and well informed today as it was 20 years ago," Michigan resident Dale Henderson said. "If anything, we know more football and hockey trivia now than ever before."

Read the full report.

When parody imitates life...we are in trouble.

Clueless in America

Bob Herbert had an excellent Op/Ed essay in the April 22, 2008, New York Times called Clueless In America.

A few of the key points included:

"We don't hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It's much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball."

"An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day."

"Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900."

"When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong."

"While we’re effectively standing in place, other nations are catching up and passing us when it comes to educational achievement. You have to be pretty dopey not to see the implications of that."

High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers - NY Times 5/17/08

"The first signs of declining interest among the young in science and engineering appeared almost two decades ago, after Japan reached first-world living standards, and in recent years there has been a steady decline in the number of science and engineering students. But only now are Japanese companies starting to feel the real pinch.

By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here is already short almost half a million engineers."

Read the story - High-Tech Japanese, Running Out of Engineers

Perhaps the declining students interest in math, science and engineering is symptomatic of every developed country. As a country becomes more affluent, students are drawn to careers that appear more lucrative, more exciting and easier to attain than engineering and science careers.

Smashing American Stereotypes About India and China

Most Americans perception of both India and China is wildly out of date. The view that these countries are immersed in abject poverty is simply no longer true. While both countries do have hundreds of millions of people living in extreme poverty, the sheer size of their populations (China 1.3 Billion; India 1.1 Billion) means they also have very large middle classes.

A recent anaytic report by the renowned consulting firm McKinsey & Company speaks to this point about India:

India’s rising middle class wants a better life

The same furious energy that made India a world-class provider of software and business services is creating a huge urban middle class. By 2025, household spending could more than quadruple, generating the 5th-largest consumer economy on Earth, up from 12th now. About 400 million Indian city dwellers—nearly 100 million more people than the United States has today—will enjoy comfortable living standards. Even India’s most affluent consumers will outnumber not only the comparable segment in China but also the entire current population of Australia.