President Trump picked the right time to make education in the U.S. worse than it is currently. The gap between the U.S. population and the rest of the world in terms of general knowledge is larger than it has ever been and getting worse every year. The gap between the elites in our country and the average American as far as information is concerned is also widening. What better time to end the federal Department of Education and put a World Wrestling executive, Linda McMahon, in change of our educational system. It’s almost as if Trump wants the population to be uninformed and ignorant so they’ll be unable to challenge his mis-statements, lies, fake news and fake history that he promulgates. The more uneducated Americans, the more support the MAGA movement and Trump will get.
As unbelievable as it seems, one fifth of Americans can only read at or below a third-grade level. Forty-eight million American adults. How can these people function in our new technological world or obtain complex jobs that pay well? There is a high correlation of illiteracy with poverty and crime, and these people require help whenever they need documentation for benefits or jobs. If they cannot read, they also cannot write. And aside from their individual problems, they are a drag on the American economy that needs more people going into STEM fields. China graduates 600,000 to 1.5 million engineers annually according to two different sources, India 350,000. The U.S. only produces 70,000 engineers each year. It’s true, however, that the definition of what an engineer is may vary in different languages, and the Chinese and Indian graduates may not be comparable to the American graduates in proficiency and the jobs they assume. But it seems clear that to maintain our technological advantages, we need more engineers.
We also need more well-trained teachers nationwide. Teaching is critical for the survival and enhancement of our society, but many young people won’t consider teaching because the pay is low, and the work is hard. Teachers’ pay must be increased if we’re going to have an educated population. And attempts should also be made to educate adults who are illiterate or partly literate to help them achieve better jobs.
There is also a deficit of physicians in the U.S., particularly in rural counties and small towns. Not enough people are choosing medicine as a career because of the length of training and the lack of work-life balance. There are also not enough nurses and nurse practitioners to fill the need. What we do have is enough people going into business and investment banking with the idea that they will make tons of money.
If we cannot convince enough Americans to go into STEM and medical fields, and raise the general level of our populations’ education, we must look outside the country to maintain our technological advantages and health care system. That means more immigrants with the skills that are needed. H1-B immigrants in particular should be encouraged to move to the United States instead of being discouraged by Trump. India and China would be the top sources of these immigrants, many of whose citizens attend our universities. Afterwards, they should be cajoled to stay instead of being forced to leave the U.S. Instead of pushing white nationalism, Trump should be thinking about the nation’s long-terms needs and that means more educated immigrants settling in the U.S. That is one way of closing the education gap. Actually, maybe Secretary McMahon could convince some of her wrestlers to go into STEM fields and do something useful.
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Posted at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tags: education, illiteracy, McMahon, STEM, Trump
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Political junkie, Vietnam vet, neurologist- three books on aging and dementia. Book on health care reform in 2009- Shock Therapy for the American Health Care System. Book on the need for a centrist third party- Resurrecting Democracy- A Citizen’s Call for a Centrist Third Party published in 2011. Aging Wisely, published in August 2014 by Rowman and Littlefield. Latest book- The Uninformed Voter published May 2020