Overseas outsourcing: Blame society and standardized tests?

March 25, 2004

It seems everyone's talking about the outsourcing of jobs overseas.

Some folks argue that there be restrictions on whether companies should be permitted to build overseas, for these factories and other centers of employment take jobs away from Americans. Others say that sure, companies build factories where they can get a steady supply of cheap labor. But if trade policies are truly liberalized, there is no net loss of jobs, as more and more sophisticated avenues of employment open up in the U.S.

Over at Assorted Stuff, Tim Stahmer writes about the role of education in the outsourcing debate, mentioning a report written up in Wired magazine:

According to the American Electronics Association, American public education is the reason why so many companies are exporting jobs to other countries. The AEA says that students don't get a strong education in math and science so high tech firms are forced to look for skilled workers in other countries.

The researchers admit that this really is speculation, since they've got no hard numbers to back up this thesis.

While Tim concedes that "we don't do a good job of math and science instruction in this country" (a point with which we agree), his aim is off when looking for culprits. He writes (emphasis ours):

Part of the blame for that goes to society in general which gives lots of lip service to learning those subjects but then has an adult population which is largely (and often proudly) ignorant of even the most basic math and science concepts. How many people actually understand the odds behind the lottery or what the theory of evolution actually says?

So, we blame society for our low math and science achievement!? This is just a hair's breadth away from blaming parents and "the neighborhood" when looking at school failure, a specious argument, to be sure.

But then he says that since so many adults don't have math and science skills, then we can't teach math and science skills. Then these folks grow up and add to the adults in society who don't have math and science skills, and on and on, in a vicious cycle.

This neat circular reasoning cleverly omits schools from the equation or at least gets them off the hook indefinitely, for as long as they graduate students with poor math and science skills, we get to place the blame on society (with no end in sight).

Might we suggest the reason so many adults have poor math and science skills is because too many schools fall down on the job?

We know it's a stretch, but if schools are supposed to teach math and science--but don't--maybe, just maybe, we should actually look inside the perimeter of the building. (We're still trying to figure out from where our tenth graders came who don't know what a perimeter is!)

But Tim says society's not the only culprit, as he sets his sights on a meaty topic:

I'll probably get blasted for this, but I also blame the tsunami of standardized tests we spend a large part of the year preparing for. The math on these exams hardly gets up to the "high tech" level that the AEA report is referring to and most exams barely touch science at all since it's not one of the indicators that NCLB requires. When the test becomes the target of instruction, learning settles for the lowest common denominator of the test.

Tim generously provides us with a "target-rich environment," but since he's a good sport, we'll help ourselves to some blasting:

• Tsunami of standardized tests? (Sure, if you measure the wave heights in Duluth.) While there are a number of tests in the water, a student will most likely take only two or less standardized tests in a given year.
• A large part of the year is spent on test prep? When you say "test prep" do you mean, uh, how do you say . . . teaching? Any school system worth its salt has little to fear from standardized tests, however we can completely understand how a system which routinely fails to educate might get a little antsy.
• The low level of math on standardized tests is responsible for the failure of schools to teach math? This really is a head scratcher. Is "teach to the test" so ingrained that if a dumbed-down exam were given, all of the teachers would teach dumbed-down content? This would make sense only if children's brains could only contain one type of learning, sharp squares or dull circles.
• Since "most exams barely touch science at all since it's not one of the indicators that NCLB requires" then this means schools have forgotten how to teach science? Gee, how many years has NCLB been in full effect? For decades the SAT (probably the most well known of all High School standardized tests, used by millions of students in their applications for college) has tested exactly two areas: Math and Verbal. Somehow we never saw schools ejecting three-fourths of their curriculum because of this. But now that NCLB focusses on math and verbal skills, then it's suddenly curriculum-decimation time?
• Finally, he writes, "When the test becomes the target of instruction, learning settles for the lowest common denominator of the test." Uh, no it doesn't. For starters, the passive voice slays us. "Learning" doesn't settle for anything, however teaching is another story! (Let's not forget flesh-and-blood teachers.) If schools or teachers want to dumb down their own curriculum, then they're welcome to do so (hey, it's a free country)! But don't blame a standardized test for an inability or unwillingness to teach!

The argument seems to be this: first standardized tests are criticized because schools must spend "most of the year" on test prep, which leads us to believe that they're really, really hard. Then the tests are criticized because apparently the math and science on the test is not high tech (which we read as "easy").

Maybe this argument's lack of cohesion is due to the fact that these dog-noises are at the base of the wrong tree?

While there's no shortage of critics of standardized testing, he's the first we know to make a connection between the loss of American jobs to overseas outsourcing and standardized tests.

Not exactly an open-and-shut case.