School Choice or Best Systems_ What Improves Education_ - Margaret C. Wang [4]
Among the main industrialized countries, moreover, Korea ranks first in the percentage of high school completers between the ages of 25 and 34—97 percent. The head of the Education Indicators and Analysis division of the OECD, Andreas Schleicher, observed, “Tomorrow’s high-skilled jobs in innovation and R&D—and the high wages that go with them—will be relocated in Asia unless the European Union and the U.S. make significant progress.”19
The consequences of East Asia’s higher standards and graduation rates are already substantially apparent. According to The Economist, “The real driver of the world economy has been Asia, which has accounted for over half of the world’s growth since 2001” [through 2005] in contrast to America’s contribution of only 13 percent of the growth.20
The benefits of strong K-12 education systems are not restricted to individual and national income. Higher achievement appears to reduce child and adult mortality21 and to improve health throughout the lifespan.22
American Immigrants
The American economy has long benefited from the immigration of talented and ambitious people. Today, the highest levels of economically and technologically significant U.S. talent are often found among immigrants rather than American-born workers. Half of the Nobel Prizes that went to Americans, for example, were awarded to immigrants; more than half of the Ph.D.s working in America are immigrants; and “a quarter of Silicon Valley companies were started by Indians and Chinese.”23
But the United States may not be able to depend on continuing talent immigration. A survey of international firms showed that between 25 and 82 percent planned to increase the amount of research and development they conduct in China and India in automotive engineering, consumer products, information technology, media and entertainment, industrial goods, telecommunications, and financial services.24
Missing their families or seeing opportunity back home, talented immigrants are now more likely to return. Returnees from America, for example, founded 3 in 10 of Taiwan’s new companies.25 Lower labor costs in developing countries serve as magnets. Indian college graduates are paid roughly 12 percent of the salaries earned by their American counterparts. Because Indians, on average, also work longer hours than Americans, firms can “buy almost ten Indian brains for the price of one American one.”26
For these and other reasons, the once dominant old-line U.S. unionized industries have steadily declined. The percentage of employed wage and salary workers who are members of unions declined from 20.1 to 14.0 percent from 1983 to 2005 (although 4 in 10 government workers were unionized in 2005).27 In January 2006 General Motors reported its largest annual loss in more than a decade in the face of competition from Asia and falling sales. In a watershed moment in the same year, GM was finally eclipsed by Toyota as the world’s number-one automaker after a 40-year decline in its market share.
Similarly, Chrysler was forced to merge with (German) Daimler-Benz, and Bill Ford now faces the prospect of presiding over the bankruptcy of his eponymous company. Long bound by tough union contracts, Ford declared, “From now on, our products will be designed and built to satisfy the customer, not just to fill a factory.”28 (Apparently, when all else fails, customers are considered.)
All this goes to show that American citizens face increased international competition. They cannot depend on the major industries that formerly led the world to continue without a well-educated workforce. Nor can they depend on immigrants or the present K-12 school system to save the day without effective reforms.
School Choice
Because high levels of knowledge and skill increasingly determine individual and national success, Americans and others are keenly interested in changes in schools