Ms Dare,

It would perhaps be helpful if you were to carefully read your own quotes, “American students continue to do poorly in math and science relative to students in other advanced countries. Japan, Germany, South Korea, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, and France all top us.”  Since Canada is in his list of advanced countries that do BETTER than the US, you can hardly switch the word Canada for the US, now can you?

OK, you got me. 

Actually, Canada can be thrown in, as well as Germany and other Western nations. Being one of the top nations of PISA results, means nothing really, not when the manufacturing, secondary processes, and added-value are spread throughout the world according to cost of labour, the skills of labour force based on what the global company need in terms of a labour force.

But the author makes a valid point, that is just starting to emerge out of the economic pages, and the chronic unemployment levels of Western countries, the drive to lower wages in low-skilled work, and the skills set of the young adults entering into the market.

“What’s going on? Put simply, America isn’t educating enough of our people well enough to get American-based companies to do more of their high-value added work here.

Our K-12 school system isn’t nearly up to what it should be. American students continue to do poorly in math and science relative to students in other advanced countries….........American universities continue to rank high but many are being starved of government funds and are having trouble keeping up. More and more young Americans and their families can’t afford a college education…..”  And in Canada as well as in the United States, the transportation, communications, and infrastructure is falling part, and access to transportation and communications runs according to the ability to pay for the services.

The author has a valid point, United States and Canada cannot complete, until the percentage of our youth are educated well enough, to have the skills to fall into the well-paying jobs. Throughout the years starting from the 1980s, the mechanic, wood shops, and other resources of school disappeared out of the K to 12 system, to only reappear in the colleges, where there is a seating cap, tuition costs, cost of living while attending college, and for what? Back in the 1970s, high school graduates had the required skills to walked into jobs to become apprentices, without the requirement of taking a 2 to 3 year college program. .They had the skills and abilities, and if they wanted to go further, they went part-time to college to obtained higher certification qualifications.

Like the author has stated - “The way we get good jobs back is with a national strategy to make Americans more competitive — retooling our schools, getting more of our young people through college or giving them a first-class technical education, remaking our infrastructure, and thereby guaranteeing a large share of Americans add significant value to the global economy.”

The only pathway, considering Germany and Finland were wise enough to maintain their technical and trades at the high school level. Germany’s citizens are in a much better situation than their counterparts in Canada and United States. Then there is China, and one can throw India into the mix. Both countries and their economic policies where 60 percent of their work force labour are in low-skills jobs. Ergo, 60 percent of the youth are out working by the age of 14 going from one low-skilled job to the next. The next link is just one of the latest and the working conditions.in China. http://blog.laptopmag.com/samsung-investigating-alleged-child-labor-abuse-at-chinese-factory

The higher skilled work is not being outsource, when we don’t have a work force that is capable of doing the high skilled work in the first place. What is being outsource, is the lower skilled jobs of secondary processing, added value industries, and jobs like putting electronic components together. Does Canada have a manufacturer left making TVs?

Hell in Canada and United States, one needs a two year college certificate just to enter accounting data input jobs. I have years and years of accounting experience, and yet no one will look at me, because I don’t have the two year certificate. There should be no unemployment in either country, but there is. Many reasons for it, including the ones mentioned in the article, but the main one that sets the conditions of outsourcing, is quality of education being received in the first 12 years of schooling.

Wayne, how can you say that!  As a math teacher you know full well that grade nine students don’t even know what a fraction is.  If these rankings are based on PISA, we’ve all been through this before. 
Also, in our area, when the companies were bought by foreigners, within a few years, they were moved out of Canada.  Guess what their gripe was?  Poor technicians, educated here.