Columnist Amity Shlaes blames outsourcing on public education (“Protectionism doesn’t serve schools well,” Commentary, March 9). She believes schools have failed and therefore corporations must look elsewhere for their workforce.
Corporations do not, however, seek workers abroad because workers in America are not qualified, but rather because workers elsewhere will accept lower wages.
For example, the wage gap in India is more than 12 to 1 when compared to similar jobs performed in the U.S. (according to a University of California study).
Outsourcing is the product of corporate greed. Does Shlaes believe Nike moved its factories offshore because Americans can’t make shoes? Did the cost of Nike shoes come down?
Furthermore public schools educate more children and prepare them better than in any previous time in history. It appears that schools are currently failing because we compare their average SAT and ACT scores, which include every student in the school, to the averages from former times, when only the college-bound were tested.
In those times, students with only a high-school diploma were still able to earn a decent wage, support their families and have excess income to buy cars and other goods, thus creating even more jobs.
It wasn’t until the good blue-collar jobs began to disappear that schools came under criticism.
Now unless schools turn every student into a person capable of graduating from college, those who don’t are marked as failures.
Because schools have been turned into ACT boot camps (thanks to No Child Left Behind and corporate greed), they have had to cancel excellent vocational programs. Now students who could have used these skills to support their families with dignity have to compete for jobs flipping burgers.
