DVD Review - 2 Million Minutes - The 21st Century Solution

When the DVD 2 Million Minutes first came out, I was late to the party in writing a review on this blog. It was a ground breaking portrayal of the contrast in some of the largest economies of the world. But the blog did have an impact - I was surprised to see how many people had not heard about until they read my blog. This time, I was determined not to be late. So here it is.

First of all, this DVD is not a direct sequel to the first 2 MM DVD. It is the fourth in a series, the second and third were a more in-depth look at the Indian and the Chinese education systems respectively. But the latest one is a drastic change in its focus. After telling us how well the Chinese and the Indians are being educated, Bob has now found an oasis of excellence in the US. And to help make the point, he has interviewed Craig Barrett, the recently retired Chairman of Intel Corp., the largest semiconductor company in the world.

To help find his success story, Bob went to the Newsweek rankings of high school, and picked the top school - Basis Charter school, which started in Tucson, AZ, and now has a second campus in Scottsdale, AZ. For those who are not familiar with Newsweek rankings, it picks its candidates from schools that have the highest AP test takers. Its challenge index, which divides the number of AP tests taken by the number of graduating seniors, is the primary benchmark. The Basis Charter school topped their 2008 survey, with a challenge index score of 17.167 - which means their graduating seniors had taken an average of 17 AP classes (equivalent to about 2 years in a regular college). One other unique feature of this school is that it is not a school for gifted and/or talented students, nor is it a magnet school. Anyone who applies get in, provided they can stand the rigor. One other big difference I found was that they start with 6th grade. This gives those students who are behind a chance to catch up to the rigors of its high school program. They do this in spite of the fact their charter schools get about $1000 per student less than other public schools.

How rigorous is the program? Let us take math, for example, which is the Achilles heel of most public schools. The expectation in Basis Charter Schools is that ALL STUDENTS take AP Calculus exam by 10th grade. This forms the basis for their calculus based science classes in 11th and 12th grades. So, in order to take AP Calculus, they have to take Pre-Calculus in 9th grade, Algebra II in 8th grade, Geometry in 7th grade, and Algebra I in 6th grade. Impossible, you say? Data show that this is not much different from top performing nations in Asia and Europe, and some developing countries in the world. Our best high school is about as good as an average or slightly above average school in those nations. But I digress. Once the gatekeeper requirement of Math is behind them, the students are ready to take other higher level science courses in their junior and senior years.

The result? The school has 100% college placement rate. Their students enter college better prepared than most other high school graduates. All this at a cost about 10% lower than sending an average student to school.

The main video could have been a bit shorter, in my mind. Or including a piece on K-5 school with similar attributes would have rounded it out more. These are minor quibbles. I thought that its main goal, of pointing out that excellence can be achieved within the public school system, at a lower cost, by those who had the fortitude to go against the entrenched monopoly of our public institutions, was achieved.

The one gem in this DVD is the extended interview with Craig Barrett. Although the DVD has snippets of the interview spread throughout the main feature, what really stands out is the added bonus feature. I think it is worth the entire cost ($25) of the DVD. In that interview, Craig answers a few personal questions, along with other questions on his view of the state of public education in the US. The one observation that he makes stuck in my mind as very astute. We have a dichotomy in this country. We have arguably the best post-secondary university system, both public and private, and arguably one of the most mediocre public K-12 education systems by international standards. He pins the underlying difference to the basic structure of these institutions. Our universities, both public and private, have to compete for the best students, the best faculty, and the best learning environment. When institutions compete, the customers, in this case, the students and their parents, win. The public K-12 system is devoid of any competition. Absence of competition, or a monopoly system, according to economists, leads to the lowest quality at the highest possible cost. So, the natural conclusion is - how do we introduce competition in our public education system? I will make this the topic of my next blog.

In the meantime, get your copy of the DVD, sit back, enjoy! Highly recommended.

Here is the publisher's site: www.2mminutes.com

My Conversation with Education Secretary Arne Duncan

We interrupt our regularly scheduled summer vacation to bring you this blog.

What am I saying? Summer officially got over on Labor Day. And what better way to end it than a chat with Arne Duncan?

Frankly, it didn't "just happen". Back in May, Secretary Duncan held an electronic town hall asking for inputs from people all over the country on his proposal to raise the education standards. I wrote a response (see below), along with hundreds of others. I did not expect much to happen as a result, and promptly forgot about it. A couple of months later, I got an email from his press office saying that Secretary Duncan read my comment, and would like to follow up with a phone call. The call was scheduled for this morning, and happened right on schedule - at 5:30 am Pacific Time. In the call, Secretary Duncan asked me when I sensed something was amiss with our public education, and how I got involved in the issues. I summarized what I had found (already in my previous blogs, I think), what some business leaders have said already, and finally, what is happening locally. He also mentioned he believed in more focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), and that he believed math and science teachers need to be paid more. I gave him a brief summary of the local non profit nConnect, and what they are trying to do to promote STEM in local schools. He mentioned that more funding is going to be made available to help achieve his goals, and finally encouraged me to "keep pushing, and don't stop". I thought it was a nice, personal touch. Everything he mentioned resonated with what we are trying to accomplish in our schools, but somehow never get to. Even though it lasted only a few minutes, I felt a lot was communicated by both.

Coincidentally, today also happens to be the day that President Obama speaks to the K-12 students of the nation. His address got some flak from some even before it was given. I read the text of the speech, and could not figure out what the controversy was about. All I saw was emphasis on good old fashioned American values, and encouragement to study more, try harder, and stay in school. I encourage all students to watch the address.

My comment on Secretary Duncan's electronic town hall is attached below:
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Dear Secretary Duncan:

Thank you for soliciting inputs on what I consider one of the most important issues that this administration faces. Most of the inputs so far appear to be from those close to the education system. I am a first generation immigrant, worked briefly as a university faculty, and spent my entire career as a high tech researcher/manager for a high tech company, before retiring early. Having spent equal time in India and the US, I believe I can bring a fresh perspective to this thread, starting with the following three reasons:

First, I think the US stands in the most critical point in its history, when decisions made can affect the future generations for decades. From what I gather, the total debt (public+private+individual) currently stands at above $50 trillion. Projected unfunded obligations in social security and medicare, plus growth in federal debt, also are projected to be over $50 trillion. These are both over three times our GDP. Never before in our history have we faced such a challenge, not even during the great depression. But it is our children who will be stuck paying the bill for this decades long party. It is our solemn duty to equip them with the best education on earth before they face a life vastly more perilous than what their parents and grandparents did.

Secondly, we are no longer the leading nation when it comes to getting children ready for what lies ahead in the 21st century. Those in the education establishment may argue otherwise, but I have had to hire, train and supervise multi national employees for over two decades. I have seen how other nations prepare their workers better in science and technology. Many multi national high tech companies have already moved their R&D centers off shore, where most of the intellectual property is developed, and all the high paying R&D jobs with them. As far as I am concerned, we have a lot of catching up to do here.

Third, I think we are on the wrong end of demographics when it comes to training young graduates into high paying jobs. We are an aging nation. Growth through immigration is coming from the bottom end of the pay range. So, in my assessment, each student in the pipeline now will have to carry a larger burden compared to the previous generation.

So, do I think we need to improve our standards? You bet. In my mind, it is not a matter of choice any more. In my humble opinion, here are some things I would do:

1. I would start with the most stringent worldwide standards to be our national standards to begin with, and then challenge the states to match them. I feel this is a necessary first step.

2. High standards will be meaningless if the same system of training, evaluating and rewarding our teachers continues. The best performing nations choose their best to go into teaching, and then give them rigorous training to do their jobs. The same cannot be said about us.

3. Parents and community leaders need to espouse academic achievement as a priority over extra curricular activities. Too many dollars today get spent on things that have no effect on student achievement, and the popular culture seems to encourage it. You and your boss have done an admirable job of elevating this issue and bringing it to the public limelight. Please continue to hammer the message in.

4. We need the equivalent of a national emergency action to pull out all stops on STEM education. Math and science have suffered greatly in what you refer to as “the race to the bottom”. What passes for some math curricula today will be considered trash in just about any other nation today. Many teachers who teach elementary or middle schools do not have degrees in math and science. Our ability to generate new intellectual property will continue to be hammered due to lack of proper math and science education, especially in early grades.

Once again, thanks for soliciting our collective inputs.

On 21st Century Jobs

In K-12 education circles, has been fashionable in the past few years to talk about 21st century jobs. Every school district official I met had something to say about how his/her district was preparing students for “21st century jobs”. When I probe a little deeper, however, I get the feeling that the depth of understanding as to the nature of these jobs is very superficial. When asked, I get what sounds like a canned response “jobs involving creativity, critical thinking skills, learning how to learn”, and so on. That got me thinking about how our education system can deliver on the promise of true 21st century jobs.

Let me set the context. Our universities seem to be doing a great job of creating graduates that can compete globally. Others are catching up, but we seem to be still on top. Never mind that we have mostly foreign born science and engineering professors teaching in these universities, to mostly foreign born graduate students. For the moment, we can bask in the glory that we are #1. So, the problem of turning out college graduates for 21st century jobs does not appear to be with our institutes of higher education.

Now let us go a little deeper into the rabbit hole. What about our high school graduates? I have already written a piece about “How To Turn Out World Class High School Graduates” from the perspective of a customer. Clearly, there is a broken link between our K-12 system and its view of 21st century jobs, and our university system and its view of 21st century jobs. I will continue to assert that this is one broken link that we cannot afford to have. If it is not obvious now, it will be obvious a few more years into the greatest economic downturn since the last great depression. To peel this onion, we have to start with what we have been historically good at, and what we have left to chance.

Let us start with all the great ideas that we came up with. In no particular order, I can rattle off at least a dozen history-altering 20th century inventions credited to the US: the transistor, atomic power (for energy generation), a dozen or more computer languages, statistical process control, genetically engineered drugs, wireless technologies, the photocopy machine, the SLR camera, the TV, the VCR, ,the integrated circuit, the computer and the list goes on and on. One funny thing I noticed is that each one of these inventions is keeping hundreds of millions of people gainfully employed in well paying jobs IN OTHER COUNTRIES – in the 21st century. Let me elaborate some that I have listed:

The Transistor: Invented by William Shockley and Pearson in AT&T Bell Labs, (later confirmed by Brattain and Bardeen from the same labs) one of the premier private research labs, in the 1940s, for which they won a Nobel Prize. Attempts to commercialize the transistor in the US were unsuccessful, until Sony of Japan licensed it and perfected large-scale manufacture. Other Japanese companies followed suit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, there is no large-scale consumer electronics industry in the US to speak of. AT&T Bell Lab itself is no more, having been broken up into parts and sold off to foreign companies.

Nuclear Power for Energy: Peaceful uses of nuclear energy have been a good byproduct of the technology that literally started with a bang. But after 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl, the perception of this as a source of energy has declined. In the meantime, France, Japan, and developing countries like India have accelerated deployment to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The cure for bad technology, according to them, was better technology. Our answer: no technology. Now new nuclear plants have been built here in the last 30 years.

Computer Languages & the Internet Browser: This has been the single largest generator of high paying jobs worldwide. Universities and corporate research labs in the US led the development of almost all the ideas behind the connected world we have today. And yet the job growth in this field has fled this country. Most of the programmers are in other countries. No country has benefited from this than India, where one private university, the National Institute of Information Technology, turns out more programmers per year than the entire nation of the United States. Back in this country, I have not seen any recent math text books with Basic algorithms to solve problems. Instead, there are screen shots of calculators where students just punch buttons. Nor have I met many math teachers who can teach true programming. I wonder whatever happened to critical thinking we talk so much about? If the K-12 system does not create excitement in this field, who will supply the graduates to our university system?

Statistical Process Control: This is a concept that was lost on the US industry for a long time. Championed by US thinkers like Deming and Juran, these ideas never caught on, until Japan Inc. decided to use these techniques to improve their cheap, and shoddy product image. And improve they did. And the Koreans followed suit. Based on a deep understanding of mathematics and statistics, these techniques propelled Japanese car brands to the top of the quality charts. The US auto industry has always trailed in this aspect, and had to rely on laws and truck subsidies to survive. Part of why the “Big Three” are at the verge of bankruptcy is the failure to follow these concepts in the early stages. Waiting in the wings is Tata motors of India, with a car that sells in India for $2500, and gets 50 miles per gallon. They promise plenty of 21st century high paying jobs – in India.

Genetically Engineered Drugs: One other field that was pioneered in the US, and treated with suspicion by the public. While companies like Genentech seem to be doing quite well, the growth has come from other countries. Ranbaxy labs in India grew tremendously in the last few years, and is on the verge of passing global giants in this field. Recently, a Japanese company acquired a large stake in this company, probably since Japan’s aging population will needs a reliable supply of quality drugs.

Wireless Technologies: Spearheaded by the meteoric rise of the cell phone, this field is just getting started. Once the undisputed territory of US companies like Motorola, this industry is now dominated by Finnish and Korean companies. This is one industry that is forecasted to grow, in double digit percentages, well into the 21st century, providing high paying, high tech jobs for their employees. Meanwhile Motorola just announced that they were exiting the cell phone business. The only other US company that makes cell phones, Apple Computer, has only a few percent global market share. Interestingly, Korean and Finnish high school students routinely come in first or second in math and science in worldwide comparisons. Coincidence? I do not think so.

Do we see a trend here? Can we connect the dots? Needless to say the remaining industries such as cameras, the TV, the VCR (or DVD player), computers, and so on, are creating high paying 21st century jobs elsewhere in the world, while our domestic industries are turning into hollow sales and marketing organizations. One common thread in the places where such industries flourish is a razor sharp focus on creating the best mathematical and scientific talent in the world. I will assert that if our focus, especially in the K-12 education system, changes to match or better theirs, we will also create the same high pay, high growth environment in this country. The downside of not doing so will be an economy that we have today. Other than food and shelter, we are forced to buy what other countries make, with money borrowed from them. There will be jobs here too, but with subsistence wages and no benefits to speak of. Our system has been turning out high school graduates, 50% of who cannot pass an 8th grade math test. I will assert that it is a big part of what led to the mess we are in. The time to act was in 1983, when the “Nation at Risk” study came out. We failed to produce results then. The result I think has led to economic bondage of sorts, for our kids and grandkids, and no amount of apologizing is going to make their lives any better. I will maintain that only if we act like our lives depend on rectifying the current sorry state of math and science education can we redeem ourselves. One thing that we appear to be good at, is to come together at a time of crisis and commit to a solution that leads to common good. My hope is that most people who read this can make this connection, and drive changes in their schools and communities.