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Future of U.S. Manufacturing Begins with Education
Nation of Change ^ | January 29, 2012 | George Koo

Posted on 01/29/2012 4:15:40 PM PST by lyby

In his State of the Union, President Obama stressed the importance of keeping manufacturing in America. The reasoning is that in order to continue to innovate and develop the next generation must-have products, the US needs manufacturing that uses leading edge technology. Nothing wrong with the reasoning, but it may be too late.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationofchange.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Government
KEYWORDS: learning; teaching
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Quotes from the spot on article:

For decades the majority of Americans, most of the so-called 99 Percent, have been getting a basic education inferior to what their parents received.

To meet the required budget cuts, schools are forced to cut out arts, music and other non-core courses and after school activities. Bare bones programs leave students uninspired as they sleep walk to graduation, not much wiser than when they started.

In many parts of America, pro-science is regarded as anti-religion, or worse yet, pro-religion is ipso facto considered as antithetical to science. To demand that religious concepts be taught on equal footing with science – as creationists have done in their fight against Darwinian evolutionists – is to leave young minds poorly prepared for a productive adult life in a technology driven world.

Immigrants from China, India and Russia, in particular, come from cultures with a deep respect for learning and science. They have not been in America long enough for the anti-science mentality to alter their values.

1 posted on 01/29/2012 4:15:42 PM PST by lyby
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To: lyby

BS. Have you taught in a public K-12 school? Not only am I a teacher, I am also looked upon to be a parent (I do have that qualification and have proven successful results), a psychologist (NOT qualified), and a nurse (NOT qualified other than Dr. Mommy) to students who come from broken homes or homes with drug-dependent parents - most of whom have nothing but contempt for “education”, instead relying upon the “government” to provide for their most basic needs. I TRY to reach these young people, and I teach/reach to the best of my ability.

I AM NOT A MEMBER OF THE TEACHERS’ UNION!

BTW: the school system in which I teach and where my children attend have wonderful arts programs! Of course, those programs are not deemed as “important” as the athletic programs...or the academic programs, as far as that goes...

NO, I DO NOT HAVE A PhD (piled higher and deeper). What I do have is a sense of FREEDOM from government tyranny and a desire to instill in the young people I teach an understanding of what our forefathers meant by “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

On another note: I am giving/receiving a MUCH more thorough education than was available in the 1960s-70s.


2 posted on 01/29/2012 4:18:59 PM PST by lyby ("Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." ~ Galileo Galilei)
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To: lyby

I would claim that the only possible path to our USA recovery and success begins with a Congress and a President that absolutely puts only the interests of the USA first, and not the wealth of globalists and other nations.

You can’t have company run by those who put other companies first, and you can’t run a country by those who do the same.

We need a major flushing of the toilet in the USA.


3 posted on 01/29/2012 4:25:03 PM PST by apoliticalone (Honest govt. that operates in the interest of US sovereignty and the people, not global $$$)
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To: lyby

Schools cannot fix what is lacking in the home. It used to be that, when a child entered kindergarten, he had many basic skills down alreadt. He was generally socialized properly, knew his colours, and could count to ten.

Now, many kids, because they don’t interact with their parents, don’t even have those skills. A child entering kimdergarten is often lacking those first five year skill developments and that’s what the schools are starting with. For all intents and purposes, schooling should continue until the kid is 22 just to catch-up.


4 posted on 01/29/2012 4:25:52 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: lyby

There’s manufacturing in the US?


5 posted on 01/29/2012 4:28:00 PM PST by noblejones (Obama rules!)
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To: lyby

We need to quit pushing every kid towards college and start pushing many of them to Tech schools. The ones that do go to college need to become engineers. I work in the Defense industry. We have a hard time finding people off the street that can do the jobs. Many are filled by former military guys like myself, but there just isn’t enough of us. There is a huge shortage of skilled labor in this country. We have too many kids getting Liberal Arts degrees.


6 posted on 01/29/2012 4:31:10 PM PST by sean327 (God created all men equal, then some become Marines!)
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To: lyby
Hogwash.

Just because one does not have enough “faith” to believe all the hocus-pocus necessary to “understand” the THEORY of evolution does not make people of faith anti science.

Most of my Christian friends marvel at the blessings of modern science. We just do not exclude our Lord and Savior in our appreciation of it.

The problem with most scientific academia is that they believe that science and faith are exclusive of one another.
7 posted on 01/29/2012 4:31:16 PM PST by John 3_19-21 (A lie told over and over again is still just a lie and the one telling it a liar.)
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To: lyby
You can have schools turning-out squadrons of Ph.D's at age twelve, and it doesn't mean squat if the federal government is hostile to business in general. And if you want to shove ten pounds of crap in a five-pound bag, have the government favor some businesses over others via tariffs, subsidies, etc.

There, I said it. Now the True Conservatives(tm) will be after me.

8 posted on 01/29/2012 4:32:29 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: noblejones

Hard to believe, but the US is still the number one country for producing manufactured goods in the world.

A proper tax and economic policy will only make the US even more so.


9 posted on 01/29/2012 4:33:27 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: Jonty30
Schools cannot fix what is lacking in the home.

At this point the schools are happily destroying what's left. They want nothing more than unquestioning drones and drones aren't really all that useful in a factory setting or anywhere else outside of a picket line or protest rally.
10 posted on 01/29/2012 4:33:27 PM PST by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: lyby; metmom; wintertime

Part of the problem is that the teaching methods of American public schools are intentionally random and boring. They actually teach their students to hate learning and they do it by design.

Perhaps the Homeschooling community can find their own solution to this problem. IMHO, homeschoolers are one of the few hopeful signs of our nation’s future.


11 posted on 01/29/2012 4:33:27 PM PST by Clintonfatigued (A chameleon belongs in a pet store, not the White House)
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To: noblejones

Get out much?


12 posted on 01/29/2012 4:34:57 PM PST by 1rudeboy
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To: cripplecreek

They don’t even want drones. They want bums in seats, that’s all.

They’d do just as well to get, ‘people’ from the local cemetary.


13 posted on 01/29/2012 4:39:07 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: cripplecreek

Did you not read what I wrote that as a teacher, I AM TRYING to instill in our young people not only what I am supposed to teach academically, but also what our forefathers set forth...


14 posted on 01/29/2012 4:42:47 PM PST by lyby ("Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." ~ Galileo Galilei)
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To: lyby

The author is ignorant of what is really going on in schools, all most all of it caused by federal and state level interference in what should be under local parental control.

What passes for science education is neither science, nor education. It is indoctrination into the envirowacko religion of Gaia worship.

Not only do arts and music education get cut but core classes in math and reading are shortened and replaced with liberal indoctrination in the latest educational fad du jour in human development, sexuality, bullying, sensitivity training and on and on. All taught by education majors who can’t spell or write or do basic math.

Fact: you can’t control people who can think for themselves. This is why schools focus on indoctrination rather than education.


15 posted on 01/29/2012 4:43:28 PM PST by Valpal1
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To: lyby
Future of U.S. Manufacturing Begins with Education

No it doesn't.

It begins with driving a spike through the heart of the H-1b visa program.

H-1b means Americans have to compete on price with foreigners who are willing to live four to a 2-bedroom apartment.

It also means import tariffs to at least partially equalize the cost of labor between here and China.

I saw a story recently about the Apple/Foxconn factory in China where some change came up, so Foxconn rousted THOUSANDS of workers out of the dorms at midnight, gave them a cup of tea and a biscuit, and set them to work on a 12-hour shift. In that factory $22 PER DAY is considered good money.

"Education" is going to make us competitive with that?

16 posted on 01/29/2012 4:44:08 PM PST by DuncanWaring (The Lord uses the good ones; the bad ones use the Lord.)
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To: lyby
This is utter crap.

There is no way the U.S. can compete with China when the Chinese are playing to win by playing currency games and not having to meet the same rules that the United States and Europe do.

They have 400 million more people who can be employed at wages that make Foxconn look generous, and they will be ruthless about copying, stealing, and extorting manufacturing technology from whoever, however and whatever they can.

You can babble all you want about "education" and if you go back 50, 70, 100 years you'll read the same thing.

It's not a matter of education. It's a matter of one group playing for keeps with a plan to put everyone else on the mat economically and militarily. And they got the humans to do it.

"Innovate" all you want. You'll end up seeing your own innovations coming back at you for pennies on the dollar within a year if you don't have protection.

Absolute utter CRAP.

17 posted on 01/29/2012 4:46:39 PM PST by Regulator
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To: Jonty30

My last few years as a factory foreman scared the hell out of me. The utter stupidity of the new hires walking in the door was downright terrifying and a good many of them were college students from UofM.

I had mentally handicapped adults who were better able to deal with unexpected problems than the college kids.


18 posted on 01/29/2012 4:49:15 PM PST by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: DuncanWaring
Thanks. I was writing mine while you posted yours.

Little story: guy once parked his car in my driveway in the Sillycon Valley. Couldn't push it out of the way, was automatic. Looked inside to check registration, was a rental.

Then I noticed a list of addresses on the seat with names like Shi Chi Something, Institute of Reversal Engineering, Somewhere, Peoples Republic of China.

Along with names and addresses of people at places like Intel, AMD, KLA-Tencor, Applied Materials, Watkins-Johnson...you get the drift.

He showed up just as I was calling the tow truck and the police. No Engrish, just jumped in the car and took off - he didn't get the U.S. address system, so he parked in the wrong place when he was visiting our new, freshly immigrated neighbors.

Just an industrial spy surfing around the Santa Clara Valley.

And this was in 1994 or so, when things were just swinging into high gear with the offshoring, especially of semiconductor equipment manufacturers.

Now you know one of the ways they came up to speed so fast.

19 posted on 01/29/2012 4:53:55 PM PST by Regulator
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To: sean327

And Sean237, I, merely a 7th grade teacher of Mathematics, am trying to interest my students in the possibilities!!


20 posted on 01/29/2012 4:54:03 PM PST by lyby ("Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe." ~ Galileo Galilei)
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