From the Christian Science Monitor:
Coming US challenge: a less literate workforce
A larger share of workers will have minimal reading skills in 2030 than today, according to a report released Monday.
By Amanda Paulson
US workers may be significantly less literate in 2030 than they are today.
The reason: Most baby boomers will be retiring and a large wave of less-educated immigrants will be moving into the workforce. This downward shift in reading and math skills suggests a huge challenge for educators and policymakers in the future, according to a new report from the Educational Testing Service (ETS). If they can't reverse the trend, then it could spell trouble for a large swath of the labor force, widen an already large skill gap, and shrink the middle class.
"There is no time that I can tell you in the last hundred years" where literacy and numeracy have declined, says Andrew Sum, director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston and one of the report's authors. "But if you don't change outcomes for a wide variety of groups, this is the future we face."
The decline in literacy is one of the more startling projections in a report that examines what it calls a "perfect storm" of converging factors and how those trends are likely to play out if left unchecked.
The three factors identified are: a shifting labor market increasingly rewarding education and skills, a changing demographic that include a rapid-growing Hispanic population, and a yawning achievement gap, particularly along racial and socioeconomic lines, when it comes to reading and math.
The individual trends have been identified before, but this study makes an effort to examine their combined effects, and to project a disturbing future, including a sharply declining middle class in addition to the lost ground in literacy.
"We have the possibility of transforming the American dream into the American tragedy," says Irwin Kirsch, a senior research director at ETS and the lead author of the study. [More]
We only have the vaguest ideas how to improve the schools, and our ability to implement those fixes is severely compromised by the stress the schools are under from immigration. So, the obvious first step is to shut down unskilled immigration. Instead, the President and most of the elites want to boost it.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
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16 comments:
Look to Canada... it will probably hit the mark much earlier than the US
The East is the new West. What intelligent person with drive and ambition would want to move to America?
Why do you say that MensaRefugee?
Addressing Dougjnn's post, of the jews of america magically had thier immigration enthusiasm simply reduced to that of wasps of *equivalent* socio-economic status (aka really high), would it make a whole lot of difference in average elite opinion on immigration? My guess is not by much.
dougjnn:
In my opinion you are oversimplifying matters by singling out Jews. There are many different segments of society that do not trust the majority (however you want to define it). Consider that multiculturalism is endemic throughout the Western World, even in countries where there aren't very many Jews.
Here is a funny blog post:
http://dennisdale.blogspot.com/2006/04/blight-of-living-dead.html
Now, if we could just find the cure in time...
-Hal K
I agree with anonymous on the Jewish question.
I am a non-Jew come from a small country (New Zealand) with a small Jewish population that has little media presence.
However, NZ isn't far behind Sweden in terms of political correctness.
Note also that Jews in Britain are relatively conservative.
Criticism of Jews should be directed at the particular US Jewish groups and individuals that advocate expansive immigration policies.
If I can tear this thread away from arguments about "the Jews," I would like to point to a relevant news story.
Here in Utah the state legislature recently voted down a bill that would have put the state back in line with the federal law that bans giving in-state tuition status to illegal aliens.
Utah's Hispanic population is now over 11% - 275,000 people. Between 1990 and 2000, the number of Hispanics in the state grew by 140% - not exactly a natural growth rate. Estimates are that at least 65,000 illegal immigrants live in Utah, and since 2002 the state has allowed illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition. So how many illegals are taking advantage of this law? 182. That's it.
These people are the ones that are supposed to be taking the place of the baby boomers, and barely 182 out of 65,000 are attending college?
All of this, of course, is perfectly in line with the voluminous data that show that even legal Hispanics attend college at a much lower rate than average Americans, and that no amount of heavy-handed early intervention, such as Head Start, does anything to change that.
Yes, folks, America is getting dumber.
so they figured out that replacing europeans with mexicans won't work?
i think jewish politicians had less to do with mexicans than they did with other kinds of immigration. half the christian politicians today are total morons when it comes to mexicans. the last two presidents have been abysmal.
that is not to say jewish politicians are not generally in favor of turning america into mexico, because they are.
for instance, there was the senate judiciary committee vote in march on the "Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006". it was an amnesty. the committee voted 12-4 in favor of bringing that amnesty to a full senate vote.
every jewish politician on the committee voted in favor. that's kohl, feinstein, schumer, feingold, specter, and cardin. 6 of 12 yes votes. a group that is 2% of the population just cast a full 50% of the votes to force the senate to vote on amnesty.
Yes, elites - Jewish & Gentile both - are big fans of unlimited immigration. Alot of this, of course, is motivated by greed. For some Jews, I'm sure, it might also be motivated by "chips on their shoulders" sorts-of reasons. "Your ancestors didn't want my ancestors to come here," etc. Jews have also historically been a very mobile population, and, for many, anything that stands in the way of that mobility is anathema.
But I also think open borders fanaticism is related simply to elite intellectual faddishness. These are the same people who embraced foot-binding, chastity belts, and all the rest. It might be useful to compile a list of all the bizarre intellectual fads that have gripped elites the world over for the past hundred years or so. It would be a sobering list.
For whatever consolation it may give, these dysgenic trends always correct themselves in the long run.Nobody, not even the federal government, can hold back natural selection.Various interested parties in the IQ/immigration debate may see as far ahead as next year's balance sheet or the next election, but Nature takes the long view, and always prevails.
One of the most effective ways to discourage Mexican immigration into the USA would be to abolish the massive agricultural subsidies American farmers receive. The combination of NAFTA and American subsidies were a disaster for Mexican producers of basic foodstuffs. That created a huge pressure for poor campesinos to seek seek employment in the USA.
One of the most effective ways to discourage Mexican immigration into the USA would be to abolish the massive agricultural subsidies American farmers receive. - Markku
I've thought about that too, but it's politically untenable. What might be doable, however, is to redirect our agricultural subsidies towards incentives for mechanization. Accelerate depreciation on capital improvements and gear subsidies towards harvesting equipment and the like.
The bottom line is that the agricultural sectors that depend on immigrant labor are headed towards extinction in many areas. The American Southwest is growing rapidly (thanks to immigration), and the water that places like the San Fernando Valley rely on is in short supply. Farmers there will sell their rights in a New York minute for the right price, and one of the most productive agricultural regions in the world will be turned into condominiums and strip malls.
Ironically, the death of Southern California agriculture will be due to the very immigration they claim to rely on. Florida property is getting so valuable that it'll eventually happen there, too.
For whatever consolation it may give, these dysgenic trends always correct themselves in the long run.Nobody, not even the federal government, can hold back natural selection. - Rob
What, Rob, do you mean by that, exactly? Nature doesn't select for the strongest people, or the smartest people, or the kindest people, or the richest people. It selects for the people who breed, period. It doesn't matter how smart, strong, kind, or rich you are. If you have no children you leave no genes.
But that bum polygamist, Tom Green, whose 5 (really dumb) wives and 29 children leached off the welfare state? He'll leave lots of his DNA behind.
Anonymous says "Nature doesn't select for the strongest people,or the smartest people,or the kindest people or the richest people.It selects for the people who breed,period."That's true,but in the long term,those who are not productive(and intelligence is certainly a good indicator of how productive you are)cannot outbreed those who are.A minority of intelligent people cannot go on subsidising the less intelligent majority indefinitely,as the latter will keep expanding,both through reproduction and immigration.The system will collapse.Also,nations burdened with a large low-IQ underclass will ultimately fall victim to those with a higher average IQ,whether through industrial competition or invasion.
Or you could read the short story "The Marching Morons."
Yes,dougjnn,of course the first step is to control immigration and get rid of the idea that bad immigration just "happens".A country that spends half a trillion dollars (and counting)meddling in Middle Eastern affairs could have a proper immigration policy within a week if the political will was there.
Fixing immigration: A)Serious border control B) Demand reperations from Mexico for the money we have spent to take care of THEIR nationals. Freeze their assets and grab their oil if we have to.They relocate their poor to our country so we have to pay for them;the bill needs to be given to Mexico! C) Make remittances illegal,or at least place a huge tax on them. D)Begin deporting illegals on a large scale. Eisenhower did it,we can do it too.
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