166 Avoiding a U.S.-China Trade Showdown: Stephen Roach interview with CFR

(1) Confucian education cf Western schools
(2) Teaching in China
(3) Foreign Teachers in China - 100,000 each year (to teach English)
(4) Dumbing Down Our Schools
(4) Schools as centers for therapy and fun, not learning
(5) Schools as centers for therapy and fun, not learning
(6) Socialization, not Learning: Public education became fuzzy, soft, mushy, touchy-feely
(7) Examples of unclear writing - actual letters received by Welfare Department
(8) Rescue Mission
(9) Avoiding a U.S.-China Trade Showdown:  Stephen Roach interview with CFR

(1) Confucian education cf Western schools

From: dgw <dgwest7@gmail.com>  Date: 19.11.2009 08:41 AM

> Reg and I agree on the benefit of adopting some Confucian
> features. We need strong Governments instead of ...
> the dumbing-down of Education.

I have to pick up on one point here.

It would seem that there is an idea that Confucian thought does not create a dumbing down of education.

The current Chinese "eduction" system is probably one of the world's greatest schemes ever for dumbing down.

Confucian ideas on education relate to taking and passing exams.

The Chinese exam system is based entirely on that principle, so students learn text books, often by rote, with the sole objective of passing exams.

The content of the text books is of no use in adapting anyone to adult life, which I believe is what education should be about.

The students are given so much homework, and the schools are open for such long hours, that the average middle and high school student has only five or six hours sleep per night - every night - and no time to develop any personal interest that might have arisen - for six or seven years during there prime development ages.
The lack of sleep and the enormous emphasis on rote memory produces graduates who have no idea how to think, and who no nothing of any practical value.

They have no opinions, no desires, no passions, no knowledge of what is happening in world circles and are totally unable to function at all unless told what to do - a very sad state of affairs.

Best regards

David

Reply (Peter M.):

Rote learning is how you & I got started. Today it's shunned in the West.

But at least in the old days, literacy and numeracy were high. Students did not progress to the next grade unless they passed the previous grade. Now, they're all put up, and those who would have been failed go into remedial classes instead. Many get into their teens without the basics.

Spelling is atrocious - so bad that it's even changed the language (downwards). Browsers have to offer "sounds like" options because so many people can't spell. Many people rely on Spelling checkers, but evry so often choose the wrong word because they don't understand the grammatical context. Even university students use 's for mere plurals (not possessives).

Students are allowed to use calculators at a young age, eg in Grade 7 (perhaps earlier). Many can't do mental arithmetic.

You say that today's students think for themselves. But look at the fashions among them - they're terribly fashion-conscious and tribal.

Political Correctness is drummed into them, as Religion once was. Zero Tolerance of Intolerance - that's the rule.

Most have no respect for adults & teachers. From about age 13, there's no discipline in many homes and most classrooms.

Look at the increasing % of foreign students in our universities. I'm not talking about courses in Cooking, which are just Immigration scams, but Engineering and other hard subjects.

One of my kids had a Japanese friend whe. Both played in the same soccer team.

When he finished Grade 6, the family returned to Japan, even though they had Residence here (possibly Citizenship too). The mother explained that they went back because the school standards here were too low.

Political Correctness and lack of discipline are worst in state schools; consequently, there's been a shift to Church schools.

(2) Teaching in China

From: David West <dgwest7@gmail.com> Date: 19.11.2009 05:04 AM Subject: Re: schools

Most contracts in China are one year contracts.

For the first three years, I taught in first year high schools (16 year olds), known locally as Senior 1 grade.

For the last two years I have been teaching in language schools, where most students are recent graduates, or older.

I teach English now in preparation for the IELTS test, passing which gives students a ticket to go abroad for further study.

The pay is usually much higher than Chinese teachers. In government schools, accommodation and air fares are also provided.

All students are totally introverted at first, but some eventually find relief in being able to speak their mind.
They know nothing of world affairs, or anything at all outside mainstream (television) thinking.

I never taught in the west, so cannot really compare.

(3) Foreign Teachers in China - 100,000 each year (to teach English)

From: David West <dgwest7@gmail.com> Date:  19.11.2009 06:35 AM

> Senior Grade 1 (16 year olds) sounds like
> Matriculation year 1 here (Grade 11).
> Would that be College year 1 in the US?

I have no idea about grades in USA - never been there - I'm from UK.

I am not from the academic arena - an unreal world detached from normal life where naivety is passed from teacher to student. I have no idea what a Matriculation year is.

In China, 100,000 foreign teachers are contracted every year - no qualifications required other than being a Native English speaker.

> How did you get the job?

I applied for the first three jobs via email, but had an interview for the current job.

http://www.amazon.com/Preschool-Three-Cultures-United-States/dp/0300048122

The authors videotaped similar situations in preschools in these three countries and then discussed the videos with teachers, parents, and others. Their efforts reveal the different behaviors and attitudes that each culture emphasizes. While all hope to respond to the needs of the child in the changing societies of each country, some amazing differences prevail. In Japan, the ratio of pupils to teacher is 30 to 1, to force children to learn to get along with others. In China regimen, order, and control are essential elements of education, partially to overcome the problem of spoiling in China's single-child family. In the United States creativity and respect for the individual are bywords. Sadly, child abduction and abuse are uniquely American concerns.  ...
- Annette V. Janes, Hamilton P.L., Mass

(4) Dumbing Down Our Schools

By Ruth Mitchel

Tuesday, April 27, 2004; Page A21

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A45015-2004Apr26

In a high school science class, students are learning the metric system to measure parts of a diagram. In a high school English class, students are coloring shields that represent a Greek god or goddess. A 10th-grade biology class is cutting out labels to be glued on paper in the correct order of photosynthesis.

If you visited these classes and didn't look at the sign over the door of the school, you might think you were in an elementary school, or a middle school at best. But such classes are not atypical in large urban high schools, where, except for the Advanced Placement (AP) and honors classes, much of the classroom work is below grade level.

On one trip to a Midwestern city, I found one out of eight assignments at grade level in two high schools. A colleague popped in on about 40 English classes in the course of a day at a West Coast high school and found one -- just one -- class where real learning was going on.

This is the dirty secret in the wars over teacher quality: the low level of academic work at all levels in far too many schools. The consequences of low-level work are seen in poor test results: Students given only work that is below their grade level cannot pass standardized tests about material they have never seen.

I'm not alone in trying to focus attention on the low level of teaching. A West Coast group called DataWorks has been analyzing the work given to students since the late 1990s. In one California elementary school, DataWorks found that 2 percent of the work in the fifth grade was on grade. That's not a misprint: 98 percent of the work that students were doing was at the level of the fourth, third, second and even first grades. In South Carolina, DataWorks looked at work assigned in 14 high schools and found that most of the 12th-grade work was just below 10th grade level.

The public is largely unaware of the problem. Those who follow education, write editorials and commentaries and make policy were themselves successful students who were in the highest tracks at their high schools, and their children are also successful students enjoying the best and most experienced teachers, because they're in the AP and International Baccalaureate (IB) classes. Legislators and policymakers tend to come from a social class in which people not only have benefited from good teachers but also have fond memories of a particular teacher or teachers who turned them on to the pleasures of poetry or the intricacies of DNA.

Students in the schools we visit are not turned on. Black, brown, speaking broken or accented English, with cultural values clashing with those of the white middle class, they are seen as needing elementary instruction in secondary school; as capable only of drawing and coloring; as in need of discipline rather than encouragement. They are asked to make acrostics in middle school social studies; to write eight sentences in high school English class; and to fill out endless worksheets in math class.

Teachers say they have to teach the students where they are, which means at sixth-grade level in high school if they can't read well. Their attitude may be compassionate, but it is misguided. There's ample evidence that accelerating instruction works better than retarding it in the name of remediation. Observations made in the Dallas Unified School District show that students who score well have teachers who cover the curriculum appropriate to the grade level. These teachers spend little time on drill and practice, and don't remediate in the classroom but rather get help for students outside of class.

Too often, however, policymakers accept the teaching profession's excuses -- students' background and lack of parental support -- for student failure. Policymakers don't visit classrooms or, as we do, sit in on teacher meetings designed to help teachers reflect on their work. The experience can be profoundly depressing: In the West Coast high school, students in English classes were sleeping through movies, even in AP classes. And four of the teachers were late for class themselves.  ...

The writer is an educational consultant

(5) Schools as centers for therapy and fun, not learning

http://www.amazon.com/Feel-Good-Curriculum-Dumbing-Americas-Self-Esteem/dp/0738204358/ref=pd_sim_b_3

The Feel-Good Curriculum: The Dumbing Down of America's Kids in the Name of Self-Esteem (Paperback)~ (Author), Ph.D., Maureen Stout (Author)

Amazon.com Review

Maureen Stout isn't the first to attack self-esteem boosters in public schools, and she won't be the last. The question is: Do such creatures actually still exist? Stout, an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at California State University-Northridge, uses many of her graduate students to illustrate the fallout from the self-esteem movement, which hit its heyday in the 1980s and early '90s. She portrays her pupils--tomorrow's teachers--as spoiled brats who can't spell and feel entitled to grades they haven't earned. Her fellow professors are painted as bovine, unoriginal thinkers. It doesn't instill much confidence in the future of our education system--but it's not meant to. Stout attacks the basic tenets of the self-esteem movement, blasting it for lowering expectations, belittling competition, and turning schools into centers for therapy, not learning. She blames "feel-good curriculums" for everything from road rage to the abuse defense used by the parent-killing brothers Lyle and Erik Menendez.  ...

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

By Wayne W. Berninger
    
While she puts too much faith in the idea that school ought to transmit traditional values (which sounds like code for blind religiosity and blind patriotism), Stout's argument is compelling: Americans have allowed the difficult work of learning to be replaced by such feel-good options as "cooperative learning" and "child-centered classrooms," theories that place a premium on the self-esteem of students and avoid anything (competition, grading--especially failing grades, authority itself) that may lead anyone to think that some ideas are better than others, that some people are more sooner capable than others, or that judgment of any kind about anything may actually be OK. No knee-jerk reactionary, Stout acknowledges the gains that our educational establishment has made as a result of many progressive ideas; for example, it has been no great loss that schools are no longer organized as in the 19th C., when students never spoke unless spoken to and literally had to "toe the line" drawn on the floor when they stood to answer questions, but she rightly worries that the current emphasis on how students "feel" about learning makes it difficult for real learning to take place.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

Particularly interesting, is the chapter on teacher training. Having survived the ordeal myself, it was truly a relief to read that I was not alone in being appalled by the relentless focus on self-esteem, making sure the kids are "having fun", and the importance of not behaving in a "teacherly" fashion; after all, we are there to "facillitate learning", not stand infront of the class and actually say something.
The silent majority of parents, who are outraged by the wholesale rejection of traditional education, needs to stand up and make their objections known.
The classroom has become a gong show. ==

(6) Socialization, not Learning: Public education became fuzzy, soft, mushy, touchy-feely

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm

A WHISTLEBLOWER'S ACCOUNT

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, blew the whistle in the `80s on government activities withheld from the public. ...

In 1997 there were 46.4 million public school students. During 1993-1994 (the latest years the statistics were available) the average per pupil expenditure was $6,330.00 in 1996 constant dollars. Multiply the number of students by the per pupil expenditure (using old-fashioned mathematical procedures) for a total K-12 budget per year of $293.7 billion dollars. If one adds the cost of higher education to this figure, one arrives at a total budget per year of over half a trillion dollars. The sorry result of such an incredibly large expenditure-the performance of American students-is discussed on page 12 of Pursuing Excellence-A Study of U.S. Twelfth Grade Mathematics and Science Achievement in International Context: Initial Findings from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study [TIMMS], a report from the U.S. Department of Education (NCES 98-049). Pursuing Excellence reads:

Achievement of Students, Key Points: U. S. twelfth graders scored below the international average and among the lowest of the 21 TIMSS nations in both mathematics and science general knowledge in the final year of secondary school. (p. 24)

Obviously, something is terribly wrong when a $6,330 per pupil expenditure produces such pathetic results. This writer has visited private schools which charge $1,000-per-year in tuition which enjoy superior academic results. Parents of home-schooled children spend a maximum of $1,000-per-year and usually have similar excellent results.

There are many talented and respected researchers and activists who have carefully documented the "weird" activities which have taken place "in the name of education." Any opposition to change agent activities in local schools has invariably been met with cries of "Prove your case, document your statements," etc.  ...

In 1971 when I returned to the United States after living in the West Indies for three years, I was shocked to find public education had become a warm, fuzzy, soft, mushy, touchy-feely experience, where its purpose had become socialization, not learning. From that time on, and with the advantage of having two young sons in the public schools, I became involved as a member of a philosophy committee for a school, as an elected school board member, as co-founder of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM), and finally as a Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) in the U.S. Department of Education during President Ronald Reagan's first term of office. OERI was, and is, the office from which all the controversial national and international educational restructuring has emanated.

Those ten years (1971-1981) changed my life. As an American who had spent many years working abroad, I had experienced traveling in and living in socialist countries. When I returned to the United States I realized that America's transition from a sovereign constitutional republic to a socialist democracy would not come about through warfare (bullets and tanks) but through the implementation and installation of the "system" in all areas of government-federal, state and local. The brainwashing for acceptance of the "system's" control would take place in the school-through indoctrination and the use of behavior modification, which comes under so many labels, the most recent labels being Outcome-Based Education, Skinnerian Mastery Learning or Direct Instruction. In the seventies I and many others waged the war against values clarification, which was later renamed "critical thinking," which regardless of the label-and there are bound to be many more labels on the horizon-is nothing but pure, unadulterated destruction of absolute values of right and wrong upon which stable and free societies depend and upon which our nation was founded.

(7) Examples of unclear writing - actual letters received by Welfare Department

(Sentences taken from actual letters received by Welfare Department in Application for Support.)

http://www.k1ri.com/loud_and_clear.htm

"I am forwarding my marriage certificate and six children. I have seven but one died which was born dead on a half sheet of paper."

"I am writing the welfare department to say my baby was born 2 years old . When do I get my money?"

"Mrs. Jones hasn't had any clothes for a year and has been visited regularly by the clergy."

"I can't get any sick pay. I have six children. Can you tell me why?"

"I am glad to report that my husband who is missing is dead."

"This is my eight child. What are you going to do about it?"

" Please find for certain if my husband is dead. The man I am living with can't eat or drink until he knows."

"I am very much annoyed to find that youbranded my son illiterate. This is a dirty lie as I was married a week before he was born."

"In answer to your letter, I have given birth to a boy weighing ten pounds. I hope this is satisfactory."

"I am forwarding my marriage certificate and my three children, one of which is a mistake as you can see."

"My husband got his project cut off two weeks ago, and I haven't had any relief since."

"Unless I get my husband's money pretty soon, I will be forced to lead an immoral life."

"You have changed my little boy into a girl. Will this make any difference?"

"I have no children as yet as my husband is a truck driver and works night and day."

"In accordance with your instruction, I have given birth to twins in the enclosed envelope."

"I want money as quick as I can get it. I have been in bed with doctor for two weeks and he doesn't do me any good. If things don't improve I will have to send for another doctor."

(8) Rescue Mission

http://www.ohio-riders.net/showthread.php?t=8539

THE REVEREND ELTON JONES

The Reverend Elton Jones
The Rescue Mission
Cedar Falls, Iowa 61409

Dear,

Perhaps you have heard of me & my nationwide campaign to further the cause of Temperance. Each Year for the past fourteen, I have made a tour of Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, New Jersey & Illinois & have delivered a series of lectures on the evils of drinking. On this tour I have been accompanied by my young friend & assistant, Clyde Lindstrome. Clyde, a young man of good family & excellent background, is a pathetic example of life ruined by excessive indulgence in whiskey & women.

Clyde would appear with me at the lectures & sit on the platform wheezing & staring at the audience through bleary, bloodshot eyes, sweating profusely, picking his nose, passing gas, & making obscene gestures, while I would point him out as an example of what drinking, etc., can do to a person.

Last summer, unfortunately, Clyde died. A mutual friend has given me your name, & I wonder if you would care to take Clyde's place on my next tour?

Very truly yours,
Reverend Elton Jones
Rescue Mission

(9) Avoiding a U.S.-China Trade Showdown:  Stephen Roach interview with CFR

From: chris lenczner <chrispaul@netpci.com> Date: 19.11.2009 07:15 PM

Interviewee:

Stephen S. Roach, Chairman, Morgan Stanley Asia

22 Oct 2009

http://www.cfr.org/publication/20486/avoiding_a_uschina_trade_showdown.html

U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has warned that the global imbalances between the United States and China must be addressed immediately to prevent future economic crises. U.S. policymakers and experts have asserted that an undervalued Chinese yuan is largely to blame for these imbalances and that China's currency should be revalued to help close the U.S.-China trade gap. Stephen Roach, chairman of the Asia branch of U.S. banking giant Morgan Stanley, says that argument is flawed. He says the undervalued yuan is a political "red herring," since currency adjustment or trade sanctions against China would not help reduce the U.S. deficit but shift the U.S. demand for imports to other more costly exporters. Instead, the United States should be pushing China to create a social safety net that would encourage its population to spend more savings on domestic consumption. Roach expresses concern the United States will enact more protectionist policies against China in response to domestic political pressure over rising U.S. unemployment and slow growth.

In the past you've argued that a significant revaluation of China's currency would prove ineffective in resolving global trade imbalances because of the country's fractured political and banking systems. Has your view changed?

This whole exchange rate issue is a red-herring. It won't help the world deal with global imbalances, let alone China. It's true, in the U.S. we've been in a down-trend with the dollar now for seven-and-a-half years and apart from this recent cyclical reduction in our trade deficit, it's had virtually no impact on the structural savings deficit that the United States has. The same thing is true on the Chinese side of the equation. China needs to stimulate internal private consumption to deal with its piece of the global imbalance equation and the currency adjustment of the renminbi is really a relatively insignificant part of that adjustment process.

To what extent does China have the means to reduce its domestic savings and wean itself off of an export-based economy? If not through the exchange rate, then how?

It's got a lot of options to pursue. The one that is potentially most significant would be to build out the social safety net in terms of investing significantly in social security, private pensions, medical insurance, [and] unemployment insurance. There are other things that China can do on the private consumption front like boosting rural incomes, and fostering the development of domestic consumer product and service providing industries. But the safety net is the single most important thing that can be done, rather than focus on the currency.

How big are China-based multinational corporations now and how do they factor into this issue of global imbalances?

We don't have a bilateral trade problem with China. We have a multilateral trade problem with over one-hundred different trading partners.

They're a big deal. Over 60 percent of export growth over the past twelve years has come from growth by Chinese subsidiaries of Western multinationals, but again the problem I have is that too many in the United States, especially the Congress but also Washington, focus on the bilateral trade imbalance between the United States and China. That's just a fundamental economic mistake that's being made. We don't have a bilateral trade problem with China. We have a multilateral trade problem with over one-hundred different trading partners. Last year, the United States ran bilateral trade deficit with almost one-hundred countries. And the reason for that is that we have a savings problem. And when you have a major savings problem, you have to import surplus savings from abroad in order to grow and you run multilateral trade deficits with a broad cross-section of a number of economies. The Chinese piece is the biggest because of the outsourcing decisions made by U.S. multinationals that you alluded to. But if we were to close down trade with China through some ill-begotten trade legislation or currency adjustment, we don't save the deficit. It just goes somewhere else. And they usually go to a higher-cost producer, which taxes the American public.

Do you expect the United States to take more protectionist measures with China in the future, and if so, how will that affect global imbalances?

I hope not, but I wouldn't rule it out. There's a risk in 2010 that narrow-minded U.S. politicians could contemplate once again bipartisan trade sanctions imposed on China. The unemployment rate is extremely high. The discontent from the American work force is extremely high. The inclination for politically inspired China bashing is extremely high, and so [although] trade sanctions against China are wrong [and] not well thought out, there's at least a 30 to 40 percent change they could happen.

Analysts worry that ballooning U.S. debt levels could lead to a devalued U.S. dollar, inflation, and stifled economic growth. Meanwhile, China is worried about its U.S. debt holdings losing value over time. Which country has more to lose from the U.S. debt problem?

It's a much greater risk for China than it is for the United States. The United States is dependent on Chinese exports because we're living beyond our means. We don't save. And when you don't save, you need savings from abroad to close the gap, and you have to run massive current account and trade deficits to [do] that, which means you become reliant on goods made outside the United States. This is the choice that we've made. If we want to redirect our economy away from excess consumption towards more of a savings-based economy, then and only then, can we wean ourselves off of Chinese products.  China certainly has gotten the message loud and clear that the external demand underpinnings of the old export-led model aren't going to work the way they used to and that's a critical outgrowth of what's likely to be a multiyear shock to consumer demand growth in the United States. So China knows what's going to happen. The question is do they believe it and are they now formulating strategy on the basis of that possibility. The United States right now is probably operating under the misguided assumption that China's going to be there to just buy Treasury debt for years to come. And the odds are that that will probably not occur, at least [not] on the financing terms the United States has been able to get for selling its debt to international investors for the last several years.

The biggest reason to worry about a more precipitous decline of the dollar would be if the U.S. Congress were to enact bipartisan trade sanctions against China and President Obama were to let them go through and go into law.

Is China putting policies in place to induce domestic consumption?

No, they're not. They're sort of talking the talk, but they're not walking the walk. When they realize that the U.S. consumer is not going to come back with the vigor the sector has displayed over the last twelve years that will be their wakeup call to do more in the way of heavy-lifting on these pro-consumer policies. I think right now, the policies they put in place have been rather disappointing.

There's a lot of speculation about the demise of the U.S. dollar and whether another currency could take its place internationally in future. Do you see that happening? If so, when?

Reports of the demise of the dollar are greatly exaggerated. The dollar is under downward pressure. Over the last seven and half years, the average annualized decline has been about 3.5 percent, which is hardly a disaster. Like any secular downtrend, there's always a crisis scenario that you could worry about. And to me, the biggest reason to worry about a more precipitous decline of the dollar would be if the U.S. Congress were to enact bipartisan trade sanctions against China and President Obama were to let them go through and go into law. That would be much more consistent with a dollar collapse scenario.

Will the dollar be replaced in the long term?

The dollar's role as the dominant reserve currency is going to remain intact for several more decades. There will come a time, hopefully gradually, where the world is more advanced down the road of globalization, [when] economic power is spread more evenly around, not just in the supply side of the world but in the demand side of the world. At that point, it would appropriate to think more about a multi-currency reserve system. It could be along the lines of the IMF's Special Drawing Right, but this is going to take I'd say fifteen to twenty years at a minimum.

Do you see Chinese government shifting toward greater support of entrepreneurship or state-run industry?

No, they're moving much more toward privatization [or], as we say in China, the corporatization of state-owned enterprises. From time to time, there's an ebb and flow in terms of their commitment, but I don't buy the notion that because of a big surge in bank lending you have to call China a more statist economy today than it was going into the crisis. They've been pretty much a government-directed policy machine since the inception of the People's Republic of China sixty years ago. They've backed away from some of that, but you know, there's still an important legacy of public sector involvement and control. It's been shifting [toward liberalization] for the last fifteen years under the guise of state and enterprise reform. It'll continue to shift in the years ahead, but the shifts are uneven. There are periodic setbacks because of the business cycle, such as what we're seeing right now. But I think the direction is set.

Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.