Here is the link http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/20/technology/tech-industry-pushes-to-amend-immigration-bill.html?ref=business#comments
I don’t feel I am knowledgeable enough to know whether Silicon Valley companies want more visas to hire cheaper labor; or, whether they really can’t find enough qualified Americans. I do know, as do readers of this blog, that one can’t determine how many people are qualified for jobs based on counting degrees. Not all degrees represent an education. Anyway, I both posted and replied to someone. Here is the comment.
As a former math professor, I can pretty well assure you that your only correct if you change your first sentence to “…USA has the biggest computing/STEM DEGREE granting system in the world…” not EDUCATION system. Of course, some schoold do provide an excellent education but many do what one of our top ranked universities actually bragged about when they explained that one of their physics professors
“…brought a new way of teaching to campus…. The goal was to create a deeper level of understanding, not an easier course. … students are required to actively prepare for class by completing readings and working homework problems… In a typical class , they hear one or more 10-minute lectures over the material, talk about two-minute problems in groups and discuss their answers… they go home and rework the original set of homework problems…Students immediately… were clamoring to get in…”
To confirm that this course was what I thought it was – a consumer marketing tool – I discvered that almost 90% of this professors student expected A’s. Do you really think Silicon Valley wants to hire these graduates? And I don’t think this is uncommon. As David Riesman said in 1980,
“…I seek to alert readers to what is happening …as students turn from being supplicants for admission to courted customers…”
The facts of the quality of higher education must be part of this conversation. Not every degreee represents an education.
I replied to this comment from “Concerned American”
“The USA has the biggest and strongest Computing/STEM education system in the world. The excessive H-1Bs have caused economic disfranchisement for Americans in America. Thus, very few Americans pursue degrees in Computing/IT/STEM and this destabilization and lack of jobs leads to numerous biases in these fields.
By far, most H-1Bs are for middle-tech and these visas take middle-class jobs. These firms really love moving middle-class jobs overseas, avoiding paying US taxes fairly, and their innovation has been spotty since the preponderance of H-1B visas started coming to the USA.
This bill is about castrating the Computing/IT/STEM job market so companies producing little, if any, significant innovation can get cheap labor. However, this short-sighted approach is forming a death-spiral destabilizing the Computing/IT/STEM job market and thus choking real innovation.”
Here is my reply.
As a former math professor, I can assure you that your first sentence would be correct if you changed it to “…USA has the biggest computing/STEM DEGREE GRANTING system …” not EDUCATION system. Some schools do provide an excellent education but many do what one of our top ranked universities bragged about when they write that one of their physics professors new course’s
“… goal was to create a deeper level of understanding, not an easier course … students are required to actively prepare for class by completing readings and working homework problems… In a typical class , they hear one or more 10-minute lectures…, talk about two-minute problems in groups… go home and rework the original set of homework problems…Students immediately… were clamoring to get in…”
To confirm that this course was what I thought it was – a consumer marketing tool, in my opinion – I discovered that almost 90% of this professor’s students expected A’s. One student wrote, ” “His exams have unlimited time and are so easy! The daily homework assignments are short…” Do you really think Silicon Valley wants to hire these graduates? And I don’t think this is uncommon. As David Riesman said in 1980,
“…I seek to alert readers to what is happening …as students turn from being supplicants for admission to courted customers…”
The facts of the quality of higher education must be part of this conversation. Not every degreee represents an education.
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