Greenspan Redux



Last week, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the Senate Banking commitment about the real threat to American jobs: our lousy educational system.



...U.S. students ranked 19th in a 1999 study of mathematical ability among eighth-graders in 38 countries. Four years earlier, as fourth-graders, the same cohort of U.S. students had ranked seventh. Students from Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan completed the Top 5 list of 1999. China and India didn't participate in the study.



"What will ultimately determine standard of living of this country is the skill of the people," Greenspan told the senate committee. "We do something wrong, which obviously people in Singapore, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan do far better. Teaching in these strange, exotic places seems for some reason to be far better than we can do it."



...Greenspan sidestepped the minefield by adding a "math gap" spin to what has so far been a wage gap debate. After all, if American students under-perform their Asian rivals in acquiring intellectual capital, why should corporate America pay them premium wages? Educators, involved with the nuts-and-bolts of academic issues, explain just how "strange, exotic" Asian countries may be stealing a march over the U.S. One such educator is Sumit Gupta, a post-doctoral researcher in computer science at the University of California, Irvine. Gupta has studied in both India and the U.S., and has taught undergraduate classes in the U.S.



"The American education system," Gupta notes, "is designed so as not to hurt the self-esteem of any student in class. So, nearly everyone can pass the high-school level." ...



Greenspan adds a new twist



Python Redux



Excellent...

Found this wonderful Monty Python site celebrating the troupe's funniest work. Some great quotes, for instance, from The Meaning of Life:



"During the night, old Perkins got his leg bitten sort of off."

"Better get a bucket. I'm going to throw up."

"We're inmates of a Bengali psychiatric institution and we escaped by making this skin out of old used cereal packets."

"I've got no option but to sell you all for scientific experiments."

"I couldn't eat another thing. I'm absolutely stuffed."

"It's only wafer thin."



Monty Python's Completely Useless Web Site