The Declining High School Graduation Rate in the US

If we want to reduce inequality, increasing the high school graduation rate - it's around 75% -  is a good place to start:

The Declining American High School Graduation Rate: Evidence, Sources, And Consequences, by James J. Heckman and Paul A. LaFontaine, NBER Reporter: Research Summary 2008 Number 1: The high school graduation rate is a barometer of the health of American society and the skill level of its future workforce. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, each new cohort of Americans was more likely to graduate from high school than the preceding one. This upward trend in secondary education increased worker productivity and fueled American economic growth .[1]

In the past 25 years, growing wage differentials between high school graduates and dropouts increased the economic incentives for high school graduation. The real wages of high school dropouts have declined since the early 1970s while those of more skilled workers have risen sharply.[2] Heckman, Lochner, and Todd[3] show that in recent decades, the internal rate of return to graduating from high school versus dropping out has increased dramatically and is now above 50 percent. Therefore, it is surprising and disturbing that, at a time when the premium for skills has increased and the return to high school graduation has risen, the high school dropout rate in America is increasing. America is becoming a polarized society. Proportionately more American youth are going to college and graduating than ever before. At the same time, proportionately more are failing to complete high school.

One graduation measure issued by the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), the status completion rate[4] - widely regarded by the research community as the official rate- shows that U.S. students responded to the increasing demand for skill by completing high school at increasingly higher rates. By this measure, U.S. schools now graduate nearly 88 percent of students and black graduation rates have converged to those of non-Hispanic whites over the past four decades.

A number of recent studies have questioned the validity of the status completion rate and other graduation rate estimators. They have attempted to develop more accurate estimators of high school graduation rates.[5] Heated debates about the levels and trends in the true high school graduation rate have appeared in the popular press.[6] Depending on the data sources, definitions, and methods used, the U.S. graduation rate has been estimated to be anywhere from 66 to 88 percent in recent years-an astonishingly wide range for such a basic statistic. The range of estimated minority rates is even greater-from 50 to 85 percent.

In an NBER Working Paper published in 2007[7], we demonstrate why such different conclusions have been reached in previous studies. We use cleaner data, better methods, and a wide variety of data sources to estimate U.S. graduation rates. When comparable measures are used on comparable samples, a consensus can be reached across all data sources. After adjusting for multiple sources of bias and differences in sample construction, we establish that: 1) the U.S. high school graduation rate peaked at around 80 percent in the late 1960s and then declined by 4-5 percentage points; 2) the actual high school graduation rate is substantially lower than the 88 percent estimate; 3) about 65 percent of blacks and Hispanics leave school with a high school diploma, and minority graduation rates are still substantially below the rates for non-Hispanic whites. Contrary to estimates based on the status completion rate, we find no evidence of convergence in minority-majority graduation rate Exclusion of incarcerated populations from some measures greatly biases the reported high school graduation rate for blacks.

These trends are for persons born in the United States and exclude immigrants. The recent growth in unskilled migration to the United States further increases the proportion of unskilled Americans in the workforce, apart from the growth attributable to a rising high school dropout rate.

As others have shown[8], and we confirm, the most significant source of bias in estimating graduation rates comes from including GED recipients as high school graduates. GEDs are high school dropouts who certify as the equivalents of ordinary graduates by passing an exam. Currently 15-20 percent of all new high school credentials issued each year are GEDs. In recent years, inclusion of GEDs as high school graduates has biased graduation rates by upwards of 7-8 percentage points. A substantial body of scholarship summarized in our 2008 book[9] shows that the GED program does not benefit most participants, and that GEDs perform at the level of dropouts in the U.S. labor market. The GED program conceals major problems in American society.

The decline in high school graduation is of interest in its own right as a measure of the performance of American schools. It has important implications for interpreting a wide variety of educational statistics. The slowdown in the high school graduation rate accounts for a substantial portion of the recent slowdown in the growth of college educated workers in the U.S. workforce.[10] This slowdown is not due to a decline in rates of college attendance among those who graduate high school.

Table I performs standard growth accounting, decomposing the change in college graduation into the change attributable to high school graduation, the change in college attendance given high school graduation, and the change in college graduation given college attendance. It shows that the growth in college attendance and graduation for cohorts born before 1950 was fueled by growth in high school graduation. This contribution diminishes and turns negative for more recent cohorts of Americans.

The decline in high school graduation is greater for males than it is for females. Men now graduate from high school at significantly lower rates than women. For recent birth cohorts, the gap in college attendance between males and females is roughly 10 percent. However, the gap in college attendance given high school graduation is only 5 percent. Half of the growing gender gap in college going documented by Goldin, Katz, and Kuziemko[11] can be explained by declining rates of high school graduation.

Especially striking are the comparisons in graduation rates between minorities and whites. Our estimated black graduation rate is 15 percentage points higher than the 50 percent rate reported in some recent studies, but it is also 15 points lower than the NCES status completion rate. About 65 percent of blacks and Hispanics leave secondary schooling with a diploma. An additional 5 percent eventually receive a regular diploma through a variety of job training and adult education programs. According to the status completion rate, white and minority secondary completion rates have converged since the early 1970s. However, these estimates exclude those who are in prison and count GED recipients as graduates. We show that when we count GED recipients as dropouts (incarcerated or not), there is little convergence in high school graduation rates between whites and minorities over the past 35 years. A significant portion of the racial convergence commonly reported in the literature is due to black males obtaining credentials in prison. Research by Tyler and Kling and Tyler and Lofstrom[12] shows that, when released, prison GEDs earn at the same rate as non-prison GEDs, and the GED does not reduce recidivism.

In the first half of the twentieth century, growth in high school graduation was the driving force behind increased college enrollments. The decline in high school graduation since 1970 (for cohorts born after 1950) has flattened college attendance and completion rates as well as growth in the skill level of the U.S. workforce. To increase the skill levels of its future workforce, America needs to confront a large and growing dropout problem.

The origins of this dropout problem have yet to be fully investigated. Evidence suggests a powerful role for the family in shaping educational and adult outcomes. A growing proportion of American children are being raised in disadvantaged families. This trend promises to reduce productivity and promote inequality in the America of tomorrow.

1. See J. B. DeLong, C. Goldin, and L. F. Katz, "Sustaining U.S. Economic Growth," in Agenda for the Nation, H. Aaron et al. eds., Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 2003, pp. 17-60.

2. See D. H. Autor, L. F. Katz, and M. S. Kearney, "Rising Wage Inequality: The Role of Composition and Prices," NBER Working Paper No. 11627, September 2005.

3. J. J. Heckman, L. J. Lochner, and P. E. Todd, "Earnings Functions and Rates of Return," forthcoming Journal of Human Capital.

4. J. Laird, G. Kienzl, M. DeBell, and C. Chapman, "Dropout Rates in the United States: 2005," NCES 2007-059, Washington, DC: National Center for Education Statistics, Institute of Education Sciences, 2007.

5. See J. P. Greene, "High School Graduation Rates in the United States," Civic Report No. 31. New York: Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute with Black Alliance for Educational Options, 2001; C. B. Swanson, Who Graduates? Who Doesn't? A Statistical Portrait of Public High School Graduation, Class of 2001, Washington, DC: Urban Institute Education Policy Center, 2004; C. B. Swanson and D. Chaplin, "Counting High School Graduates when Graduates Count: Measuring Graduation Rates under the High Stakes of NCLB," Washington, DC: Urban Institute Education Policy Center, 2003; J. Miao and W. Haney, "High School Graduation Rates: Alternative Methods and Implications," Education Policy Analysis Archives, 12, 2004. pp. 1-68; and J. R. Warren, "State-Level High School Completion Rates: Concepts, Measures, and Trends," Education Policy Analysis Archives, 13, 2005. pp. 1-34.

6. For a sample, see the heated debate in the popular press in May 2006 www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201187.html; www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201197.html; and www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201189.html.

7. J. J. Heckman and P. A. LaFontaine, "The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels", NBER Working Paper No. 13670, December 2007.

8. See C. E. Finn, Jr., "The High School Dropout Puzzle," Public Interest, 87 (1987), pp. 3-22. Also see, M. Frase, "Dropout Rates in the United States: 1988," Washington, DC: NCES, 1988.

9. J. J. Heckman and P. A. LaFontaine, The GED and the Problem of Noncognitive Skills in America, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, forthcoming.

10. See D. Card and T. Lemieux, "Dropout and Enrollment Trends in the Post-War Period: What Went Wrong in the 1970s?" in Risky Behavior among Youths: An Economic Analysis, J. Gruber, ed. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2001; and D. T. Ellwood, "The Sputtering Labor Force of the Twenty-First Century: Can Social Policy Help?" in The Roaring Nineties: Can Full Employment be Sustained? A. Krueger and R. Solow, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001, pp. 421-89.

11. C. Goldin, L. F. Katz, and I. Kuziemko, "The Homecoming of American College Women: The Reversal of the College Gender Gap," Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(4, Fall 2006), pp. 133-56.

12. J. H. Tyler and J. R. Kling, "Prison-Based Education and Re-entry into the Mainstream Labor Market," in Barriers to Re-entry? The Labor Market for Released Prisoners in Post-Industrial America, S. Bushway, M. Stoll, and D. Weiman, eds. New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press, 2007. J. H. Tyler and M. Lofstrom, "Modeling the Signaling Value of the GED with an Application in Texas," forthcoming, Review of Research in Labor Economics.

Comments

[a]

"increasing the high school graduation rate"

Surely increasing the high school graduation rate for a constant level of achievement? Otherwise it's pretty easy to increase the rate - give everyone a diploma. We can even put up a banner "Mission Accomplished" and all go home.

[Elvis]

If we want to reduce inequality,
No, we don't want to do that.

[tt]

I'd love to see the same kind of analysis applied to college graduation rates. If you subtract out the for-profit schools, or the new "internet-based" degrees that are even more dubious, what is the trend?

[ken melvin]

Jeese, I never knew, didn't understand, that today's high school diploma was such a ticket to the future.

[me]

I am not sure what the big deal is. Most the of jobs created in the US can be learned OJT in about a week. Also:

Nearly 60 percent of the patents filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in the field of information technology now originate in Asia.

The United States ranks 17th among nations in high-school graduation rate and 14th in college graduation rate.

In China, virtually all high school students study calculus; in the United States, 13 percent study calculus.

For every American elementary and secondary school student studying Chinese, there are 10,000 students in China studying English.

The average American youth now spends 66 percent more time watching television than in school.

SOURCE: "Is America Falling off the Flat Earth?" by Norman R. Augustine, chairman, National Academy of Sciences "Rising Above the Gathering Storm" committee

[Alex Tolley]

The origins of this dropout problem have yet to be fully investigated. Evidence suggests a powerful role for the family in shaping educational and adult outcomes. A growing proportion of American children are being raised in disadvantaged families.

So the drop-out rare increases, leading to lower wages, leading to even higher drop out rates in the next generation. I don't suppose that the rising wage inequality and poor real gains by median earners for three decades has any impact on whether some kids see much point in graduating high school? Kids can see that their hard working parents with college degrees are capriciously laid off, and can rightly ask themselves, is there a better way? The media nicely reinforces this with fare revering the winner takes all professions - entertainers, athletes - and kids can rightly ask themselves why not try for the brass ring, and these professions don't even require degrees, just talent.

[John V]

In light of these thoughts by Tyler Cowen and Brad DeLong, this fixation on graduation rates seems to be missing the point.

Where there's smoke, there's fire and looking at graduation rates instead looking at the realities that lie beneath seems like dwelling on the smoke.

Just my 2 cents....

[Mark Thoma]

I had to remove a comment, and all that followed related to it. There were quite a few, so apologies if yours was OK, but got caught in the sweep.

[Monopoly]

Monopolies tend to produce high costs, and uneven quality. Declining graduation rates will now be used as yet another excuse to increase the regressive property taxes. Introduce true competition, and you will see better results at lower cost.

Ideally, the system would be so enticing that citizens would not have to be forced to go there. They would want to go. Costs would be low enough that parents would willingly pay it, rather than having it forcibly extracted from the less well to do.

"The origins of this dropout problem have yet to be fully investigated. Evidence suggests a powerful role for the family in shaping educational and adult outcomes. A growing proportion of American children are being raised in disadvantaged families."

Okay, now what is causing this? Most children have been raised by the monopoly public school system for a long time now. If things are getting worse, you have to wonder if the children are being raised wrong in the public school system.

[David]

Graduation rates are skewed due to the large amounts of minorities in the inner cities dropping out. This is where the biggest problems are. Horrible schools and horrible parents.

[OhNoNotAgain]

"Okay, now what is causing this? Most children have been raised by the monopoly public school system for a long time now. If things are getting worse, you have to wonder if the children are being raised wrong in the public school system."

First of all, kids are not "raised" in the public school system, they are taught. The "raising" is supposed to be the parents' jobs.

And the alternative is what, exactly ? Just spit it out already - are you saying that we should make basic education a for-profit industry ? Or are you saying that we should simply introduce competition into the existing public school system in the form of pay incentives, etc. ? For-profit won't work for the same reasons that for-profit health insurance doesn't work. The insurers just dump the "bad" customers that cost them money. Introducing competition isn't a bad idea, but it has to be done properly or you'll end up with a bigger mess than before. Something like what other countries have done with hospitals and health care would seem most beneficial. The hospitals are not-for-profit, but their very existences depends upon their performance and customer satisfaction levels, along with the requisite pay incentives for all employees.

[grhabyt]

"Therefore, it is surprising and disturbing that, at a time when the premium for skills has increased and the return to high school graduation has risen, the high school dropout rate in America is increasing."

This assumes that high school students have the same options for rational choices that college graduates might have when considering graduate school. High school students generally have only one choice: go to the local public high school or drop out. Given how little the US spends on public education, is it surprising that dropout rates are stuck or rising. I'd love to see the NBER data broken out between high spending states, like MA, and low spending states, like CA or TX.

[Jay]

I wouldn't say public school systems have failed. They might have failed one's utopian view of what their goal is, but if you look at the real incentives put in place and the actors in charge, they are succeeding quite well. You have to understand that if you give the government a monopoly on shaping a kids mind, it will do what is in the best interest of the government. That being to indoctrinate the kids to be good little obedient girls and boys so the political class can continue to trample on everyone else. Nancy Pelosi (and almost everyother politician) wants to ensure that their kids have someone to trample on in the future.

[anne]

"----- ------ (and almost every other politician) wants to ensure that their kids have someone to trample on in the future."

Rottenness forever.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/business/13hispanics.html

May 13, 2008

Many Hispanics Are Hit Hard by Economic Slump
By PETER S. GOODMAN

DALTON, Ga. — In his first years in the United States, Carlos B. Jacinto endured the itinerant life of a Guatemalan migrant worker, from picking fruit in Florida to moving logs at a sawmill in Washington. Eventually, he settled here in northern Georgia and erected a middle-class American life.

The carpet factories that sustained this town were desperate for workers to supply a nationwide boom in home construction. The wages Mr. Jacinto earned over the last decade were enough to buy a minivan and a brick house with a yard and a swing set for his four young girls. It was a long way from his childhood home in Guatemala, a wooden shack without electricity or plumbing.

But last month, amid the shrinking fortunes of the American economy, Mr. Jacinto, 37, was laid off. Everything he has achieved is suddenly at risk.

"Am I going to be able to keep up the payments on my house?" he asked. "I never believed this could happen. Now, we don't know the future."

The economic downturn unfolding across the United States is imposing a particularly punishing toll on Hispanics, a group that was among the primary beneficiaries of the expansion in recent years. What had been a story of broad and steady advances has given way to growing joblessness, diminishing paychecks and lost homes.

The boom in American housing generated millions of new jobs for those willing to engage in physically demanding tasks, from factory work churning out floorboards, carpeting and upholstery, to landscaping, roofing and janitorial services. Latinos occupied widening swaths of these trades and filled large numbers of relatively high-paying construction jobs.

As a great influx of Latino immigrants spread beyond the initial entryways of the Southwest into smaller cities and towns across the South and the Midwest, many found employment doing much of the unpleasant work shunned by those with better prospects.

But now significant portions of this work are disappearing. What were once the fastest-growing areas of the nation, including states with expanding Hispanic populations like Florida, California, Georgia and Nevada, are often bearing the brunt of the pain.

From April of last year to April of this year, the Labor Department reported, the unemployment rate among Hispanics spiked 1.4 percentage points, to 6.9 percent. By comparison, the overall jobless rate rose half a percentage point, to 5 percent.

For the nearly 19 million Latino immigrants in the United States, the downturn in the job market has cut significantly into earnings, dropping the share of those sending money home to families in Latin America from nearly three-fourths two years ago to about half, according to a survey released last month by the Inter-American Development Bank.

Economic troubles now threaten to reverse a long period of gains in homeownership among Latinos as well. From 1994 to 2006, the rate of Hispanic homeownership climbed to 50 percent from 41 percent, according to census data, a pace more than double the increase among non-Hispanics.

Growth was fueled by heavy reliance on subprime mortgages — loans extended to people with troubled credit histories, which have since proved the most likely to go bad. By 2006, 47 percent of the loans issued for home purchases by Hispanics were subprime, nearly double the rate for non-Hispanic whites, according to a paper by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. Only African-Americans leaned harder on subprime loans....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/business/13hispanics.html

May 13, 2008

Many Hispanics Are Hit Hard by Economic Slump
By PETER S. GOODMAN

DALTON, Ga.

Today, Latinos make up about 40 percent of the city's population, up from 10 percent a decade ago. Some 70 percent of the students in the city school system are Hispanic.

"They came in here and saved jobs," said Dalton's mayor, David E. Pennington. "This is a one-industry town. If they hadn't come here, the carpet industry was going to leave."

For several years, Rafael Ortiz picked strawberries in California for 12 and 14 hours a day, being paid about $250 a week. On a visit home to his village in the Mexican state of Guanajuato a decade ago, relatives told him he could make twice as much in northern Georgia, working indoors.

Mr. Ortiz and his wife boarded a Greyhound bus with their six children — the youngest then 8 years old. They arrived with no savings, staying with cousins.

Mr. Ortiz quickly found a job in a factory making bathroom mats and toilet seat covers. Nearly all of the workers were from Mexico or Guatemala, he said. He was paid $8.50 an hour, with as much overtime as he was willing to take. He brought home $450 to $500 a week.

Over subsequent years, Mr. Ortiz, 62, never lacked for work. In 2000, he paid $4,500 for a trailer, plunked it on a three-quarter-acre lot and called it home. He recently became an American citizen.

"I have 10 grandchildren, and there's plenty of room there to run around," Mr. Ortiz said. "That's my satisfaction."

But last fall, Mr. Ortiz's father grew ill. He returned to Mexico to be with him before he died. Since coming back to Dalton in February, he has not found work. He no longer takes his grandchildren out to eat, he said. He relies on his grown children to pay the bills.

From the fall of 2005 to the end of 2007, carpet industry jobs in Whitfield County declined to 15,416 from 17,140, according to the Georgia Department of Labor.

At the Southern Janitorial Services Corporation, where 95 percent of the employees are Latino, working hours are being cut and paychecks are down from $450 a week to as little as $300 a week, according to Gabriela Gardea, the company's receptionist.

The impact of smaller paychecks is now rippling out to businesses built to serve the Latino influx. At El Sombrero, a Mexican restaurant in an old brick storefront downtown, sales have dropped by half since the beginning of the year, said the owner, Adolfo Morones. He has been forced to lay off a waiter and two kitchen employees, he said.

At La Michoacana, a grocery store festooned with colorful piñatas, the owner, Efrain Espinoza, said he was losing money. "We don't know how long we can continue like this," he said.

A taxi service that ferries Latino workers from home to job has idled three of its six cars, Maria T. Perez, the owner, said.

Born in Mexico, Ms. Perez arrived here from Los Angeles a decade ago to put her five children — then mostly teenagers — beyond the reach of gangs, she said. She started the taxi service in 2001, making use of no-money-down financing to buy her first car, a used Buick Regal.

As Dalton filled with Latinos, her business expanded, earning her a $40,000 profit in 2004 and again the following year, she said.

She and her husband, Ricardo Torres, bought a four-bedroom house with a swimming pool, a huge living room, a washer-dryer and a kitchen with granite countertops. They paid $240,000, with no money down, she said.

The promotional mortgage payment of $1,700 a month was manageable, she said. But the taxi business dipped the following year. And by early 2007, their mortgage payment had jumped to $2,500, she said.

Last summer, with the taxi service losing money, Ms. Perez stopped making house payments. In January, she and her husband gave up their home to foreclosure, she said, joining a growing crowd. From January to March of this year, Dalton registered 111 foreclosure filings, nearly four times the number of the previous year, according to data from RealtyTrac.

Ms. Perez and her husband are now camping in the taxi company office. They do their laundry at a Laundromat, and cook with a hot plate, opening the door to release the smoke.

"I don't know what's going to happen in the future," she said. "The only thing that's left is to wait and see."

[anne]

"Horrible schools and horrible parents."

Huh???

[ken melvin]

Jay got close. Public schools serve to prepare the work force. As the demands for factory jobs diminish, they've shown less interest in the high school graduate, unless, like Genentech, they see the possibility of replacing their lab techs (currently degreed scientist) with high school trained technicians.

[Jay]

Ken: "Public schools serve to prepare the work force."

I'm not interested in your beliefs as to what public schools "should" be, I'm interested in what are in reality based on the incentives of the 'deciders'. You have to remember politicians are humans to, and as such are utility maximizers. Seeing that pols can afford to pay to send their own kids to private school there is virtually no reason to believe that they have much of an incentive to have the true mission of public schools fit your utopia Ken.

[Icarus]

The core issue rests within the politics of bearing a child. Whose decision? Whose responsibility? NeoLiberal rule does not allow for those decisions to be antithetical. If "you" can decide to procreate, without state interference, that same "you" must act "responsibly".

A school is not responsible...a govt is not responsible...a community is not ultimately responsible.

The hard truth is that the fate of a child is tethered to the decision making capacities, and success of the parent.

Any policy which has any teeth will have to get to this root issue. Robin Hood politics is not the answer, and that's all I seem to see on these posts, from the left. Take more from the rich, feed more to the poor, reduce inequality. I just don't think such solutions are possible. The logic of capital make welfare states less competitive, moving forward.

We can spend all day discussing what parts of France and/or the US are good/bad/ugly.
The real issue is whether these nations will maintain their labor rates moving into the next century. Will there be a flattening?...alongside a crust of wealthy elites? Probably.

[Betsy L. Angert]

Dearest Mark . .

I have long feared the figures we were given were false. Different States, Districts, and Schools skew the numbers. It is as the researchers report.
A number of recent studies have questioned the validity of the status completion rate and other graduation rate estimators. They have attempted to develop more accurate estimators of high school graduation rates.[5] Heated debates about the levels and trends in the true high school graduation rate have appeared in the popular press.[6] Depending on the data sources, definitions, and methods used, the U.S. graduation rate has been estimated to be anywhere from 66 to 88 percent in recent years-an astonishingly wide range for such a basic statistic. The range of estimated minority rates is even greater-from 50 to 85 percent.
From all I have discerned the problem may be worse than reported. Xenophobia, standards, rote, and recitation fill our schools. Students are lost in the system. If only our pupils were treated as people. Imagine if an individual were a Whole Child; perchance dropouts and school shootings would be a thing of the past.

I invite your review and reflection . . .
Dropout Nation; Communities Can Cure The Silent Student Epidemic

Exit Exams, High School Dropouts; Cause and Effect

School Shootings; Standards Kill Students and Society

Betsy L. Angert
BeThink.org

[Icarus]

Anne,

The only take-away I can get from your last post (the article on the mexican family) is why this fool had 6 children.

I take it that doesn't disturb you, and that any poverty they face is the fault of the rich.

[Icarus]

Anne,

Let me save you the time of responding...

"Monsters"..."Rubbish"..."Grandmas Dying"..."and no Health care for kids".

Anything else?

[reason]

Read Ivan Ilich again, it is time he made a comeback. The whole concept of "drop-out" should be beside the point. Education should be a lifelong process.

[reason]

In case people don't want to read any Illich - I can give a little hint - what exactly does a high-school diploma mean? Actually, relatively little apart from a limited amount of persistance and boredom tolerance. Illich thinks that like the boy scouts, people should accumulate genuine competance certificates continuously (testing being seperated from teaching). Having to give a certificate after a given amount of time, means that the learnt content is inevitably devalued. Passing time becomes the criteria not mastery.

[Icarus]

Reason,

Illich is amazing. I just re-read Deschooling Society. Incredible.

If you haven't read any Robert J Lifton, or Ashis Nandy, you must. Truly pathbreaking intellectual work, which rises beyond the predictable narratives of the hyper-compartmentalized disciplines we've devolved into.

[Icarus]

Reason,

The problem with your blanket assertion is that many go through high school, and acquire the skills they need for college (ie, calculus, advanced english, bio/chem/physics).

The entrants into the top 30 universities usually gain from their time in High School, and our capitalist society needs these cadres of future workers/scholars.

High School may be worthless for some, but, some are worthless for society. We must change that, and it begins with proper parenting.

[reason]

Icarus,
no acquiring the skills is an afterthought, the main purpose of high school is to teach people to accept a certain structure and to grade people. Universities don't necessarily think that people coming from high school have adequate skills. They do think that people with sufficently high grades are teachable.

[Icarus]

Reason...no doubt. But, the logic goes further.

Even firms don't think college graduates have 'adequate skills'...they are as well 'teachable'.

But, the inherent definition of an education is not a finite body of knowledge, but instead, the capacity to teach oneself in perpetuity.

That said, we live in a competitive society, with a limited number of high paying jobs, and those that show their aptitude or proficiency through success in high school and college, tend to get those jobs.

Yes, we do enforce, and proliferate certain structures...but, isn't that the nature of civilization?

[Real Person from the Real World]

We waste too much time trying to culturate rather than educate. While learning can and should be fun, some projects would be better left to a curious kid who is actually interested in trying something out. At one school I worked at, the teachers came up with a sundial project. Every so often, I am not sure it was more than once a week, everyone was trooped out to look at it, and marks were made on a paper to make a point about the time of year or season, not just time. Might have been a neat idea for a curious kid to research and try, then report on, but as a group project, it was a waste of time marching everyone out to gawk. Most of the kids did not understand or care. Perhaps this was meaningful for some one kid, and a genius will arise from the experience, but frankly, I doubt it. Yes we need to teach kids to be creative and think, but I think we go overboard with nutty educational ideas too. There was a vogue awhile back, for the media to scare everyone that all the teachers were going to retire en masse, and no one would be left, so there were master teaching programs all over, for down and out techies and people from downsized companies going into them. I tried that. Some were poorly designed programs by schools looking to cash in on the biz. I went to one. Eventually you find that while there are pockets where they badly need teachers, the schools and principals prefer young kids out of college - they're cheaper, know the new educational fads well, and older people are seen as stogy and teaching in the old rote ways they learned as kids. The only real demand is for math and science, and few of the downsized actually had those skills. Ultimately, higher education itself has become a whore to business interests. While creativity is *prized*, HR relies on psych games and tests to weed out based on other criteria.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Private (Catholic) schools seem to do a better job since they focus on the most important/basic educational skills, although they also get the educational fad bug too. Often it takes 2 incomes to keep things going and parents are often stretched by both working, and so it is difficult to get them involved with their kid's learning. Those with money sometimes have the time, and also supplement their kid's education with things that can enhance (like travel).

[Lafayette]

BFD

For years, a teacher stateside that I know has been telling me of the lowering of levels necessary to get kids graduated from HS.

So, one can imagine the capacity of those who supposedly have a HS diploma. Like Health Care is supposed to be, Education is supposedly universal -- but their respective stats show that even more Americans don't get a diploma than do not have HC-insurance. So, imagine the probability that both pools consist of the same people.

What a mess, both of the them. And, this from the compassionate "Education President" who was going to leave no one behind.

Do we see the consequences of screwing-up a presidential election? Is it yet obvious? Or not.

All the hoopla, all the media hype, all the great talk, all the fingers punching the air for effect ... all for nothing. Except a costly war over in the sandbox that we'll be paying for through the next generation or two that come along.

[cm]

Real Person: In any education process, different things will "stick" with different people (students), you only don't know upfront what and who. You have to offer a comprehensive fare to everybody and each will take away from it whatever they can, beyond the basics. Another important consideration is that people are generally incapable of developing an interest out of their own, they have to be introduced (by anything in their environment, but practically parents or the school).

I have some empirical evidence of "late bloomers" when it comes to educational achievement as well as kids who showed promise early but then lost it or couldn't/wouldn't stay on the tracks, and then those who always had to struggle but who did struggle and got somewhere. It's not just a matter of giving everybody the basic fare and being done with it, that will only create a monoculture.

[Icarus]

People...

The issue is parenting, not schools.

I know parents, and grew up with one, who would sit with their child, and do their addition/multiplication tables together, at the kitchen table. These are parents who take ownership of raising their child, and do not assume that the school will take care of everything.

Schools have burdens now which they were not designed for...they are soup kitchens, detention wards, shephards of the future criminal class, etc. We now want them to teach sex education, parenting, etc.

This is not the intention of 'school'. We need basic reading/writing/arithmatic. We don't have that yet...and, it's because the parenting environment isn't correct.

The net result is that those who grow up with engaged, responsible parents, will have a structural advantage. We can not make up for that through programs, or more money for education (we already spend too much).

Dismissing or overlooking the politics of parenting is a huge mistake. Our efforts must begin, and focus, on that.

What is a person doing having 6 children on a low paying salary, as Anne's posted article illustrates? We cannot, as a society, afford the social consequences of that.

And, more and more, there are a caste of characters (the wealthy, the professionals, the upward aspiring) who want to disconnect from this segment of society. This is the issue.

Do I have to group myself, and share costs, with people who make such horrible decisions, which are costly to the group? I may...but, I suspect most would rather separate. This is kind of the ethos of neoliberal rule...

[Lafayette]

Ick: The issue is parenting, not schools.

The issue is schooling, not parenting.

Given the breakdown in schooling, we have children having children. Just what can we expect from such? Nothing, but more of the same, the infernal circle.

Given a solid, loving, nurturing family, it is schooling that forms and molds us. Which is why it must be the best.

Much more than just average. It must also instill discipline and a sense of duty. Both of which are seemingly in short supply in this "be all you wannabe, do all you wannado" society.

[Icarus]

Lafayette,

But, the discipline comes from home life. It's just so difficult for a teacher to teach a child who has no (or little) sense of discipline.

And, just can we expect from such?...you say Nothing...I say we must expect more. We just have to, as the possibility of developing welfare rights which can combat the irresponsibility of parents seems less likely to me, as we pass each and every decade.

The state cannot substitute, through various programs and institutions, for a 'solid, loving, nurturing family'.

I wish it could...I really do. I'd be open to even taking chidlren of bad parents away from them, and getting them boarding school overseas. I think off-shoring education could have significant potential. But, there's always the issue of people gaming the system (ie, the US 14th amendment would cause a malincentive, as parents did whatever to give birth on US soil, in order to get thier children into a better educational system)...

Lafayette...the "be all you wannado" society can be based on discipline...it often is. The I-Banker making billions was a product of severe discipline, as was the military general, the scientist, and many many others. The sense of duty is sold through the argument that participating in market society ultimately benefits all, which is an interesting argument.

[Lafayette]

A Wannabe Nation

Ic: the discipline comes from home life.

That's just the problem, it doesn't.

We've created at least two generations of "Wannabe-Wannados" who have very little notion of familial duty. With what values do you want them to raise a family, if they've none themselves? Or, what if they've the wrong ones, of the kind "I want it all and I want it now. I've no time to wait and slog through life. I gotta have it right away."

Just look at the divorce rate of these "Parent-children", that keeps feeding the numbers of broken-homes. Just where do you stop the rot, at which point in the cycle? How do you inculcate the values that matter in children who are NOT obtaining those values in the home, because their parents are "being all they wannabe"?

My faith in family values is, perhaps, just as dedicated as yours. Why? Because just about any sociologist will explain that our civilization depends upon the family kernel remaining intact up to and including a child's leaving tertiary school education -- that is, the longest period possible. What two adults do after that is their business; their parental responsibilities have been met.

But, when consenting young adults embark upon a mutual engagement of having children, then they must learn/know that such an contract is for the duration. This is a base value of our society, necessary for its cohesion.

In our ultra-relaxed society, and particularly through the media, we've bombarded them, in a Pavlovian manner, with just the opposite messages/temptations. You wannabe married? That's OK! You wannabe unmarried. That's OK too! Hey, BE WHAT YA WANNABE! What sort of mindless crap is that? That's not "liberty", it's "hedonism". All that matters is what pleases you.

Sociologists tell us that we have forgot that rights AND responsibilities are each the flip side of the coin of life.

Only the school can teach/inculcate/institute the discipline necessary such that those twin values are well understood. Not the family, not the church, not military service. It is fully evident that these institutions named have not been able to achieve that task, or are doing it only to select groups and far too late in life.

School (primary and secondary) is a marvelous opportunity to take the young mind, which is malleable, and mold its character with values that serve society and not just self.

It all depends upon what values are taught. Those values (family, societal and civic) are to the health of our society what Preventive Medicine is to personal Health Care -- an ounce of prevention, in the school, is worth a ton of cure later on.

And that costs money, called Social Expenditure. And, the expense is not a "handout", it is an investment in our society.

[reason]

Lafayette,
Of course there are two problems with Icky's approach
1. This doesn't help the children. He is trying to punish the child to hurt the parent. If the parent doesn't care, it does not good.
2. There is evidence (Finland) that he is wrong. Particularly early in life (before 9) well resourced intervention can make a difference. Does he really want to abandon the children of cults (and I include much religion in US in that category) to their elders?
You are on the right track. There is a problem with the Libertarian ethos, it emphasises rights (Natural?? rights) but forgets that rights require responsibilities ("the cost of Liberty is eternal vigilence?"). And the free market unfortunately is schizophrenic when it comes to values. Advertising emphasizes impulsive hedonism, but these impulsive hedonists are then supposed to become magically dedicated team players at work.

[Icarus]

Reason/Lafayette...

No, I don't want to abandon the child...I just think we have to think of more invasive ways to recuperate their potential, and it would involve a much heavier handed state. This is anathema to some...

And, these social expenditures you speak of haven't worked. We, in the US, spend plenty. $9000 per student, per year? My god, we could send them to boarding school overseas, where they could get a proper education.

The one area we seem to agree on (although we may use very different language and imagery) is the uselessness of many 'parents'. I say 'parents' because real parenting takes forethought, commitment, and preparation...something we're seeing an underclass avoid, and then suffer the consequences of (actually, all of society suffers).

That said...a solution which absolves irresponsibility is not the answer.
If you can't take care of your child, and you expect (or need) the state to, then, we all have a major problem. Such people must lose some of their 'freedoms', because I believe we cannot have cost centers abound like that.

As well, we have a systematic disentanglement of society going on, throughout the global supply chain, as the very economy becomes more connected. This apparent contradiction has lead to an ephemeral connectedness, within a process of rendering communities 'imagined'.

I'm not a big fan of the Nation State (and its consistent history of violence towards its 'other'), and don't trust it to be the arbiter and dispense of social justice, or welfare.

Ultimately, we have 6.5 billion people now, and most of them live like crap. It's really sad. We may be entering a time of overall flatenning, where the global middle class will pull down the standard of living of the 1st world middle class, and an elite across nations will remain firmly in charge.

In this environment, asking a particular state to finance the irresponsibility of the many, is problematic.

I do want children to grow up in nurturing environments, with discipline and care...but, if we're going to finance it socially, it must come with the very obligations you guys write of.

What is the obligation of the poor parent who pops out a child they can't afford?

[Icarus]

And Reason...

You bring up an interesting issue...."do you want to abandon the children of cults?"

In the name of pluralism, we may have to. I find US patriots and military families as irritable, and ignorant, as any 'cult' I've come across. The level of delusion, despicability, and ignorance is similar. What to do?

And, according to Freud, isn't all religion essentially a delusion?

How do we arbitrate what is a cult, which children need saving, and from what vantage point is this adjudicated?

I hope we can find a post-national existence, where the arbiter and dispense of values is not a central state. A world where cultures can exist, even in a certain sense of dissonance, and produce knowledge and values which can co-exist. True pluralism.

There was a impoverished world much before the institutions of the modern nation state. Cultures had/have knowledge. We've choked some of this with the dependence on the state we've devolved into.

[Icarus]

Another thought on the question I'm trying to ask from a post abover: "What is the obligation of the poor parent who pops out a child they can't afford?"...

This is one of those dangerous questions, which some toss out as barbaric (ie, an Anne, who'll just scream 'monster'), and others dismiss by quickly labelling someone some ephithet, as if that ends discussion.

A few ideas come to mind, on this question...if we presume that the poor individual does indeed have an 'obligation' to the social whole, if they're receiving state subsidies to be a parent.
This is important especially in cases of poverty, and changes by the specific socio-economic situation.

1. We could insist on contraception, and dispense with the religious outrage. "If you want state subsidies for child #1, you must agree to monitored contraception". We'd need a healthcare infrastructure, at the community level, but that's a need which would be profitable, if people acquiesced to agreements such as these.

2. We could take those babies. Adoptions now become invasive. The 'natural' parent has fewer rights to parent.

3. We could insist on some monitoring of income. What percentage of income is spent where is not too difficult to monitor, given rfid advances (rfid tags will be everywhere, on day). If you want state money for your kids, we're going to punish (behaviorally) frivolous spending.

4. Forced contraception. I know it's my issue #1, but it's so important, I'm writing it again. There's no reason a 12 year old, or even a 14 year old, should have a child, in my opinion. But, I can't also fathom a state which tells all cultures how to behave, which ages are legal for what activity, etc, etc...unless, it significantly harms, or invades, the rest of us.
So, 14 year olds can get pregnant...but, if you need state subsidies, then NO fucking way. We, as a society, tell you to abort, adopt, or adapt.
It's invasive, but tough...you want everyone else's money. You have to behave in socially prudent ways. If you don't need the money, we allow for more liberties. Obligations go both ways.

Social Engineering schemes are existent, at the Nation State level. Portugal, for example, is basically paying people to have children. It may be strategically smart, for a given nation to do that. But, a strange obverse may arise. What if that same Nation could discourage procreation, or certain types of procreation, in the name of fiscal responsibility coupled with a social obligation?

[anne]

"What is the obligation of the poor parent who pops out a child they can't afford?"

Vile sickening sexist, poor parent-despising metaphor.

[anne]

"What is the obligation of the poor parent who pops out a child they can't afford?"

Rotten sexist viciousness.

[anne]

"So, 14 year olds can get pregnant...but, if you need state subsidies, then NO ------- way. We, as a society, tell you to abort, adopt, or adapt."

Gutter thinking, gutter language; vile sexist viciousness, vile sexist rotteness, vile sexist hate-mongering.

[anne]

"What is the obligation of the poor parent who pops out a child they can't afford?

"This is one of those dangerous questions, which some toss out as barbaric (ie, an ----, who'll just scream 'monster'), and others dismiss by quickly labelling someone some ephithet, as if that ends discussion."

Vile inciting gutter-mouth sexist hate-mongering.

[ken melvin]

Parenting is tge solution to: health care, education, crime, welfare, unemployment, ... and it's free, right Ick?

[Lafayette]

Ic: ... We, in the US, spend plenty. $9000 per student, per year?

Well "plenty" is not enough, evidently, since Finland comes out on top of the PISA study of global educational systems.

According to the OECD figures on Child Care and early education (go here), the expenditure per child as a percentage of GDP shows the US just below the OECD-average at 0.62%, whist Finland is around 1.35%. Child care obviously has a great deal to do with childrens' ability once in school. Child care includes, in this definition, kindergartens for working mothers.

But, money is not the most important variable. The PISA study of educational systems put France at the same mediocre level as the US, both countries share a mediocre 14th place in the rankings. Yet, France outspends the US, again in terms of percentage GDP, at 1.3%, more than twice the American percentage.

To me that means that to increase rankings in the independent surveys, such as PISA, it is not the money spent but the manner of education.

Why is nobody going to Finland to find out what they are doing right to compare with what we are doing evidently wrong.

An extract from the OECD report: "Publicly funded formal day care for children under three is much larger in countries such as Denmark, France, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and therefore expenditure per child is significantly higher in these countries. Lower public spending on childcare in southern European countries is typical as informal care is predominantly used for the younger children and mainstream participation in pre-school begins at age three and onwards. Public spending on childcare per child is typically also lower in countries where
private provision of day care is predominant."

If people want good schools, a nation's social investment must be there to pay for them. That is what this study is saying.

PS: The French school system is on strike today. The unions are yelling for "more resources". Yeah right, even more people to do worse. I can't judge the French educational system. I can only remember that the French students were one helluva lot better prepared than we native Americans at university. And, when I speak to a French young adult, their level of ability to speak clearly is far better than that of an American of the same age. (I sometime think Americans learn English off the backs of breakfast cereal boxes.)

[anne]

"Publicly funded formal day care for children under three is much larger in countries such as Denmark, France, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and therefore expenditure per child is significantly higher in these countries. Lower public spending on childcare in southern European countries is typical as informal care is predominantly used for the younger children and mainstream participation in pre-school begins at age three and onwards. Public spending on childcare per child is typically also lower in countries where private provision of day care is predominant."

Please reference.

[reason]

Lafayette...
I can assure you here in Germany there is a lot of interest about what is happening in Finnland.

[ken melvin]

Finns I've spoken with are all about best thinking and have little use for dogma.

[Icarus]

Lafayette...

Finland's population is 5.3 million. That's just not an appropriate comparison.

And, will Finland accept immigration from the developing world, and stay competitive and committed to their social expenditure model?

[Icarus]

Predictable Anne...go take care of your grandma.

[Icarus]

Kevin Melvin,

Parenting is the solution, yes. Part of parenting is to be self-aware, and prudent with expenses and risk.

A great parent plans a child before conception. Do you have enough savings? Do you live in a good area for raising a child? Is your career at the right point?

The issues you laid out...health care, crime, education, employement, etc...all of them are critical issues in all of our lives. Our responsibility is to manage them, and plan a family (if that's what you want) accordingly.

Senseless procreation, with false promises from a central govt will help no one.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Icarus: god has never sent down a manual where it specifically states how to take care of kids. while there is a consensus on some aspects of child care, your opinions are just one of many. You rant like a Red Chinese official. In China they enforced contraception, although some got around the blocks and suffered penalties. People are not machines, nor is the perfect society one that controls all aspects of life. You seem to value the free market, but you also favor coercive societal rules when it comes to controlling others, when their needs intrude on your petty world of accumulation. Something of a contradiction there, and perhaps a clue to the hatreds that you have inside that cause you to spout such nonsense.

[Icarus]

Real Person,

Discipline is not hatred...

My argument is not that we need a manual, or a state official telling anyone what to do.

But, if you can't finance and afford the consequences of your choices, yes, you need help.

Anyone can have a child. Very few can raise one properly. Those who do will raise the next generation of leaders and successful people.
Those that dont, will tend to raise the next generation of losers.

Real Person...I should twist this on you? What do you want? A nation in which I can make any mistake I want, and society bails me out? A blank check for senseless procreation? You want to tell people not to worry about raising their child...we, the state will take care of things?
It's absurd, as 'we' won't. We'll abandon that child, who'll grow up on the street, be under-education, and can't compete in a global market.
This is the reality you hate...your 'real world' is slowly decaying, and you want to hold our for more govt handouts.

It just won't happen. Our climate is moving in the opposite direction, and globalized capital seems to be more and more entrenched every decade. It leads to pros and cons.

One of the cons is that a US middle class which got used to a guaranteed standard of living based on working for a company, has to now reset expectations.

Raising loser children isn't going to be the answer. We have to stop blaming India and China, and get our 13 year olds to learn algebra. That starts with the home...not the school.
If you're a parent, and you expect everyone else to feed, raise, educate, protect, morally guide your child...you're a failure, and you shouldn't have children.

I'm not saying 'don't have children'...just have as many as you can afford. And, if you need the state to pay for your kid's lunch caus you only make $2.13 an hour...well, we need to provide free contraception, and develop programs to insiste up on it, as we can't write a blank check to people to raise children they shouldn't even have.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Icarus:
1) you are a hypocrite: you criticize mexicans who cross an imaginary line to "pop" one out to take $200k out of your personal pocket book, while applauding the 'rights of business" to bring cheap h1b labor over to fill its desperate need for talent. This later argument is crap. I work in IT.
- Companies have to look for Americans first, but they don't try real hard, there are too many vendor games, and once an Americanized former h1b gets in, he/she often helps his buddies sell visa people merely because they can squeeze the poor guys down and the VENDOR (often another foreigner) is the one that makes all the money while the US company save pennies. Vendor1 sells h1b guy to vendor2 for $50/r (paying the guy what, may be $20/hr? and threatening him not to leave) then vendor 2 who may not even have any visa guys sells the h1b to his client, for $100/hr.
- The market for a job skill cannot adjust if people are arbitrarily brought in from elsewhere, can it? So if you are such a big fan of the market, here is one place it is being interfered with. Tell me now a market can adjust to a lack of people with new inputs from outside the system?
- Who is demanding this vis labor? A tiny handful of biggies, like MS, IBM, etc., who take the cream of the cream, a tiny group from overseas, while some foreign owned vendor thinks he can make big buck selling guys either he or other vendors bring over just for the purpose. Visa serfs with ordinary garden variety skills (java anyone?). The only real difference is they are sold as having experience. If there is real experience, perhaps, but often there is a lot of exaggeration and lies. If the guy can cram enough to get away with it, he is on his way to the motherlode.... a green card. Then he is just as expensive as an American, and beats out other native born citizens for jobs they should have gotten.
- While your anger at everyone is semi-appeased by seeing your fellow citizens lose out to overseas competition, the fact is eventually these other countries will beat you out one day, by luring back the visa serfs for their own industries. Meanwhile, the US has lost ground, and YOU may find your selfish piddly boodle is not enough to keep you in antacid pills.

[Icarus]

RealPerson,

No, you misread.

I don't blame the mexican immigrant. Their choice is 'rational'. I too would cross a 'border' to help my child. No problem there.
I have more of an issue with the society which produces this mal-incentive. I would repeal the portion of the 14th amendment which granted citizenship to any child born on US soil, and change it to any child born legally...

As for finding americans first for employment...I disagree. Capital has no loyalty (nor should it) to anyone besides its owners and consumers. A company has no obligation to hire your pathetic US workers. Sorry...and get over it. Your constant diatribe about the US workforce is as tiresome as someone lamenting the loss of vinyl records or 8 track tapes.

And, no H1b is making $20/hour. You're just foolishly wrong...and this may come from simply being out of the game. You've written that you make something like $10-20/hour. This simply means you don't have very important skills. It sounds like you're a 50-60 year old invoice processor, or project intern, who simply could not build a skill set...and saw these foreigners come in, and work hard to get the 'american dream'.
Stop hating...participate. Go learn something useful, and stop blaming IBM or India. No one owes you anything...

It's really ironic you call yourself "real person"...your opinions point to fantasy and delusion.

[Real Person from the Real World]

Icarus YOU are WRONG. I work in IT for a foreign vendor, and I see the rate WE PAY to some other VENDOR for a visa guy. If we are paying the other vendor $50/hr, and he presumable is looking for a profit, yes? then what might he be paying the visa guy, HUH?????? We pay vendors $45-55/hr for common lower level skills, and vend them to our clients for $80/hr on up. So, what sort of profit does the visa owner who is the guys vendor #1 make on him, if he is charging us $$45-$55/hr?????? HMM? FURTHERMORE, I talk to these guys, and some do talk about their employer threatening them with huge fines (illegally) for leaving, because the vendor owns their visa. Not all vendors do threaten, but some do. Furthermore, some of these poor serfs get put on the bench and get desperate for a gig, so they can stay, so they go on the hunt as well as their employers. And frankly EVERYONE PAYS the GOING MARKET RATE, even if only at the lower end of the range, so US companies save little. HOWEVER, it is getting so that you cannot find US citizens with the right experience, because the h1b guys grab it all. AND NO ONE CHECKS a college overseas, or some company in DUBAI about someone's experience there. This is why some companies resort to technical tests along with screening. Because while some of these guys (not the high end MS and IBM guys) are lying about their experience just to get over to the US and get the Green Card. Meanwhile, you rant about Mexicans who cross an imaginary line to enter the US SW that USED TO BELONG TO MEXICO in the mid 1800s, and where lots of latinos, including LEGAL ONES still live. We get LEGAL visas lying to get in, and illegal who cross a blurry imaginary line on a map. What is the big difference? You are merely rationalizing about US companies. Actually it is getting difficult to find US citizens with senior experience, because there are few entry level, and most companies see a resume from a visa serf and hope he has more experience then he may have and hire them instead. Also some who came as visa guys are now *us* and just as expensive as someone born here, just that they got the experience before the guy born here had the chance. The world is not necessarily draining out its geniuses to come to the US and work in IT, nor are US citizens all lazy "obese" backwoods crackers who eat "canned gods" with genetic defects from inbreeding as you implied in one of your posts.... We have plenty of good people already HERE, but the competition is tough when you have thousands of small foreign vendors importing people to cash in for their own pocket books. And the visa guys just want that US lifestyle..... as much as the mexican wants citizenship. And YES, US Companies do LIE about jobs. AND YES Vendor play games, and YES, the hiring mechanism for any job in the US is messed up.

[Real Person from the Real World]

BTW ICKY, I do NOT handle invoices. I do recruitment and work with clients and vendors, so I DO know what I am talking about.

[Real Person from the Real World]

P.S.S. Sometimes I am the one who has to talk the vendor or candidate down on hourly rate.

[Rudy the Scottie]

There is some evidence that suggests that rising minimum wage rates correlate to rising dropout rates.