Education City

1.3 Billion, Global Education City

Many countries are starting to make English the official language and jobs are becoming harder and harder to find unless the applicant is bilingual, English and another language.

Many countries have families who are sending their children to study abroad so that they can become fluent in English however, these programs are very expensive and many families are unable to afford this choice so one country has found a way to solve this problem.

South Korea decided to pour $1.3 billion into an ambitious project on a secluded island where all schools from elementary to universities will be taught almost entirely in English.

The first stage will be ready and open to accept students in 2011 with a school in the three areas; elementary, middle and high school.

American education has to become more competitive yesterday.As published in Discover Magazine, January 2006:

The performance of U.S. students in middle and high schools on international math and science exams is below the average of 38 other countries. Even advanced American math and physics students score near dead last among students in 20 tested countries, the panel reported. While 32 percent of U.S. students graduate with degrees in science and engineering, the figure in China is 59 percent.

With the American economy so dependent on oil and oil related products it is absolutely imperative that America stop lagging behind in education and take the lead once again.

As was stated in April 7, 2006 issue of the journal Science "This small Persian Gulf emirate is preparing for life after oil and gas by pouring wealth into education and research"

In Education City in Qatar the RAND-Qatar Policy Institute has helped Qatar to make tremendous changes in the country's educational institutions. And Qatar Science and Technology Park will be an incubator where private companies can partner with government agencies and academic institutions, developing research into commercial applications and driving Qatar and the region toward a diversified, knowledge-based economy.

What American Institutions are participating?

It is also noted in the journal Science that "Qatar's primary and secondary schools, which have begun to dispense with traditional rote learning, Al-Hajari reports, replacing it with curricula designed to stimulate creative and independent thinking. The fact is that America is ranked 39th world wide in math and science education. Consider that Texas was just ranked, as a state, 24th in a country that was just placed as 39th.

Countries like Qatar, Singapore, China & India are readily getting some of the best researchers that have been educated and trained in America to relocate to their countries.

For example the Journal Science Reports that:

Texas A&M is setting up joint research with the oil industry and studies related to clean air, while Weill Cornell will concentrate on biomedical projects relevant to local health problems. (Diabetes Research) To capitalize on the research, the Qatar Foundation is building the Qatar Science and Technology Park right next door to Education City.

Foreigners are coming to America and getting education and training and then exporting that knowledge and experience out of the country.
The drain is affecting the quality of education and research in America.
America is loosing it's competitive edge in a global economy in the area of research to product development.
The quality of educational facilities in the United States is falling below that of the competitive countries, as are the salaries and benefits which lure our leading researchers away.

These well funded research facilities are in countries that do not hold back development and research in controversial areas like Stem Cell Research. The Unite States will just lose.

"At an elite science high school in Dallas, Texas, President George W. Bush told the assembled students that the United States "needs a workforce strong in engineering and science and physics" to remain the world's top economic power. His words would seem to bode well for precollege activities funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), the only federal agency with an explicit mission to improve science and math education. In his Sate of the union Address on January 31, 2006 President Bush Stated:

"President Bush plans to unveil a $2.5 trillion budget today eliminating dozens of politically sensitive domestic programs, including funding for education, environmental protection and business development, while proposing significant increases for the military and international spending, according to White House documents."

Now get into the "No child Left Behind" program which has altered public education and forced it into a rote learning model by demanding testing performance at the sacrifice of building critical thinking skills.

For a Texas school to achieve the academic acceptable rating (the lowest passing standard)

Schools must have passing rates of:

50% percent in Reading Tests

50% in Writing Tests

50% in Social Studies

35% percent in Math tests

25% percent in Science tests

No single student would be allowed to pass a single test with a 60%, 40% or 35% grade. The Government is telling us Schools are getting better and more schools are meeting the acceptable rating than they were two years ago. The current administration in Washington and our representatives across the United States all talk about how important education is but their actions of undermining those initiatives by cutting the money out of education only speak to their real agenda of forcing public education to fail so that they can privatize education.