The Chilling Contrast in U.S.-China Education Systems Could Be Our Downfall

When the Soviets put the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, into orbit, it rattled America right to our foundations — and our response to the Soviet challenge was as devastating over the long run as it was swift.

We face a similar challenge from Communist China today, and our response has been less than “Meh.”

Before we get to today, a little perspective.

I wasn’t around in the late ‘50s or early ‘60s, but my Right Angle boss and cohost (and fellow space enthusiast) Bill Whittle was.

“Everything became about space,” is how he’s described that time to me on more than one occasion.

As it ought to have been.

Imagine our preeminent position in the postwar world. American bombers had devastated the German economy during the war, saving countless Allied and Soviet lives by shortening the war. American bombers had done even worse to Japan, and in shorter order. By the time Boeing B-29 heavy bombers had dropped not one, but two nuclear bombs on Japan, it was merely the coup de grace that forced Emperor Hirohito and his military clique to admit the obvious.

The “obvious” was that American dominance of the air, both made possible and enhanced by our engineering prowess, was irresistible.

Yet just 12 years later, the Soviets threatened to end our air dominance by dominating the next realm up: space.

The tiny satellite that did nothing other than orbit the Earth for 22 days while emitting a radio signal back to Earth generated what we now call “The Sputnik Crisis.”

President Dwight Eisenhower reacted almost at once, and in his wake, so did every politician worth his salt. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (later known as DARPA with a a D for Defense) owes its existence to the Sputnik Crisis, and countless other defense measures were launched.

Right now, Communist China threatens to end our dominance on the seas, in the air, and in space.

China is engaged in the largest naval buildup in history, and while their crews are untested, the People’s Liberation Army Navy (actual name!) is working hard at training them up. Already, the PLAN has more — if generally smaller — ships than we do. As a regional power (at least for the moment), China’s navy also has an easier mission than the U.S. Navy does, with its global responsibilities to protect our commerce.

Meanwhile, our Navy’s procurement of surface vessels has become an unfunny — not to mention dangerous — joke. The first of our new class of super-modern nuclear-powered supercarriers, the USS Ford, is years behind schedule and billions over budget. That, we could deal with. But the fact that the Navy won’t perform a proper shock test on the Ford means we have no idea how she’ll perform in battle.

Assuming we ever get her battleworthy.

Chinese aerospace engineers are now some of the best in the world, producing stealthy jets and perhaps even taking the lead in the hypersonic missiles that will define the next generation of air power — and put our missile defenses to the ultimate test.

Most chilling though is the increasing contrast between our education systems.

Our saving grace is our burgeoning private space industry, which is driving costs down and attracting engineering talent from all over the world — but will it be enough?

Chinese universities — whose best professors were trained at American universities — graduate more engineers each year than the U.S. By 2017, Chinese engineering graduates outnumbered their American counterparts by eight to one. That ratio is expected to worse to 15-to-one by 2030.

How are we responding to this challenge?

By infesting our STEM classes with malicious critical race theory and using federal loan guarantees to subsidize literally any kind of degree, no matter how ultimately worthless.

At a time when we desperately need to double down on the engineering talent that made this country the most innovative, wealthy, and secure, we are literally doubling down on stupid.

I'd argue that the main way American universities are falling behind China is that American universities teach the masses that being American is bad, especially being a member of the majority race.

Chinese universities don't do that with their students. They don't sap the life out of their best and brightest. Not at all. In China they're taught that China is totally awesome dude and that being Sino is the best.

Meanwhile American "graduates" are left wondering why life is worth living, much less striving for.

I didn't get that much indoctrination when I was in college. But then, my education was decades ago, in Alabama, and it was getting a computer science degree. That might have sheltered me from the life draining SJW BS that plagues too many BS degrees today.

Chinese universities — whose best professors were trained at American universities — graduate more engineers each year than the U.S. By 2017, Chinese engineering graduates outnumbered their American counterparts by eight to one. That ratio is expected to worse to 15-to-one by 2030.

You know what Chinese engineers don't have to worry about? Being laid off with a family to support so their employer could hire H1B-visa contract labor from India to replace them, that's what.

Nobody wants to work hard for an engineering degree so they can be treated like garbage by business-school graduates. Better to just get the MBA instead.

We’d be better off getting federal funding and teachers unions out of our educational system completely.

Education in the US is sabotaged from the very start, with early-grade reading stubbornly not focused on basic phonics and phonemes. The common core has equally undermined grade-school math.

And yes, the incessant propagandizing from kindergarten on is a waste of time, along with worse.

I have spoken with co-workers who were required to train their H1B replacements, then thrown on the street with a meager severance. That story has been replayed many times by others in different companies.

I'm about 18 months from the date I can retire with max social security. Until then, I'm engaged in yet another urgent system re-engineering task. My co-workers have been associated with the project for the last 20 years. It incorporates technology that I built nearly 30 years ago. None of us are worried about an H1B replacement. The depth of knowledge to perform the work is a 10 to 20 year immersion in the related systems. The vulnerable employees are those with commonly available skillsets that are shuffled around like any commodity.

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