Global Strategies

Nigerian Singer Hao Ge is Pop Star in China

 

From wikipedia (here)

Hao Ge (Chinese: 郝歌; pinyin: Hǎo Gē) is the Chinese stage name of Nigerian-born singer Uwechue Emmanuel. He rose to fame through a performance with Han Hong on the CCTV New Year's Gala and has emerged as one of the most notable foreign singers in China.

He began his singing career in the choir at Lagos' House on the Rock Pentecostal church in Nigeria. He received a degree in engineering, and began to pursue a singing career, which led his father to disown him. Before getting his career off the ground in China, he was a country music singer and astro-physicist by profession^.  He has a graduate degree in Mathematics from the University of Monrovia. In 2001, A friend of his, Li Yayu, started his singing career in China by inviting him to perform in hotels and bars throughout Henan and Hubei. At the Big Easy Bar in Beijing, Hao Ge was discovered by Liu Huan, a well-known music producer.

He is fluent in Mandarin Chinese (Hao Ge said that he uses Pinyin to learn Mandarin) and is applying for Chinese citizenship.

Beaverton School District approves Mandarin immersion charter school

This is big, big news. Oregon will have another Mandarin immersion program. Its first, I think, Mandarin charter school. From the Oregonian article “Beaverton School Board approves Oregon Hopes Chinese Charter School and a $1 local option levy” by Wendy Owen (here):

The Beaverton School District opened its doors to its second charter school Monday night, approving Oregon Hope Chinese Charter School to start next fall, but the founders still have several "weaknesses" to address.

The board unanimously approved the Chinese language immersion school with a written requirement that lingering concerns, such as more details on instructional methods, teacher training and fundraising, be addressed by Nov. 15.  The school will join Arco Iris, a Spanish immersion charter school, which opened last year.

Oregon Hope, which already offers Chinese immersion classes on Saturdays at Stoller Middle School for 190 students, would start a school for children grades K-8. The charter school, which is supported by parents, many from Intel, with family and work connections to China, would be modeled on a Chinese immersion program at Woodstock Elementary in Portland.

And:

Hard work and diligence paid off for the school founders, who were told in April that they needed to revamp their application to prove the school would be viable. Working with Beaverton district staff, who specialize in instruction and learning, the group completely revised the more than 100-page document.

There was no shortage of parents to remind the district about the importance of teaching children Chinese in the global economy. Several parents talked about being handicapped in their own businesses because they don't speak Chinese and haven't been able to master the difficult language. But they believe it is essential for their own children to be bilingual.

"China is our biggest customer in Oregon," said parent Dwayne Boyce. "The U.S. is the biggest customer to China."

This is, by my count, the third public Mandarin immersion program in Oregon. Portland Public Schools has the oldest at Woodstock Elementary that takes 60 new students (two classes) per year (It could and should take more). Lake Oswego School District has also just started a Mandarin  immersion program (I'd guess one class of 25-30) . So this is a significant percentage expansion of public Mandarin immersion in Oregon.

Congratulations to the Beaverton School Board and administration for their vision and willingness to work with the applicants. And especially, congratulations to the founders, parents and supporters who persevered in this effort to create a Mandarin immersion program in Beaverton. They understand, better than most of our leaders, the world our next generations will need to compete in.

Higher Ed bubble: "The Crazy Growth of Student Loans"

There is a probable bubble in higher education. Higher ed costs just seem to keep increasing in spite of lower cost alternatives like online learning. Tuition keeps going up so students need to borrow more. The above chart and its accompanying Atlantic article “Student loans have grown by 511% since 1999’ by Daniel Indiviglio give a picture of how unusual the growth in student loans has been. From Indiviglio’s article (here):

..... This student loan growth sure looks unsustainable. But it's hard to see how this bubble's inevitable pop might look. Ultimately, it might look more like a balloon slowly deflating, if a large portion of college graduates decide to strategically default on their debt over time.

All this college debt could put the U.S. on a slower growth path in the years to come. As Americans grapple with high student loan payments for the first few decades of their adult lives, they'll have less money to spend and invest. All that money flowing into colleges and universities is being funneled away from other industries where it would have been spent in future years. Of course, this would be a rather unfortunate irony: higher education is supposed to enhance a nation's growth, but with such an enormous debt burden, graduates might not be able to spend and invest enough to allow that growth to occur.....

On the other hand, there is a constant drumbeat that our next generations need more and more education, usually without any cost considerations. A recent Oregonian article “Oregon loses $35 million a year to college student failure, says American Institute for Research” by Bill Grave is an example. It begins (here):

About 40 percent of students who enter Oregon's colleges and universities drop out before earning a degree, and that failure costs the state about $35 million in lost income and taxes, according to a report released today by the American Institutes for Research….

And:

…. The research group calculated losses by taking the number of students who fail to graduate and multiplying that by the difference between the median earnings of young adults with some college but no degree and of those with a bachelor's degree…..

Oregon Education Investment Board nominees lack global and online visions

There are two megatrends which dominate our economic and educational futures: globalization (our need to sell more goods abroad) and digitalization (in education, online learning). Governor Kitzhaber has now nominated the twelve member of the Oregon Education Investment Board, which will help him develop and coordinate a birth-to-grade 20 education system in Oregon. Unfortunately, to my current knowledge and from the info given on the Governor’s press release (here), I see no advocates for the changes needed to respond in Oregon to either megatrend nominated. No advocate for stronger foreign language programs, especially Mandarin immersions and high school study abroad programs, is listed. And no advocate for laptops for high school students or more online classes is listed. Such a Board may help the Governor squeeze some waste out of the existing system, but it is not going to give him the broader vision of educational reform that Oregon needs. Advocates for the two most significant educational reforms do not even have a voice at the table.

I find fault with no individual nominees. But some important perspectives are gravely missing.

Biden's niece studied Mandarin in China

From a speech by Vice President Biden at Sichuan University in Chengdu, China (here):

That's why we launched our 100,000 Strong Initiative to boost the number of American students studying in China each year and have maintained a robust Peace Corps presence.  How many Peace Corps volunteers are here today?  Raise your hands.  We love you guys.  Welcome.  Welcome.  (Applause.)

Last year, over 800,000 Chinese and 2 million Americans traveled between our countries to live, work, study and explore new places.  On a personal note, I've seen the value of these exchanges through the experiences of my niece, a young woman who learned Mandarin at Harvard and spent a year in Beijing refining her language skills and ultimately worked at our Treasury Department on U.S.-China relations.  There are tens of thousands of you like her, who are going to be the key to cement this relationship and deal  with misconception and form the relevant societies about the motivations and operations of each of our countries.

These ties among our people are the life blood of our emerging partnership.  The bottom line is this:  As great nations and as global actors, the United States and China face many of the same challenges and share many of the same responsibilities.  And the more we can work together, the more our people will benefit and -- as I said before it sounds chauvinistic, but the more the world will benefit as a consequence of our cooperation.

Oregon University System: 100,000 plus and changing

Student enrollment in the Oregon University System is growing, but growing in new ways. From the Oregonian article “Increases in transfer students may push Oregon University System enrollment above 100,000” by Bill Graves (here):

….Increases in first-time freshmen are flattening at state universities, but better retention of enrolled students and an increase in transfer students from community colleges will push the student count higher at most universities when they open next month…..

 And:

Unlike usual, the universities are gaining more in upper-grade enrollment from transfers and retention than in new freshmen. That could put some financial pressure on universities because junior and senior classes and programs are more expensive, Kieran said.

Enrollment increases have been critical in helping the state's universities offset declines in state financial support in recent years. The Legislature this year gave the university system $722 million in state funding for 2011-12, about 9 percent less than it had in the last biennium.

The universities this fall will raise their tuition an average 7.5 percent for full-time resident undergraduate students to help offset the loss in state funding.

Public universities in California and Washington have seen sharper tuition increases in the wake of state budget cuts, driving some of their students to Oregon. The University of Washington, for example, will raise tuition and fees 20 percent for in-state undergraduates this fall.

While enrollment growth gives universities new revenue, it also can produce new costs if they don't have sufficient faculty or class and dorm space. Enrollment growth, just like the university's physical and economic development, must be sustainable, said Scott Gallagher,  spokesman for Portland State University, the state's largest university with about 29,000 students.

"Growth for growth's sake is not positive," he said. "It's not a goal."

So enrollment grows, state funding declines, in-state tuition increases, and shifts take place within the student population. This is not a sustainable dynamic. And, as I’ve blogged before (here):

What should Oregon do with its public universities as their costs rise and the “disruptive technology’ of online learning increasingly provides lower cost alternatives? I’ve blogged previously and regularly about the possible “bubble” in higher education. I’ve advocated a total rethink of the structure of public higher ed: letting the Oregon big three go private, shifting to vouchers (usable for online programs as well) for students, and finding a new way to fund research. Recently, I was excited to note that Tim Nesbitt now advocates “extending Oregon financial aid (Opportunity Grants) to students taking online courses at the Western Governors University.” That would be a good step in the right direction.

“Chinese Students Flood U.S. Grad Schools”

From the Wall Street Journal article “Chinese Students Flood U.S. Grad Schools” by Melissa Korn (here):

Thanks to a thriving economy at home, an increasing number of Chinese students are attending U.S. graduate schools, according to a study to be released on Tuesday by a graduate-school industry group.

Graduate schools saw a 21% increase in Chinese applicants from the last school year and a 23% increase in admissions offers, for students slated to start this fall, according to a study by the Council of Graduate Schools. It is the sixth year in a row of double-digit percentage increases for Chinese students….

And:

….. According to the Institute, Chinese students enrolled in U.S. undergraduate and graduate schools increased nearly 30% to 127,628 in the 2009-2010 academic year from the prior academic year. The number of students from Saudi Arabia, which launched a state-funded scholarship program in 2006, rose almost 25% to 15,810 in the same period. Those were two of the fastest-growing sources of international students, according to the IIE…..

"Marching orders for Ben Cannon"

Steve Duin gives the Governor’s new education advisor some advice in his column “Marching orders for Ben Cannon: Oregon schools need your presence” (here)

.... A Rhodes Scholar, Cannon's talents were wasted in the Legislature. Every additional minute he spends in the Salem echo chamber will be wasted, too.

The governor floats above the fray. He prefers designer boots to work boots. Kitzhaber wants to reconfigure the way government delivers services and pays for them. All power to him.

But Cannon can't afford to operate at the same aesthetic distance, and with the same stoic detachment, from the problems kids bring to school. He's needed on the street, in the classroom, at the right hand of the SUN school coordinator.

After teaching at a private school in Tigard for eight years, Cannon surely understands the value of one caring adult in a child's life.

But he needs to wrestle with the freshman whose home is in foreclosure. The sophomore who hates three-day weekends because it's another 24 hours without a decent meal. The junior forced to turn tricks at truck stops. The senior who has been failed by four state agencies whose budgets were so carefully slashed by the Legislature.

Until he does, Cannon will add nothing to our understanding of what Oregon schools face when so many families and social services are in disrepair.....

I do agree with Duin, but that is not all that Cannon needs to do. He does need to, and may already, understand the problems of impoverished students. But Duin seems to suggest that better understanding of their plight leads to solutions for them and for the whole educational system, and that such empathy and understanding is sufficient to change our educational system. Not so. First, as Duin suggests, many of the problems of impoverished students are not primarily educational but relate to their poverty. Other social services programs need to be coordinated with educational programs to best serve impoverished students. More resources will be needed to do an effective job. But there is only so much an educational advisor like Cannon can do to shape the human/social service system or to get more funding. Second, Cannon must make Oregon’s educational system respond to two megatrends: digitization and globalization. This means more online options and computers for students, and much stronger foreign language programs, starting as young as possible and with many more study abroad options. Third, Cannon has to deal with the accountability, testing, organization and teacher management issues that currently seem to dominate educational policy consideration.

Cannon and the Governor need to move on all these fronts. Just empathizing with underserved, impoverished students is not enough. Just hanging out at Roosevelt High School is not enough.

Melee between the Georgetown basketball team and a Chinese army team

There was a melee between the Georgetown basketball team and a Chinese army team. Part is shown in the above video. Andrew Jacobs reports on it in the NY Times (here):

….. Senior leaders are clearly displeased that players from its most popular men’s basketball team got into an ugly, full-court brawl Thursday night with the Georgetown University Hoyas.

It does not help that the melee took place on the second day of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s first official visit to China.

The violence, captured by amateur video cameras and broadcast around the world, occurred during the final minutes of a “good will” match between the Hoyas and the Bayi Rockets, a team whose members are drawn from the People’s Liberation Army.

In the video, a Rockets player can be seen ramming the guard Aaron Bowen through a partition and pounding on him with fists as he sat on his chest. Before the Georgetown coach pulled his men off the floor and called the game quits, Chinese players and spectators threw punches, folding chairs and full bottles of water. With that, the game officially ended in a tie, 64-64…..

Another take, with more melees by the Chinese team, here.

On corruption in China

This is a video interview between James Fallows and Damien Ma on corruption in China. The source, with more info, is here.