Dave Porter Weblog

An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course

The Council on Foreign Relations, Task Force Report #59, "U.S.-China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course" (April, 2007) recommends (page 93 of the report):

Education

One of the more important, but less obvious, steps the United States can take to enhance its ability to influence China is to educate Americans in Chinese studies and to expand America’s educational exchange programs with China. Accordingly, the United States should launch a major new initiative to strengthen the nation’s ability to understand and interact with China on the fiftieth anniversary of the 1958 National Defense Education Act (NDEA). This new NDEA would:

• Fund a comprehensive national educational plan designed to train a new generation of Americans about China’s language, history, economy, politics, and culture. Numerous educational institutions are continuing and expanding these programs, not only at the collegiate level, but also in primary and secondary education, often with cooperation from nongovernmental organizations (like the Asia Society) and corporations. The Task Force recommends that federal funding for these efforts should be significantly increased.

Education's New Map

From a post "Education's New Map" on Robert Jacobs' (sixth grade teacher in Fullerton, California) blog "Education Innovation: Where Education Meets the World:"

Further, because we now live in the globalized world, our students will need to be adept with interacting with people from many different cultures. This means developing a skill set for understanding, appreciating, and valuing the cultures of others, while at the same time valuing their own unique set of American values. Our students must be able to navigate the multitude of cultures and develop positive relationships with people from across the globe. Fortunately, America is so diverse. We must use this diversity as a strength and help our students learn from each other.

In addition, our students will need to become adept at the art of collaboration. Globalization requires that people work with others. Students need to start practicing now by collaborating with fellow students. This is a great opportunity to introduce project base learning into our classrooms and schools. We must create opportunities for students to work together. Technology makes it possible for students to collaborate with students around the globe. I have seen some amazing projects with students in this country working with students from Africa and Australia. This reinforces my point about the need for appreciating other cultures. Collaboration as a skill set should be developed at every opportunity in our schools.

Finally, innovation and creativity skills must be taught and developed in our schools. With thousands of degrees being awarded in the coming decades, especially in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, what is going to set our students apart?  Creativity and innovation will. We need these skills taught in our classrooms. 

In summary, a connected globalized world will require certain skill sets and knowledge. It is our responsibility to prepare our students to meet these challenges. I question whether, in this current system of high stakes testing and standards based education, we are doing enough to prepare our students for life outside of the classroom walls.

WI: Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Language

From the Associated Press article "Milwaukee Chinese School Part of Growing National Interest:"

The Milwaukee school district is opening a Chinese school this fall -- one of at least a dozen Chinese programs in Wisconsin.

About 130 students have signed up so far to attend the Milwaukee Academy of Chinese Language, also part of a growing number of schools offering Chinese language classes nationwide.

It will teach 4-year-old kindergarten through fifth grade the Mandarin language, symbols and culture for 30 to 45 minutes a day, along with traditional curriculum in English.

James Sayavong, who started the Milwaukee school, said he expects nearly 200 students to enroll by fall. So far the school's students are mostly from the surrounding neighborhood, which is generally black and low income.

He said he wants this type of education to be available for everyone. He said he wants Milwaukee children to learn about one of America's largest trading partners, giving them an edge later in their careers.

Few Defense $'s for Needed Languages

Max Boot's post "Lost in Translation" on Comentarymagazine.com, also mention on Andrew Sullivan's blog

It’s a mystery to me why, since 9/11, we haven’t launched a crash program to teach thousands of young people Near Eastern languages. Dari, Pashto, Urdu, Arabic, Farsi—all these languages are tremendously important in the global war on terrorism. We should look for inspiration to the early days of the cold war, when we ramped up programs to teach Russian and Chinese.

The Defense Department, belatedly, is taking some small steps in the right direction. On Tuesday, the Pentagon issued press releases announcing a pair of initiatives—the ROTC Language and Culture Project and the Pilot Language Corps. Under the former program, four grants (totaling $2 million) have been awarded to Indiana University, San Diego State University, the University of Mississippi, and the University of Texas at Austin. This money will pay for the instruction of ROTC cadets in Arabic, Russian, Azeri, Kazakh, Pashto, Tajik, Turkmen, Uyghur, and Uzbek. Under the latter program, 1,000 linguists from across the country will agree to serve the government for a certain number of days per year, and will be available for call-up in an emergency—just like military reservists.

Good ideas, both, but they don’t go nearly far enough. Two million dollars is a laughably small amount by Pentagon standards—roughly equivalent to what we spend on the Iraq war every two hours. The entire defense budget, after all, is well over $500 billion a year; advanced fighter aircraft, like the F-22, cost over $250 million each. The Pentagon tells us what its priorities are by the way it allocates cash. And at the moment, building such aircraft (which are nearly useless for fighting the global war on terrorism) is clearly a much higher priority than developing the language skills we so desperately need.

We should be doing much, much more. We should start by requiring all graduates of the nation’s military academies to spend a year of study abroad—and preferably not in Western Europe. We should be sending thousands of additional military personnel to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and to other facilities where they can spend a year or more in intensive, full-time study of strategic languages. We should also reward and promote currently serving personnel who have attained advanced knowledge of foreign languages and cultures. We won’t close our knowledge gap until a Foreign Area Officer—an officer who has dedicated much of his career to understanding a particular region—gets at least as much respect within his service as a tank commander or fighter pilot.

Shanghai: NY on Steriods

The Globalist article "Shanghai's Latest  Global Turn" by Jeff Wasserstrom:

...Now, it is sometimes described as outpacing both the French capital and the Big Apple, and treated as an excitingly or dangerously ultra-modern locale. It now has more skyscrapers than Manhattan, a maglev faster than France’s TGV, and a new media nickname, “New York on Steroids,” that implies a worry about excess....

Add Chinese immersion on Portland west side

A group of west side Portland parents has formed to advocate for a Mandarin immersion program on Portland's west side. They have a website.

As Chinese language studies have gained popularity in the U.S., many schools have added Chinese immersion programs which offer classes taught in Mandarin Chinese.

In the Portland public school district, there are 5 immersion programs, offered at Woodstock, Hosford, Cleveland, Franklin and Atkinson schools. All of these schools are located on the east side of Portland.

Many Chinese families live on the west side of Portland. It is difficult to be accepted into the existing Chinese immersion programs and inconvenient to send our children to the east side schools.

Therefore we expect that there is much interest in adding a Chinese immersion program on the west side. We aim to gather a group of families willing to support such a program. Once we have enough interest, we will bring this show of support to the attention of the Portland public school district.

Oregon understands the challenges of the 21st century

Testimony of Dave Porter
Before Oregon Joint Ways and Means Subcommittee on Education
4/26/07

    Chairman Galizio and members of the Committee, my name is Dave Porter. I am retired, live in Southeast Portland and represent only myself. The following is testimony on SB 5515 pleading to add provisions to that bill so that the Oregon University System will increase the percentage of undergraduates studying Mandarin to 4% and will send 500 students per year to study abroad in China.

    The issue is China, and are we preparing today’s students in Oregon for the challenges and opportunities that a rising China will pose over their lifetimes? And the question is not just are we giving educational opportunities to individual students, but are we preparing the next generations, as groups, to have the language and cultural skills that can make our state, and our nation, successful in the future international system. The answer is: no, not at all. Neither our public K-12 educational system nor our public colleges and universities are producing Mandarin proficient and Chinese-culture-knowledgeable students in significant numbers.

Consider the large scale of the challenges: Columnist Thomas Friedman wrote “that when the history of this era is written, the trend that historians will cite as the most significant will not be 9/11 and the
U.S. invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It will be the rise of China and India.” Columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote “I’m a believer in China, and I think it will end this century as the most important country in the world.” Scholar Jeffrey Sachs advised Americans to prepare for a world where by the year 2050 China's economy could be 75% bigger than our own. China will be the most important, pivotal security relationship for the US in the 21st century. War, peace, prosperity, pandemics, clean energy, terrorism, and global warming all turn on US-China relations. What is at stake for us and our children is simply too big to continue to avoid.

    Put those thoughts on the future with where Oregon is now: Currently less than 1% of Oregon high schools graduates have had two years or more of  Mandarin. While some expansion is underway, it is unlikely to reach 2% soon. At the university level, less than 2% of the undergraduates at the U of O, OSU and PSU now study Mandarin. During the 2003-04 academic year, only 35 (0.044%) of the 79,558 students in the Oregon University System studied abroad in China. These are not the statistics of an educational system preparing students for the 21^st century or to engage a rising China constructively. We have done little to address the biggest issue of the 21^st century.

    We must begin to change what we are doing. Oregon needs to invest in developing more Mandarin programs for its students K-16, featuring not the two years of high school foreign languages of the past, but more programs that produce fluent speakers able to function professionally in two languages and cultures.Oregon's higher educational system will not be all it should be until it gets a large flow of Oregon high school graduates that are already Mandarin proficient. But in the meantime, the Oregon University System could increase the number of students studying Mandarin to 4% of its undergraduates and send 500 students per year to study abroad in China. This Legislative Assembly should not just reinvest in the higher education system of the past. I know you are considering targeted higher educational investments in technology. Targeted investments in Mandarin and study abroad in China programs are even more important. I urge you to fund them specifically. Please get the Oregon University System to tell you what it needs to reach these targets. Then make it a priority for funding.

    We will need to do much more in the future. I dream of an Oregon that does more, an Oregon that sends this message to other states, to China, and to the rest of the world: Oregon understands the challenges of the 21^st century. We may not like them, but we see them clearly and will meet them. And then, I dream further, those future historians of Tom Friedman as they write their histories of this era will note that Oregon had a generation of leaders, writing of us, with vision who acted boldly to provide the tipping point for a century of global peace and prosperity. Our children, and all the children on this globe, deserve this from us.

Thank you for your consideration.

This testimony was submitted. Because of time constraints, I only spoke very briefly before the subcommittee.