Dave Porter Weblog: 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.