More and more businesses are outsourcing to foreign countries. With profits their only concern, corporations are abandoning Americans for jobs overseas [1]. Why doesn’t public education do the same?

No, I don’t mean private schools or vouchers. Those are expensive – for example, John Strossel, the ABC News personality who often decides to take on public education, claims private schools can educate children better and cheaper than public schools. Of course, he doesn’t mention his son attended Dalton High (New York City) where the tuition runs $24,000 a year [2]. If John Strossel’s idea of cheaper education is $24,000 per student, the U.S. would go bust. With 37.9 million students enrolled in elementary and high school, that would cost us $909,000,000,000. Wow! With a war to pay for and the recent tax cuts, I don’t think we can afford that price tag.

As you can see, outsourcing to schools like Dalton High is much too expensive, although I am concerned about Stossel’s math education if he thinks he’s getting a great deal by sending his son there. My method of outsourcing is quite simple: we pay foreign students to take tests for our students. It would cost so much less than putting money into public education, and because we could select only the best and brightest foreign students, we would be guaranteed to top the list when international comparisons are made.

Here are the main benefits of outsourcing as I see it:

1. First, corporate America is increasing outsourcing, so why don’t we test the overseas kids that corporations are going to hire? It makes sense, if you think about it. Test the population that will actually be working for you. Outsourcing isn’t just for sweatshops anymore, many high tech companies are doing it.
2. The correlation between standardized test scores and success is not high, [3] so it doesn’t matter if we are testing a different population.
3. American schools could stop focusing on teaching to a narrow multiple choice standardized test, and return to open problem solving, creativity, and the arts.
4. American politicians wouldn’t have to deal with social problems causing failing students, such as abuse, lack of health care, and poverty. Wait – they aren’t dealing with them now, so this one doesn’t count.

Notes & references:

All links below are off site and open in separate window.

1. James Bennett, Management Consultancy, “Offshore outsourcing sees continued rise,” Accountancy Age, web site, 5 Aug 2005. “More than 80% of large companies plan to increase offshore outsourcing operations survey finds” If you Google “increase outsourcing” you’ll get lots of related hits.
2. Marty Solomon, List Serve Group Post, “[eddra] Re: More on Stossel,” Sat, 24 Jun 2006 09:42:29 EDT.
3. Business Execs See Little Correlation Between Standardized Test Scores And Future Success – Brief Article, Jet, 30 April 2001. Fair Test, “SAT I: A Faulty Instrument For Predicting College Success,” Fair Test: The National Center for Fair and Open Testing, web site.