What worries a real defense expert these days? The state of American education

By Eve Hunter
Best Defense bureau of defense and education 

Norm Augustine, former chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin, former Pentagon official, former just about everything defense-related, was invited earlier this month to tackle the topic of the greatest threats to the United States. Speaking to the Johns Hopkins Rethinking Seminar Series, he delivered a forceful critique of the U.S. education system.

For the most part, he cited the figures we have oft heard but choose to not think about due to the herculean nature of reform. Test scores this year have reached a record low. U.S. students from the Class of 2011 ranked 32nd out of 34 OECD countries participating in the international PISA test. California has raised tuition and fees for higher education by 65 percent in the past three years.

Augustine also pointed out certain statistics that point to the impact this situation is having on our national security and economic competitiveness:

• The military now claims that about 70 percent of youth today is ineligible for service due to mental, physical, or moral shortcomings.

• Microsoft is now building a factory on the Canadian side of the border. The United States is not producing enough engineers and strict immigration laws keep talent outside of American companies.

• Attacks in the cyberdomain will most likely be targeted at civilians. Lack of technological talent will affect our ability to respond in the event of a cyberwar.

How have we continued to stay on top over the past few years despite all of these shortcomings? We have relied on immigrants, he said, but he went on to predict that we are not going to be able to continue attracting talented individuals from overseas. To wit, “America’s scientific enterprise, engineering enterprise, but particularly scientific, could barely have functioned in recent decades had it not been for the talented individuals who came to this country from abroad to go to our great universities and decided to stay here and work for our companies or start companies of their own. A disproportionate share of companies in Silicon Valley were started by immigrants to this country. But increasingly the very, very best of foreign-born students are not coming to the United States.”