The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

In Chapters 8 and 9, Friedman highlights the ways in which America is failing to prepare for a flat world.

Chapter 8 focuses on the “quiet crisis” brewing in education. In short, the United States is falling behind its past education standards while the rest of the world is catching up. Friedman believes that three things are necessary to compete in a flat world: (1) Internet infrastructure that is fast and efficient, (2) the right education and skills, and (3) the right governance (public policy, research support, etc.). According to Friedman, America needs to fill gaps in these areas before the failings become a more pressing crisis.

Referring to these gaps as “dirty little secrets,” he lays them out one by one. First, the current cohort of workers in the field of science and engineering will soon retire, and there are not enough younger workers to take their places. In the past, replacements came either from educating Americans or bringing in immigrants. Both these replacement pools are now lagging, according to Friedman. Fewer American college students are majoring in the sciences compared to their counterparts in other countries, both in absolute numbers and in the percentage of total graduates. This is an urgent issue because it takes 10 to 20 years to increase the number of college graduates in a particular field. Students must start taking the right classes in middle school to study science or engineering in college. In addition, visas for science and engineering students and workers fell sharply after the September 2001 terrorist attacks.

Next, Friedman addresses the education gap at the top: American students are not being attracted to advanced areas of math, science, or engineering. They also are not faring well compared to their international counterparts. According to a 2004 article in Education Week, 60 and 65 percent of the top American students in science and math programs are the children of immigrants. Friedman finds anecdotal evidence of this gap when talking with a PhD student at Yale University, who tells him that our culture focuses too much on having fun and thus turns students away from math and sciences, which require rigorous courses early on. The student tells Friedman that most of his friends are interested in earning high salaries as investment bankers.

Third, Americans were alone at the top for so long that they lost their ambition, writes Friedman. Pent-up ambitions without an outlet in places like China and India have given students in those countries a strong work ethic. A professor of computer science tells Friedman that of all the American students he has taught over the past six semesters, he would only hire two of them. Likewise, a fifth-grade teacher writes Friedman a letter, explaining how immigrant parents ask for harder homework for their children while American parents complain that the teacher assigns too much homework and that it is too difficult. Friedman’s theory is that people from countries with fewer natural resources tend to have a stronger work ethic because they must rely on their own work to add value to something. He writes, “Taiwan is a barren rock in a typhoon-laden sea, with virtually no natural resources—nothing but the energy, ambition, and talent of its own people—and today it has the third-largest financial reserves in the world” (358).

The fourth gap is the education gap at the bottom: Schools for the most disadvantaged students are failing them, which Friedman attributes to the way public education is set up in America. In all other developed nations, education curriculum and policy are set at the national or state level. The United States, however, relies on local control of education. In this model, disparities in wealth drive a wide gap in educational outcomes. Parents in rich areas pay a smaller percentage of their taxes for schools that attract the best teachers and administrators and provide high quality educations. Meanwhile, parents in poor areas end up paying a larger share of their income in taxes, but the schools and education in their areas remain shoddy. An education expert tells Friedman that this system is rooted in an outdated era during which manufacturing jobs were plentiful: poorer students got enough education to do manufacturing jobs while wealthier students constituted an elite group that was trained to be innovative and creative. In today’s world, however, that system is not suitable.

Another serious gap is the one in research funding. The United States government is not funding university research at the level required to maintain an advantage over other countries. One report showed that funding for research in math, physical sciences, and engineering fell 37 percent between 1970 and 2004 as a share of GDP. Friedman writes that the most recent levels of funding have likewise been stagnant or decreasing.

The sixth gap is the infrastructure gap in terms of broadband usage. Compared to other developed nations, the United States is far behind in broadband coverage and speed. Friedman writes, “The smartest countries, and cities, in the world are offering their residents not just the fastest broadband, but at the lowest prices to the widest areas” (364).

Friedman stresses that competing nations are racing the United States to the top. A Chinese education official tells Friedman that China plans to introduce more creativity, such as arts programs, into its education system. Friedman writes: “She sounded to me just like Wayne Clough of Georgia Tech. And that is the point. China is focused on overcoming its weaknesses—beginning with creative thinking—to match our strengths” (367).