Tim Ferris points us to a documentary by Bob Compton today, comparing 4 highschool years in the US, China, and India [T+3]. Could a flat-world awakening have positive effects on the education system in the US and in Europe? Remember what happened after the Sputnik shock 50 years ago - from NewScientistSpace:
"Eleven days after the launch, Eisenhower held a meeting of 14 American science and technology leaders. [...] Six months after Sputnik, Life magazine ran an influential cover story comparing the education of apparently typical teenagers from the US and the Soviet Union. Under the headline "Schoolboys point up a US weakness", the hand-wringing article showed Alexei Kutzkov from Moscow learning mathematics and science (not to mention English) at a higher level than Stephen Lepekas of Chicago. From their photos alone, the determined-looking Alexei seemed distinctly more likely to win the space race. What followed in 1958 was precisely the kind of vigorous action Eisenhower's group recommended, including the establishment of NASA.
[...] Yet of equal or greater significance to the US was the National Defense Education Act, which Eisenhower signed into law the same year. This channelled close to $1 billion towards education - particularly science education - over the next four years, supplemented by a similar surge of new funding at the state level.
It was a massive infusion of resources and it changed the face of American higher education. Stroll through a university campus in the US today and notice the dates on the science buildings. Everywhere you look, much of the infrastructure that supports the training of scientists in the US was built in the years immediately after Sputnik's flight."
[Update June 25, 2008: Replaced by &367/]
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