How to compete with that? It isn't easy.
Ahrendt, now at Purdue University studying computer graphics, and Brechbuhl, now at Indiana University, recently met in Washington with the two Indian students and found that they had a lot in common, including pop-culture tastes, and comparable goals. Still, Ahrendt said, "I think they just have more incentive to work harder. . . . You know, we have that incentive here, but it's not the same driving force."
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Hitting a nerve
That is beginning to worry corporate America.
Raytheon Co., for instance, recently launched a website, MathMovesU.com, aimed at exciting middle-school students about math.
"We're very concerned about the technical competency of our future workforce," said Taylor Lawrence, a Raytheon vice president. The company, like others with sensitive government contracts, is required to hire U.S. citizens for many of its high-tech jobs.
"There's a sense that if you look out 10, 15, 20 years, you don't have a very robust pipeline," he said.
Tony Wagner, a Harvard education professor, was among those who watched Compton's film at its Cambridge screening and one of the few whose reaction was positive. Wagner studies innovation in U.S. education and has written a book due out this summer called "The Global Achievement Gap."
Wagner said Compton hit a nerve at Harvard because he was confronting an implacable divide between the American business community and the education establishment.
He agrees with Compton's central thesis.
"We don't challenge kids in schools," he said. "We don't challenge them to think; we don't challenge them to create. We challenge them to get good enough grades to get into a good enough college."
Wagner believes the solution is an overhaul of American education to emphasize innovation and critical thinking, not simply working harder at math and science.
"I'm suggesting that Bob is right, but not that the answer is the Chinese or Indian model," he said. "In this country, it's a different challenge."
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mitchell.landsberg@latimes.com
