– Nonostante sia diffusa la credenza – tanto tra i cittadini americani che all’estero – che gli Usa stiano perdendo il vantaggio economico, che Cina ed altri paesi emergenti stiano battendo gli Usa nella gara per “i lavori del futuro”, come avverte il presidente Obama,
– lo studio dimostra che, guardando al di là della paralisi dell’establishment di Washington, le prospettive per l’economia americana sono migliori di quanto si creda: a livello regionale e locale gli Usa stanno attuando vigorose riforme e innovazioni.
– Tuttavia, tali cambiamenti diverranno di sistema solo se adottati o promossi a livello federale, dove è in corso un pericoloso duello sulla questione del bilancio, che finora non ha provocato seri danni.
– La ripresa economica degli Usa continua a ritmo sostenuto; sono state evitate ricadute nella recessione causate dall’austerità, diversamente da come accaduto in diversi paesi europei; tagli alla spesa e aumenti delle entrate stano frenando il deficit.
o Secondo la classifica del World Economic Forum (WEF), in 4 anni gli Usa sono scesi dal 4° al 7° posto nella competitività internazionale;
o per le infrastrutture al 14/144 paesi;
o educazione primaria e sanità 34°;
o istituzione 41°;
o ambiente macroeconomico 111°, soprattutto per l’alto debito pubblico (17 000 MD, oltre il 100% del PIL, anche se gran parte effetto transitorio della recessione); al 1° posto solo per dimensione del mercato, posizione che presto sarà della Cina.
o Si prevede che i crescenti costi di Medicare e Medicaid (programmi della sanità federale per gli anziani e per i poveri), e quelli della Previdenza sociale (pensioni statali), consumeranno tutti gli introiti federali entro una generazione.
o Il forte conflitto tra Repubblicani e Democratici porta a decisioni dell’ultima ora;
o disfunzioni politiche e mancanza di fondi nel bilancio impediscono al Congresso di far fronte ad altre evidenti carenze dell’economia:
o sistema educativo;
o ricerca e sviluppo;
o burocrazia invasiva.
– 1. Innovazione – una nazione di cervelli
Ricerca e sviluppo
– Gli Usa continuano a spendere la stessa quota del PIL per R&S, e continuano a ottenere innovazioni importanti, come il “fracking” per gas e petrolio;
o sono ancora molto superiori alla Cina per la ricerca universitaria;
– L’America investe in R&S più di qualsiasi altro paese, anche se la sua quota sulla ricerca globale mondiale è calata dal 38% del 1999 al 31% nel 2009;
o sono solo al 9° posto nel mondo per la loro quota degli investimenti in R&S sul PIL, quasi il 2,9%; l’ammontare è lievemente calato in assoluto per due anni durante la recessione.
o gli investimenti americani in R&S sono aumentati del 25% rispetto al 2004; nei 5 anni 2004-2009 +5,8%, contro +3,3% del PIL.
o Nel decennio 1999-2009, gli investimenti in R&S della Cina + 20% l’anno.
– Gli Usa rimangono al 4° posto mondiale per innovazione (dopo Singapore, Finlandia e Svezia); nel 2000 erano al 1°, questo non perché abbiano ridotto la ricerca ma perché altri paesi l’hanno aumentata; rimangono in fondo alla classifica gli emergenti Brasile, Cina e India.
o Il think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation – ITIF rimarca: negli USA il credito fiscale riconosciuto per R&S è di circa il 6% dell’ammontare degli investimenti di un dato gruppo, contro il 14% della Cina e il 29% della Danimarca.
o La quota di pubblicazioni scientifiche degli Usa è scesa dal 40% del 1980 al 29% del 2008.
– In crescita il numero di brevetti americani, vicino al picco storico in rapporto alla popolazione (Brookings).
– Sono americane 27 delle 30 università più citate per la ricerca.
– Dipende dal governo federale solo per l’31% della R&S americana, ma oltre per la metà della ricerca base, mentre i gruppi economici si concentrano più sullo Sviluppo che sulla Ricerca.
– Sono il frutto della ricerca di base finanziata dal governo e dallo sviluppo e utilizzo da parte dei gruppi economici le tecniche innovative del fracking idraulico e dalla perforazione orizzontale
[1] stanno dando una forte spinta al settore gas e petrolio, e di conseguenza all’intera economia.
Alcuni esempi di progetti avanzati di ricerca americana:
– L’Agenzia per i Progetti di Ricerca Avanzata della Difesa (Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency – DARPA) ha promosso importanti tecnologie, da internet ai sistemi di posizionamento agli aerei stealth invisibili ai radar.
o obiettivo del progetto Living Foundries: scoprire come usare i microbi per trovare e riparare materiali rovinati;
o il progetto Blood Pharming mira a creare un kit per produrre sangue da una cultura per trasfusioni sui campi di battaglia;
o il progetto ChemBots, creare robot in grado di cambiare la propria forma, per passare in strette aperture, e poi ricostituirsi.
– 2. Energia – Grande sospiro di sollievo
– La possibilità di sfruttare le enormi riserve di idrocarburi intrappolati nella roccia (petrolio e gas da scisti) con il sistema del fracking e della trivellazione orizzontale,
o in particolare il giacimento del Marcellus shale (Scisto Marcellus), formazione geologica che si estende per 600 miglia dagli Appalachi alla Virginia, e che si pensa sia il maggior giacimento di gas dell’America,
– ha fatto rinascere l’economia americana nel suo complesso, e in particolare il settore siderurgia, dopo un periodo di crisi e chiusure; quasi $3MD gli introiti fiscali aggiuntivi.
o Si calcola il settore idrocarburi sfruttato con le nuove tecniche abbia contribuito all’economia della Pennsylvania per $14MD, + $27MD previsione per il 2020). Nel 2012 il governo della Pennsylvaniaha fatto concessioni per 2 484 pozzi; nella prima metà del 2012la produzione di gas (nella parte della Pennsylvania del Marcellus) è stata di 895 piedi cubici, contro i 435 nello stesso periodo del 2011, e quasi nulla nel 2008.
o Da stime, nel 2012, gli abitanti della Pennsylvania che hanno concesso trivellazioni sul loro terreno hanno guadagnato circa $1,2 MD per le royalty.
o Nell’insieme Marcellus ha già prodotto in Pennsylvania oltre 100 000 posti di lavoro, che dovrebbero giungere a oltre 220 000 entro il 2020 (studio IHS).
o Hanno avuto benefici anche Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma e Texas:
o dal 2007 al 2010, è aumentata di 4 volte la produzione di gas da scisti negli Usa,
o +20% la produzione di gas negli ultimi 5 anni; gli Usa sono divenuti il maggior produttore mondiale di gas.
o Laproduzione di gas nord-americano (Usa soprattutto) crescerà mediamente del5,3%/anno fino al 2030, secondo proiezioni BP.
o Dal 2008 al 2012 il prezzo locale del gas è sceso da oltre $13 per unità termiche britanniche a $1-2, poi è lievemente salito.
– Nel 2011 gli USA avevano il secondo minor prezzo del gas (dopo il Canada) tra i paesi ricchi (IEA); le fabbriche Usa hanno pagato il gas 1/3 di quelle tedesche, e ¼ di quelle sudcoreane, ora ancora meno,
o ma anche l’elettricità, costa circa la metà di quella delle fabbriche in Cile e Messico, e ¼ di quella in Italia.
o Investimenti aumentati nel siderurgico (produzione di tubature per il settore gas), ma anche nelle industrie ad intensità energetica, dalla plastica ai fertilizzanti.
o Shell progetta la costruzione di un cracker (fratturaratore) per trasformare in etilene l’etano che emerge con il gas del Marcellus, da usare per la produzione di plastiche.
o Chevron, Phillips, Dow Chemical, Formosa Plastic, Occidental Petroleum e Williams stanno ampliando le fabbriche chimiche o costruendone di nuove lungo la costa del Golfo, altro centro per il gas.
o Il gruppo chimico Methanex dal Cile sposta una delle sue fabbriche in Louisiana, dove il gas costa meno.
o CF Industries espande la produzione di fertilizzanti; Nucor, siderurgia, costruisce una nuova fabbrica; il sudafricano Sasol intende costruire una raffineria in Lousiana, per trasformare il gas in petrolio,
o con tendenza opposta rispetto al passato, diverse società intendono costruire strutture per la liquefazione del gas, da esportare.
o Il gruppo egiziano Orascom intende costruire una fabbrica di fertilizzanti in Iowa; Bridgestone, Continental e Michelin fabbricheranno gomme in Sud Carolina, dopo un lungo declino.
– L’ampia rete di oleodotti negli Usa consente l’accesso a gas e prodotti chimici a basso prezzo a clienti lontani dai giacimenti.
– Il forte calo del prezzo del gas spinge alla ricerca di petrolio da scisti (Permian Basin, Eagle Ford Shale in Texas, formazione Bakken in North Dakota e Mississippian Lime tra Oklahoma e Kansas);
– le tecniche usate hanno consentito l’aumento di 1/3 della produzione petrolifera negli ultimi 4 anni, a 7mn. di barili/giorno; previsto un ulteriore aumento di 1mn b/g nei prossimi due anni.
– BP prevede che per la fine del 2013 l’America supererà Russia ed Arabia Saudita nella produzione di combustibile liquido, petrolio e biocombustibili.
– Il nuovo petrolio produce altrettanta bonanza di quella prodotta dal gas per le aeree attorno ai giacimenti … dove il petrolifero rappresenta il 15% dell’economia locale, ed ha prodotto 72 000 posti di lavoro su una popolazione di meno di 700 000.
– Il boom americano del petrolio da scisti ha prodotto però un aumento di solo 1-2% del totale mondiale, insufficiente a ridurne significativamente il prezzo, ma ha ridotto fortemente l’importazione americana di petrolio, circa -10% del deficit commerciale petrolifero Usa, pari a $70MD.
– Nel 2012 gas e petrolio da fonti non convenzionali negli Usa hanno aggiunto attività economiche per $238MD, 1,7 mn di posti di lavoro, e $62 MD di introiti fiscali. (calcoli IHS)
– Per i prossimi due anni, l’American Chemistry Council prevede: nuovi investimenti per 72MD, in solo 8 industrie (settori), e conseguente nuova attività economica per $342 MD nel 2015-2020; 1,2 mn. di nuovi posti di lavoro; $26MD/anno di nuovi introiti fiscali.
– Analisti di Citigroup e USB prevedono nei prossimi anni un aumento di ½ punto/anno del PIL legato alla produzione di gas e petrolio da scisti.
– Altri fattori della prevista rinascita economica USA:
o invogliano a riportare il lavoro negli Usa l’aumento costo della forza lavoro in Cina e della spedizione di merci; la riduzione dei cicli di produzione che avvantaggia le fabbriche più vicine ai consumatori; unitamente ai minori prezzi di energia e petrolchimica.
– Il PIL Usa è ancora inferiore a quello del 2007, e il deficit commerciale con la Cina ancora in crescita, ma alcuni casi emergono alla cronaca:
o GE ha spostato la produzione di alcune merci da Cina e Messico al Kentucky;
o il cinese Lenovo, che ha acquisito il settore PC di IBM, pensa di riportare parte della produzione in North Carolina.
o Per attrarre investitori di questo calibro, a lungo termine gli USA necessitano di una forza lavoro meglio preparata.
– 3. Sistema educativo – si rimodella il valore aggiunto
– Le scuole americane stanno vivendo la maggiore trasformazione che si ricordi
– Negli Usa sono i singoli Stati che regolano il sistema educativo.
– Nel quadro del programma per l’educazione lanciato da Obama, RTT, Race to the Top, Corsa al primo posto), volto a migliorare il livello di insegnanti e studenti soprattutto, offrendo borse di studio su base competitiva a stati e distretti scolastici,
o Delaware e Tennessee sono stati i primi a vincere nel 2010;
o 19 Stati hanno ricevuto borse RTT; tutti gli Stati ad eccezione di 4 hanno fatto domanda per RTT.
– La precedente riforma federale, NO Children Left Behind (Nessun Bambino lasciato Indietro) poneva obiettivi tanto elevati che 34 Stati chiesero e ottennero di potervi rinunciare, a patto che seguissero linee simili a quelle poste dal RRT; ne risultò una forte accelerazione delle riforme, con l’adozione di un programma base comune per tutti i 50 stati tranne 5.
o Il governatore del Delaware: fondamentale per la competitività la riforma del sistema educativo; attuate profonde trasformazioni del sistema scolastico, dalla formazione e valutazione degli insegnanti, a nuovi programmi per inglese e matematica, ai test, ai crediti per il college,
o alla preparazione professionale, per adattarla meglio alla richiesta dalle aziende locali e migliorare la qualifiche.
o Da alcune ricerche McKinsey: solo il 49% dei datori di lavoro ritengono che i nuovi assunti abbiano ricevuto la preparazione necessaria; il 67% delle imprese manifatturiere, nel 2011, aveva problemi a trovare personale adeguato, e il 5% dei posti di lavoro rimaneva vuoto per mancanza di domande di lavoro adeguate;
o nel 2020 mancheranno circa 875000 macchinisti, saldatori, metalmeccanici, e simili.
o Nella sua campagna elettorale, Obama si è impegnato a inserire altri 2 mn. di persone con i community college, corsi post-superiori di 2 anni, una specie di laurea breve, oppure qualifiche tecniche, anziché la laurea di 4 anni, auspicando la cooperazione dei rappresentanti dell’economia locale, e suggerito un maggior finanziamento ai college e insegnanti i cui studenti trovano lavoro.
– Nel 2012, 24 stati hanno varato leggi per favorire l’incremento delle iscrizioni a scuole tecniche, o per il loro adeguamento ai bisogni delle imprese locali.
o Nell’area di Chicago, esperimento con 84 imprese, finora, per definire programmi di studio e offrire stage di lavoro, prima dell’eventuale assunzione. Tentativi per evitare curriculum di studio ripetitivi, ed accelerare la formazione.
o Es. di riforma base: A 100 bambini di una scuola materna di un villaggio per metà giornata viene insegnato solo in cinese mandarino; si prevede di portare le classi di full immersion da 340 a 1000 studenti il prossimo anno, e 10 000 nel decennio.
o alzata la qualità dei corsi pre-scolastici per i bambini poveri, per accelerarne l’apprendimento scolastico.
o I risultati concreti di queste riforme a livello federale saranno verificati a fine anno; il Delaware ha registrato un aumento a due cifre della quota di studenti valutati come “capaci” in lettura e matematica nei test statali.
o Troppo presto anche per verificarne gli esiti rispetto alle graduatorie internazionali sul sistema educativo di test come PISA e TIMSS,
o Secondo i testi TIMSS (preparato da un consorzio internazionale di istituti di ricerca) gli USA sono nei o prossimi ai primi 10 per matematica e scienze, preceduta di molto dalla Russia;
o PISA, compilato dall’OCSE, classifica molto più in basso gli USA ma davanti alla Russia.
– La maggior parte delle ricerche accademiche dicono che le riforme scolastiche recenti hanno prodotto scarsi miglioramenti nei punteggi dei test degli studenti. I sindacati insegnanti non amano le “charter school”[2] e i voucher, e non sono favorevoli al fatto che le loro retribuzioni siano legate alle valutazioni; il governatore del Delaware ha proposto l’aumento delle retribuzioni iniziali degli insegnanti e il pagamento di Bonus agli insegnanti leader, ed ha ottenuto l’appoggio dei sindacati locali degli insegnanti.
– 4. Immigrazione – Il nostro obiettivo
– Secondo una proiezione del Georgetown University’s Centre on Education and the Workforce nel decennio 2008-2018, gli Usa creeranno 779 000 posti di lavoro per laureati STEM (Scienze, tecnologia, ingegneria, matematica), ma al ritmo attuale solo 550 000 americani avranno tali qualifiche, per cui necessitano immigrati.
– Da uno studio per Partnership for a New American Economy, sono 262 i nuovi posti di lavoro occupati da americani nativi contro per ogni 100 lavoratori nati all’estero assunti con lauree STEM presso università americane;
o per ogni 100 visti per lavoratori stranieri specializzati (visti H-1B), hanno trovato lavoro 183 americani;
o ogni lavoratore immigrato specializzato paga imposte pari a 10 volte quanto ricevono in benefici dal governo; gli immigrati rischiano molto meno degli americani nativi di finire in carcere.
o Uno studio del 2007 ha calcolato che la regolarizzazione dei milioni di immigrati, i meno specializzati, porterebbe in 10 anni introiti aggiuntivi per $48MD, contro un aumento della spesa statale di soli $23MD.
o Gli immigrati evitano il declino demografico, conterebbero per l’82% della crescita demografica nel periodo 2005-2050 (Pew Research Center), e per l’intera crescita della popolazione attiva,
o fattore di contrasto all’insostenibilità finanziaria di Medicare e previdenza sociale.
– Sulle riforme sull’immigrazione proposte da Obama sembra probabile un compromesso bipartisan:
o visti per gli immigrati laureati STEM presso le università americane; introduzione di un iter per la cittadinanza per circa 11 mn. di immigrati illegali; inoltre maggiore facilità di ammissione per lavoratori temporanei.
– In corso un cambiamento nella realtà al di là delle scelte del Congresso:
o a causa della crisi sono molto diminuiti gli ingressi illegali dal Messico, se ne vanno molte più persone di quelle che arrivano;
o continua ad aumentare livello di formazione degli immigrati: nel 2010 gli abbandoni scolastici degli immigrati attivi sono scesi al 28% contro il 40% nel 1980;
o gli immigrati laureati saliti dal 19% nel 1980 al 30% nel 2009, il 2% di questi ha un dottorato, contro l’1% dei nativi.
o Per facilitare la permanenza degli studenti universitari stranieri con un offerta di lavoro è stato inizialmente consentito loro di rimanere 1 anno dopo la laurea, periodo portato con Bush a 2 anni e 12; e nel 2012 con Obama permesso temporaneo ad 1 milione e 700mila immigrati illegali giunti da bambini negli USA di rimanere a lavorare.
– Le amministrazione locali competono per attirare immigrati e investimenti, con riduzioni fiscali, ma anche con importanti riforme.
– Per assumere uno straniero, anche temporaneamente, il datore di lavoro deve esplicare una serie di lunghe procedure, e un numero di permessi annuali insufficiente.
o presentare una dichiarazione che nessun lavoratore americano perderà il lavoro per questa assunzione, e che sarà retribuito con salario di mercato, per non abbassare i salari americani; deve poi dimostrare che chi chiede lavoro sia in regola, versando $1575-5550, a secondo della dimensione dell’impresa e dell’urgenza; poi il dipartimento di Stato interroga il richiedente e fa altri controlli;
o Un ditta può spendere fino a $10000 per consulenze per una singola richiesta, oltre a costi di circa $1500.
– Le Quote, fissate annualmente per i Visti, sempre state esaurite anche nella peggior fase della crisi
o gli 85 000 visti a breve emessi quest’anno per lavoratori stranieri qualificati si sono esauriti in 10 settimane (nel 2007 finirono in un giorno).
– I permessi di residenza per i lavoratori sono ancora più difficili, su 1mn. di carte verdi emesse ogni anno, il 65% (nel 2011) va a parenti di residenti o cittadini, il 16% a rifugiati e richiedenti asilo.
o Il numero delle carte verdi legati a occupazione e investimenti è di 140 000/anno, cioè il 13% del totale attuale, quota rimasta uguale a quella del 1990, con un aumento della popolazione di 60 mn., e comprende i visti per membri delle famiglie beneficiarie, che ne usano circa la metà. Nel 2011 gli USA hanno ammesso solo 65 668 residenti permanenti, il 6% delle carte verdi emesse.
– 5. Infrastrutture – Tempo di rinnovo
– Le infrastrutture americane sono in cattivo stato, e obsolete; l’American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) calcolava nel 2009 che occorresse il raddoppio della spesa nei seguenti 5 anni, dai previsti 1 100 MD a $2 200 MD; simile conclusione anche da parte del think tank Centre for American Progress: la spesa era la metà del necessario, calcolato in $262MD.
– Sul lungo periodo gli investimenti in infrastrutture favoriscono la produttività …
o A cinque anni dal crollo di un ponte in Minnesota (13 vittime) quasi 70 000 altri ponti, pari a circa l’11% del totale, sono ritenuti strutturalmente carenti dall’amministrazione federale preposta;
o ASCE ha stimato che nel 2009 gli americani hanno perso $78MD/anno per ritardi del traffico (tempo e combustibile sprecati),
o + altri $67MD per riparazioni di danni causati alle vetture dal cattivo stato di molte strade;
o + altri $230MD per incidenti gran parte dovuti allo stesso motivo.
o ASCE calcola che nel periodo 2005-2020 gli USA spenderanno solo il 54% del necessario per impedire ulteriore deterioramento, e solo il 29% necessario per il miglioramento.
o Oltre alle strade sono in cattivo stato i sistemi idrico e fognario, corsi d’acqua e argini, scuole, dighe, aeroporti, trasporto pubblico, raccolta rifiuti …
– Il CBO ha calcolato che per ogni $ speso dal gov. fed. in infrastrutture, c’è un incremento di $1-2,50 nel’attività economica; da uno studio del 2009 ogni $1MD speso in infrastrutture crea 18 000, circa il 30% più di quelli creati tagliando di altrettanto le imposte sulle persone (Univ. Massaachusetts-Amherst)
o Causa i problemi fiscali, il governo federale ha ridotto i fondi per le infrastrutture;
o ad es., per le strade ed i trasporti pubblici si prevede che nel 2014 non ci siano più disponibilità nel bilancio; il contributo federale era solitamente di 1/3, provenienti dalle imposte sui combustibili, 18,4 cent/gallone, che però non sono aumentate dal 1993, perché non legate all’inflazione; nei prossimi 8 anni si giungerebbe ad un deficit di $109 MD
– Le amministrazioni periferiche cercano nuove fonti di finanziamento – diverse dagli Stati e dal governo federale e municipalità – , per risolvere il lento ritmo di investimenti attuale.
– Chicago, Illinois, ad es. ha aumentato le tariffe per le infrastrutture, +25% per l’acqua, per il 2015 raddoppieranno all’incirca, il che ha permesso l’avvio delle riparazioni delle perdite …
– aumenti anche per il sistema trasporto rapido (rapid transit system, chiamato a Chicago "La L".
– Progetto per incoraggiare gli investimenti privati, criticato dalla sinistra perché un precedente consorzio per i parchimetri ha quadruplicato le tariffe …
– Risparmio energetico negli edifici municipali previsto in $3mn/anno; costo delle misure $14mn, con finanziamenti esterni, esteri, associazioni caritatevoli, fondi pensione.
– Virginia e Los Angeles hanno aumentato l’IVA;
– Il Congresso nel 2012 ha lasciato liberi gli Stati di imporre pedaggi per le nuove autostrade o nuove corsie costruite con aiuto federale, ma non per quelle già esistenti; ha lasciato scadere una legge che incoraggiava gli investimenti privati.
– Il Congresso ha respinto la proposta di Obama per la creazione di una Banca per le infrastrutture, in grado di attrarre capitale privato a basso costo erogando sussidi e con garanzie per prestiti commerciali.
– In tutti gli Usa sono in corso numerosi progetti PPP, “partnership pubblico-privato”, il Centre for American Progress calcola sia possibile mobilitare almeno $60MD/anno in investimenti privati per le infrastrutture; nel periodo 1990-2006 vennero raccolti solo $10MD con progetti analoghi.
– I governatori degli Stati Usa stanno cercando di migliorare il clima economico, con una forte competizione tra loro: riduzione di burocrazia e imposte, gestione di incubatori per le nuove imprese finanziati dallo Stato.
– Da alcune indagini le piccole imprese considerano le eccessive regolamentazioni loro maggiore preoccupazione, assieme a costo del combustibile e assicurazione sanitaria;
– altri importanti problemi sollevati dalle imprese scarsità di forza lavoro adeguata; imposte sulle imprese, al 35%, l’aliquota più alta dei paesi ricchi, ma solo al 6° posto nella decisione di investire all’estero, molto dopo il costo del lavoro, anche perché la maggior parte delle imprese pagano molto meno dell’aliquota ufficiale con varie scappatoie;
– In corso una feroce competizione per attrarre investimenti; ad es. l’Ohio ha un impiegato a tempo pieno solo per portar via posti di lavoro alla California; il Kansas ha attirato residenti dalla California che ha la più alta aliquota di imposte sulle persone. Il Texas, che non ha imposta sulle persone fisiche, attira residenti dal Kansas; il governatore del Kansas propone di abolire l’imposta sulle persone fisiche sostenendo che gli stati con basse imposte crescono più velocemente di quelli con imposte alte, e di conseguenza anche le loro entrate.
– Secondo i critici di questa liberalizzazione: nel decennio 2001-2010 il reddito pro-capite degli stati con alte imposte è cresciuto di più di quelli con basse imposte, ed è diminuito meno il reddito famigliare medio; uguale invece la disoccupazione media, al 5,7%.
– Il governatore del Kansas ha fatto eliminare 51 leggi o regolamenti che rallentano l’economia.
– Nel 2011 Il presidente Obama ha emesso un ordine esecutivo che chiedeva alle agenzie federali di eliminare la burocrazia invadente.
L’Ufficio per l’Informazione e i regolamenti, ha emesso editti che faranno risparmiare $1MD/anno alle imprese.
[1] Il Fracking – iniezione di un misto di sabbia, acqua e prodotti chimici nelle rocce contenenti petrolio e gas – libera gli idrocarburi dalla roccia;
la perforazione orizzontale consente di giungere più facilmente a strati sottili di deposiiti e consente la perforazione di pozzi multipli in un solo sito.
[2] Scuole private, principalmente primarie o secondarie, che ricevono denaro pubblico (oltre a possibili donazioni private) e sono soggette ad alcune delle regole, leggi e statuti delle scuole pubbliche, ma in genere hanno maggiore flessibilità, in cambio della quale ricevono meno denaro dallo stato rispetto alle scuole pubbliche della stessa area, solo un dato ammontare per ogni studente.
Special report: America’s competitiveness
Political gridlock may be bad for America’s economy, says Edward McBride, but the underlying growth prospects are much brighter than they seem
– IT IS 2030, and a Chinese university lecturer is explaining how a decadent America went the way of the British and Roman empires. Ruinous economic policies led to crippling debt, much of it owned by China. “Now they work for us,” he says with a smirk, to prolonged sniggers from his students.
– This depiction of the future comes from a television advertisement attacking Barack Obama’s policies during America’s election campaign last year. Mr Obama himself seems haunted by similar fears.
– He often gives warning that China and other developing countries are beating America in the race for “the jobs of the future”. He ran for president, he once said, to stop America “becoming less competitive internationally”.
– The belief that America is losing its economic edge is pervasive. Americans are more pessimistic about their country’s prospects than at any point since Gallup, a polling firm, first started asking them in 1959. The grandees of Washington, DC, share their concern. Almost any weekday morning at one of the city’s many think-tanks a packed audience of academics, journalists and government officials can be found, paper cups of coffee in hand and muffins balanced on knees, agonising over the country’s waning competitiveness. The recession may gradually be receding, the worry goes, but long-ignored impediments to growth will hobble the recovery and prevent future generations from achieving the American dream.
– Outsiders are anxious too. The World Economic Forum, which draws up international rankings on competitiveness, considers the United States only the world’s seventh-fittest economy, a big slide from first place just four years ago.
o It faults America’s infrastructure (14th out of the 144 countries it assesses),
o its primary education and health care (34th),
o and above all its macroeconomic environment (111th, mainly because of the ballooning public debt).
o The only category in which the country still ranks first is market size, a slot it is destined to lose to China sooner or later.
– The misgivings are easy to understand. Growth is sluggish, unemployment is high and investors are wary. America’s public debt is approaching $17 trillion, more than 100% of GDP, and it has been growing fast. Much of this stems from the transitory effects of the recession, but it will get worse rather than better.
– On the current trajectory, the soaring costs of Medicare and Medicaid, the government’s health-care schemes for the old and the poor respectively, along with Social Security, the state pension scheme, will consume all federal revenues within a generation, leaving nothing for anything else.
– America’s politicians have been feckless in the face of this impending disaster. All the bickering over budgets of the past two years has done little to diminish this soon-to-be-crushing burden. Whenever either party suggests trimming “entitlements”, the other immediately accuses it of betraying the poor or the elderly.
– Republicans and Democrats are so much at odds that decisions are only ever made at the 11th hour, or the 13th, and in an ill-considered and piecemeal fashion. Words like “shutdown” and “default” have become part of Washington’s everyday language.
– The combination of dysfunctional politics and empty coffers, in turn, is preventing Congress from dealing with the economy’s other obvious shortcomings.
o The American Society of Civil Engineers gives the country’s infrastructure a grade D. America’s schoolchildren earn equally dismal marks. In the OECD’s most recent PISA rankings, which compare educational attainment in 65 countries, they came 17th in reading, 23rd in science and 31st in maths, behind places like Macau and Slovakia.
– Poor schooling feeds into concerns about America’s capacity to innovate. American firms’ research and development (R&D) budgets have grown much faster abroad than at home. A misconceived immigration system is turning away the very people who could help remedy that, by denying visas to talented foreigners.
– Proliferating red tape is causing tangles everywhere, from the 400 subsidiary regulations of the Dodd-Frank law on the financial sector to the 140,000 codes the federal government requires hospitals to use for the ailments they treat, including one for injuries from being hit by a turtle.
– “Is this a country that can still get big things done?” asked the head of the US Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby, in January.
– This special report will argue that the answer is yes—but only if you look beyond the paralysis in Washington. To prove it, it will examine the factors which are the source of the most hand-wringing: innovation, energy, education, immigration, infrastructure and regulation. These help determine the number and productivity of America’s workers, and thus how quickly the economy will grow in the long run—the most basic measure of competitiveness. On every count, despite glaring problems, the outlook is less bleak than the pessimists maintain.
– That is partly because they overstate their case.
o For instance, rumours of the death of American innovation are exaggerated: the country is spending as much of its output on R&D as it ever has, and continues to come up with dramatic breakthroughs, such as “fracking” for oil and gas.
o It still towers over emerging giants like China in crucial matters such as the quality of its research universities and respect for intellectual-property rights. However, the main reason for cheer is that beyond the Beltway[1] no one is waiting for the federal government to fix the economy. At the regional and local level America is already reforming and innovating vigorously.
– Local officials are competing viciously to lure migrants and investment. They are using every imaginable enticement, from scrapping income tax to building more bike paths. But they are also embarking on far-reaching reforms.
– Education, for example, is being turned upside down in the most comprehensive overhaul in living memory. On infrastructure, mayors and governors are grasping the nettle Congress will not, by coming up with new funding mechanisms.
– Washington is not completely absent from these changes (Mr Obama has made things easier for immigrants; Congress had a hand in the school reforms). But the overall picture is of revolution from the bottom up, rather than the top down. This has its advantages: the states yet again are proving themselves laboratories for experimentation. Yet its also means that America’s economic fightback is patchy and inconsistent. The United States could become far more competitive far more quickly if Congress punched its weight.
– This is a hugely important condition. The political feud in Washington, and the fiscal shenanigans that come with it, constitute the biggest threat to the nation’s prosperity, and the main caveat to the otherwise optimistic assessment outlined in this report.
o At the start of this month the two sides subjected the country to arbitrary and ill-timed budget cuts, which both admit are foolhardy and which are bound to weigh on the already feeble economy.
o Moreover, all efforts to boost America’s competitiveness are for naught if the galloping costs of Medicare and Medicaid are not reined in—something only the federal government can do.
– So America’s competitive recovery is not as strong as it should be, and it will remain overshadowed by its shaky public finances. But it is real. What is unfolding around the country offers a template for reform at the national level. And for all the histrionic talk of cliffs, brinks and shutdowns, the politicians in Washington have not inflicted any crippling damage yet. Those who like to lecture smugly about America’s impending decline should take a closer look.
The Economist 130316
America remains the world’s biggest spender on R&D, though others are inching up
– IT IS NOT much to look at: an anonymous suburban office building, wedged between a shopping mall and a car dealership. Yet the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, has had a hand in many of the most celebrated technologies of the age, from the internet to global positioning systems to radar-foiling stealth aircraft. Its boss, Arati Prabhakar, jokes about having invented fire.
– DARPA remains gamely engaged in research that to outsiders sounds like science fiction. Its Living Foundries programme, for example, is trying to work out how to use microbes to detect and repair worn or corroded materials.
– Blood Pharming aims to create a kit to grow blood from a culture for battlefield transfusions.
– ChemBots is investigating robots that can change their shape to squeeze through small openings and then reconstitute themselves on the other side.
– America puts more into R&D than any other country, and agencies like DARPA are in the vanguard. Yet by the National Science Foundation’s latest count, in 2009, the country’s share of global spending on R&D had fallen to 31%, from 38% in 1999.
– As a share of GDP its expenditure now ranks only ninth in the world, at almost 2.9%. Investment in research even fell slightly in absolute terms for a couple of years during the recession, whereas in other countries it continued to grow quickly. China’s outlays, for instance, raced ahead by 20% a year in the decade to 2009.
– Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a think-tank, is troubled by a number of related trends. America’s tax credit for R&D is relatively stingy, he notes, offsetting just 6% of the amount companies invest, compared with 14% in China and 29% in Denmark.
– America’s share of the scientific papers published in prominent journals, although still bigger than that of any other country, slid to 29% in 2008, from 40% in 1980. Not quite 42% of Americans have a university degree, which puts the country in tenth place globally, 16 percentage points behind the leader, South Korea. Venture-capital investments as a share of output are only half those in Finland or Singapore.
– Even by the composite measure that ITIF compiles on the basis of such statistics, however, America remains the world’s fourth most nurturing spot for innovation (though in 2000 it still came first). The countries that do better—Singapore, Finland and Sweden—are relative tiddlers. Rising economic powers such as Brazil, China and India remain near the bottom of the list.
– Moreover, America has dropped in the ranking not because it is conducting less research but because other countries are doing so much more. And innovation is not a zero-sum game. Foreign ideas help to stimulate American ones, foreign inventions can boost American productivity and growth in foreign markets provides opportunities for American firms.
– In absolute terms, America’s investment in research and development has in fact grown rapidly. Even after the slight dip of 2009 it remained 25% bigger than it had been in 2004 (see chart 2). Over those five years it grew at a faster rate (5.8% a year) than the economy as a whole (3.3%) As a share of GDP it is only a whisker below the peak reached in 1964, of 2.9%.
– The number of patents issued to Americans is growing too, and is also near its historic peak relative to the population, according to a new study from the Brookings Institution, a think-tank. Issuance has been rising steadily since the late 1980s. Moreover, the recent crop appears to be of relatively high quality, judging by how often they are cited and claims on them are made. Roughly half of all patents issued in America are awarded to foreigners, but those granted to Americans, the Brookings study finds, are getting many more claims and citations.
– By other measures, too, America still enjoys an enviable position in the world of ideas. For one thing, it is remarkably receptive to new ones. Several states, for example, have already drawn up regulations governing the use of the driverless cars on which DARPA is working, even though they are still several years from the dealerships. Even the Cassandras about America’s prospects concede that its universities remain the finest in the world. Twenty-seven of the 30 universities that produce the research most frequently cited in academic journals are American, according to an analysis conducted at the Netherlands’ Leiden University. America also has more scientific researchers than ever before, says the National Science Foundation.
– But how productive are all those boffins? These days it seems to take more of them, and cost more, to produce a single patent than it did a few decades ago. And government cash is likely to be harder to come by in the future. Funding for DARPA and other public research agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Energy’s National Laboratories, comes from the “discretionary” portion of the budget, meaning the part that Congress is most likely to cut. Most of these outfits received some extra money as part of the stimulus during Mr Obama’s first term, but that has now dried up.
– Since the government is responsible for only 31% of America’s R&D, that may not seem too serious. But it pays for over half of America’s basic research—the most ambitious, ground-breaking sort, such as DARPA’s melting and congealing robots. Businesses, by contrast, tend to concentrate less on the “R” than on the “D”. According to Brookings, government-funded research tends to produce patents of higher quality than that undertaken by business.
– A mixture of government-funded basic research, built on and deployed by business, lies behind two of the innovations that are doing most to help America out of its current economic doldrums: hydraulic fracturing (fracking) and horizontal drilling.
o The first involves injecting a mix of sand, water and chemicals into oil- and gas-bearing rocks to allow the hydrocarbons to escape.
o The second makes it much easier to get at thin layers of deposits and allows multiple wells to be drilled from a single site. Sporadic research into both had been conducted under the auspices of the Department of Energy since the 1970s, but they were perfected only in the 1990s when the private sector took them up. They are now giving a massive boost to the oil and gas industry—and hence to the broader economy.
The Economist 130316
The shale gas and oil bonanza is transforming America’s energy outlook and boosting its economy
WHEN KEN ALEXANDER started working at the J&L steel mill in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania, in the 1970s, he was one of 17,000 workers. But the workforce quickly declined as the American steel industry withered in the face of cheaper foreign competition. In 1984 J&L shut the mill. Four years ago another mill where Mr Alexander had found a job, across the Ohio river in Ambridge, also stopped work because of the recession. He was one of a skeleton staff of 20 kept on as watchmen.
– Derelict mills pepper the region, loose sidings flapping in the frigid Appalachian wind. The once celebrated steel industry around Pittsburgh (whose football team is called the Steelers) survived a series of crises over the years, notes Mr Alexander, but was further diminished by each of them—until now.
– These days the Ambridge mill, bought by a Russian conglomerate five years ago, is humming away. Its 400 workers transform solid steel bars produced at another mill nearby into seamless pipes, in demand by oil drillers, among others. The management is taking advantage of a seasonal lull in demand to straighten out kinks in the line and thus increase its capacity.
– Other firms are making much bigger bets on the local steel industry. Fifty miles to the north-west, in Youngstown, Ohio, a French firm, Vallourec, has spent $650m building an entirely new mill to make similar pipes. It began production in October, with a staff of 350. Thirty miles in the opposite direction, in Brackenridge, Pennsylvania, Allegheny Technologies is spending $1.1 billion on a new mill to produce stainless steel and other specialty metals. US Steel opened a new $100m mill in Ohio in 2011, also to supply the oil and gas industry. Timken, another steelmaker, is spending $200m on its mill in Canton, Ohio.
– The main reason for this flurry of investment lies a few thousand feet below the ground: the Marcellus shale, a geological formation containing huge reserves of natural gas trapped in tiny pores in the rock. It is thought to be America’s biggest gas field, stretching 600 miles along the Appalachians, from New York to West Virginia., but has only recently begun to be tapped, thanks to fracking and directional drilling.
– Last year the government of Pennsylvania alone issued permits for 2,484 such “unconventional” wells; 1,365 of them were actually drilled. Wells in the Pennsylvanian part of the Marcellus produced 895 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas in the first half of 2012, up from 435bcf in the same period in 2011 and almost nothing as recently as 2008.
– Driving through the south-western corner of the state, the benefits of this “shale gale” are easy to see. New roofs, fences, barns and tractors have sprouted on many local farms; plenty of shiny new pick-up trucks ply the roads. By one estimate, Pennsylvanians who allow drilling on their land earned some $1.2 billion in royalties last year.
– Suburban office parks are proliferating outside Pittsburgh, the biggest city in the area, with space being snapped up by oil firms, their suppliers and subcontractors, lawyers and environmental consultants. Even the most basic restaurants are overflowing at lunchtime, a local complains.
– All told, the Marcellus already supports over 100,000 jobs in Pennsylvania, according to an analysis by IHS, a research firm. That figure is expected to rise to over 220,000 in 2020.
– Shale gas gave the local economy a $14 billion boost last year, IHS reckons, and will buoy it by almost $27 billion in 2020.
– All the extra economic activity generated nearly $3 billion in taxes, it calculates. A new “fee” (the Republican word for tax) on gas production adopted by the state legislature last year should help raise yet more in future.
– Pennsylvania is just one of several states enjoying a shale-gas boom. Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas have all seen similar rushes.
– Shale-gas production in the United States as a whole rose more than fourfold between 2007 and 2010, says the Department of Energy. That has helped push up its gas output by 20% over the past five years, making the country the world’s biggest gas producer.
– BP, a big oil and gas firm, forecasts that North American shale-gas output, largely from the United States, will grow by an average of 5.3% a year until 2030.
– America is already producing so much shale gas that local gas prices have plummeted, from over $13 per million British thermal units (mmBTU) in 2008 to $1-2 last year. They have since recovered slightly (see chart 3), but America still enjoys remarkably cheap gas by international standards. In 2011 it had the second-lowest gas prices for industry among rich countries, after Canada, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
– American factories paid a third of the German gas price and a quarter of the South Korean one, the agency reckons—and prices have fallen further since.
– Cheap gas is also translating into cheap electricity, since America’s marginal power supplies tend to come from gas-fired plants. In 2011, according to the IEA, American factories paid roughly half the going rate for electricity in Chile or Mexico and a quarter of the eye-watering Italian price. In New York last year prices were the lowest they have ever been since the state introduced a competitive wholesale market in 1999.
– Investors, naturally enough, are keen to take advantage of such bargain prices. They have been pouring money not only into steelmaking but all manner of energy-intensive industries, from plastics to fertilisers.
– Just up the Ohio from Ambridge, Shell is contemplating building a multi-billion-dollar “cracker” to turn the ethane that emerges with much of the gas from the Marcellus into ethylene, a feedstock for plastics.
– On the Gulf coast (another gas hub), Chevron Phillips, Dow Chemical, Formosa Plastics, Occidental Petroleum and Williams are all expanding existing chemical plants or building new ones.
– A chemical firm called Methanex is dismantling one of its factories in Chile and shipping it to Louisiana to take advantage of low gas prices.
– CF Industries is expanding its local fertiliser production. Nucor, a steel firm, is building a new mill.
– Sasol of South Africa hopes to build a refinery in Louisiana to turn gas into petrol.
– Several firms want to construct facilities in the region to liquefy gas and export it—a dramatic reversal from a few years ago, when the need was thought to be for import terminals.
– America’s big pipeline network creates a relatively liquid and fungible national market for gas, so customers far from any shale beds are still able to take advantage of low gas and chemicals prices.
– Orascom, an Egyptian conglomerate, plans to build a $1.4 billion fertiliser factory in Iowa. Bridgestone, Continental and Michelin are all planning to make more tyres in South Carolina, reversing a long decline.
– Better still, the steep drop in the price of natural gas has driven America’s drillers to hunt for oil instead. Rigs are migrating from gassy places like the Haynesville Shale, in Louisiana, to spots where oil is trapped in tiny rock pores, such as the Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale in Texas, the Bakken formation of North Dakota and the Mississippian Lime, which sits astride the border between Oklahoma and Kansas.
– Applying the same techniques to such “tight oil” as to gas-laden shales, they have managed to increase America’s oil production by a third over the past four years, to 7m b/d. The government expects it to grow by more than 1m b/d over the next two years.
– The output of the Bakken Shale alone has risen from 100,000 b/d in 2008 to over 700,000 now.
– By the end of this year, BP predicts, America will overtake Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s biggest producer of liquid fuel, meaning oil and biofuels.
The newfound oil brings just as much of a bonanza to the places where it is extracted as the shale gas does. Flights to previously obscure airports in North Dakota—Dickinson, Minot and Williston—are full, as are all hotels within striking distance of the Bakken. Property prices have shot up. The oil industry now accounts for 15% of the local economy, according to IHS, and has brought 72,000 jobs to a state with fewer than 700,000 people.
– Despite its huge local impact, America’s shale-oil boom has pushed up global oil production by just a percentage point or two, not enough to reduce the price much. However, it has resulted in a big drop in America’s import bill. IHS calculates that unconventional oil reduced the trade deficit in 2012 by $70 billion, or about 10%.
– All told, says IHS, unconventional oil and gas accounted for $238 billion in economic activity, 1.7m jobs and $62 billion in taxes in 2012. That includes the exploration and extraction itself, the supply chains they rely on and the extra spending by all those newly employed oilmen. But it leaves out the second-order effects of cheaper gas, electricity and chemicals. Last year the American Chemistry Council, an industry group, forecast that over the next couple of years cheap gas would spur some $72 billion in new investments in eight gas-hungry industries alone. That, in turn, would lead to a further $342 billion in new economic activity in 2015-20, along with the creation of 1.2m new jobs.
– The different levels of government, for their part, would rake in an extra $26 billion a year in new taxes.
In principle, all American companies and consumers benefit from lower energy prices. The effect may not always be big enough to spur heavy new investment, but it might be sufficient to keep American factories with high labour costs going in the face of foreign competition.
– Economists at Citigroup and UBS predict that the shale gale will lift America’s GDP growth by half a percentage point a year for the next few years. Indeed, cheap energy is cited as one factor by those who predict a manufacturing renaissance in America.
– Labour in China is getting more expensive, the argument runs, and so is shipping Chinese-made goods across the Pacific. At the same time ever shorter product cycles confer an advantage on factories located close to the people who consume their goods. Quality is easier to maintain and intellectual property easier to protect if the head office is not far away. Throw in lower bills for power or petrochemicals, and bringing work back home begins to look attractive.
– For the moment America’s manufacturing output remains below its 2007 level, and its trade deficit with China is still growing. But some high-profile examples have caught the headlines. GE has moved the production of some white goods from China and Mexico to Kentucky, and Lenovo, the Chinese firm that bought IBM’s personal-computer business, plans to return some manufacturing to North Carolina. In the long run, however, America will not be able to lure and retain investors like these without a better-educated workforce.
Correction: The original version of this article stated that the steel mill in Ambridge was bought by a Russian conglomerate six years ago. In fact, it was five. This was corrected on March 21st 2013.
The Economist 130316
America’s schools are getting their biggest overhaul in living memory
– “THIS BUSINESS”, SAYS John Demby, the principal (headmaster) of Sussex Tech, a high school in Delaware, “has changed dramatically in a very short period.” This year, like all principals in the state, he is evaluating teachers under a new system for the first time. The state is also adopting a new curriculum for English and maths, the “common core”. That will require changes to the state’s regular computerised tests for students, themselves only three years old. On top of all that, Sussex Tech is launching a scheme to allow students to start accumulating college credits while still in high school. And it is overhauling the vocational training it offers in order to serve local businesses better and to provide students with more useful qualifications.
– It is not just Sussex Tech; all Delaware’s schools are undergoing a similar upheaval, thanks to a series of reforms championed by Jack Markell, Delaware’s governor. He has made education reform a centrepiece of his tenure because he sees it as critical to the state’s competitiveness. (It is the states that regulate education in America, although the federal government often tries to bribe them to adopt its pet policies.)
Mr Markell is especially proud of the 100 children at the McIlvaine Early Childhood Centre, a kindergarten in the hamlet of Magnolia, who are being taught exclusively in Mandarin for half of each day. Beneath gaudy paper dragons the five-year-olds adopt poses that mimic the Chinese characters for the numbers one to ten. Barely three months into the school year all of them were able to count to 100 in both English and Chinese, way ahead of curriculum requirements, says the principal.
– Mr Markell plans to expand immersion classes like these from 340 to 1,000 students next year and hopes to reach 10,000 in a decade. But he is also enthusiastic about more workaday schemes, including one which aims to increase the quality of pre-schools that take in poor children on state subsidies, so that they will be up to speed when they start school.
– Since he took office in 2009, Mr Markell has campaigned to overhaul most aspects of education in the state, paying particular attention to raising standards for both children and teachers, especially in the worst schools. Those also happen to be the main targets of Mr Obama’s biggest initiative in education, Race to the Top (RTT), which awards grants on a competitive basis to states and school districts that present the best plans for such improvements. Delaware was the first state, along with Tennessee, to win a Race to the Top grant, in 2010.
– Nineteen states have now received RTT grants, and all but four have applied for them. Along the way they have undertaken, among other things, to conduct more rigorous evaluations of both students and teachers, to make better use of the resulting data and to foster charter schools, meaning state-funded schools that operate independently of local school districts. The federal government is also encouraging the adoption of the common core, developed by a group of state governments to deal with inconsistencies and lax standards in their individual curriculums.
– All this comes on the heels of the previous federal education reform, No Child Left Behind, which required schools to show big improvements in students’ test scores. In fact the targets were so demanding that 34 states have had to ask the Obama administration to waive them. It has done so, but only on condition that they follow RTT-like policies.
– The result has been a dramatic acceleration of reforms in America’s public schools, at least on paper. All but five of the 50 states have adopted the common core. All but eight now allow charter schools (see chart 4). Thanks to No Child Left Behind, they all now track and publish the performance of individual schools and intervene at the feeblest ones. Most states also have some sort of evaluation system for teachers.
– Many states have gone beyond the changes demanded by the federal government. Seventeen now offer vouchers for use in private schools to some students or give tax breaks to people who donate to scholarship funds. Thirty-eight are experimenting with new pay structures for teachers or principals, often with a performance-related element. Thirty-seven had applied for RTT-like grants to boost attendance at and quality of pre-schools, even before Mr Obama announced a push to improve and expand early-childhood education last month. From nurseries to technical colleges, in short, America is subjecting its schools to a vigorous shake-up.
– How effective all these changes will be is not yet clear. In Delaware Mr Markell points to last year’s double-digit increases in the proportion of students rated “proficient” in reading and maths in statewide tests. But only nationwide tests, due to be conducted later this year, will provide a comparative measure of the state’s progress.
– Equally, it is far too early to tell whether all the tumult in education policy will lift America up in the international rankings. But its supposedly dire performance in these comparative tests needs qualifying anyway. The results of the two most widely cited ones, PISA and TIMSS, are inconsistent. TIMSS, which is put together by an international consortium of research institutes, puts America in or near the top ten in maths and science, with Russia among the countries that consistently beats it.
– PISA, PISA, compiled by the OECD, puts America much lower down but still well ahead of Russia. Neither has been around for very long (12 years for PISA, 18 for TIMMS), and although America has never been rated especially highly, by and large its scores are improving. Moreover, certain states, most notably Massachusetts, perform far better than the national average.
– Most academic research suggests that the education reforms of recent years have produced only small, if any, improvements in students’ test scores. So far the effects of introducing charter schools, vouchers and tougher standards for schools, teachers and students have been underwhelming, says Bill Evers, a former assistant secretary of education. It does not help that teachers’ unions dislike charter schools and vouchers and are suspicious of RTT’s enthusiasm for “value-added modelling”, which involves predicting a student’s future test scores from his past results and then measuring a teacher’s effectiveness by the divergence between prediction and actual performance. Naturally enough, teachers are all the more reluctant if their pay is to be tied to the assessments.
Such misgivings can be alleviated, however. Delaware has painstakingly developed teacher-evaluation systems for everything from art to repairing cars, and spent most of its RTT grant on training teachers to cope with all the upheaval. Mr Demby, the Sussex Tech principal, has been provided with no fewer than three different coaches: to teach him how to conduct the new evaluations, to use a new data system tracking student achievement and (no wonder) to manage his time efficiently. Mr Markell, in his “State of the state” address this year, proposed raising teachers’ starting salaries and paying bonuses to “teacher leaders”. The federal Department of Education gave Delaware’s RTT application extra marks because it had the support of the local teachers’ unions.
– Vicki Phillips of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a charity that spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year trying to improve education in America, points out that the broad principles of reform are now largely accepted. The drive for more rigorous and consistent teacher evaluation has come from a Democratic administration, despite the party’s ties with the trade unions. The unions themselves generally do not dispute the need for higher standards and greater accountability, but quibble with the speed and detail of the measures.
– A similar consensus has emerged on the reforms to improve vocational training. In spite of the high unemployment rate, many businesses complain that they cannot find enough qualified candidates to fill their vacancies. A survey conducted last year by McKinsey, a consultancy, found that 87% of educational institutions thought they had prepared their students well for employment, but only 49% of employers agreed that their new employees had the training they needed.
– A similar survey of American manufacturing firms in 2011 by Deloitte, another consultancy, found that 67% had trouble finding the right people, and that 5% of their jobs remained unfilled for lack of suitable applicants. BCG, yet another consultancy, downplays the current “skills gap” but nonetheless estimates that by 2020 America will be short of some 875,000 machinists, welders, industrial mechanics and the like.
– Mr Obama pledged, as part of his re-election campaign, to put an extra 2m people through community colleges, which offer two-year associate’s degrees and technical qualifications rather than bachelor’s degrees, which typically take four years. To make sure they learn the right skills, he has advocated close partnerships between these colleges and local businesses and suggested steering more money to colleges or teachers whose students find work. Last year he included a request for $8 billion to pay for all this in his proposed budget, but Congress demurred. Even without its help, however, community colleges around the country are embarking on these sorts of reforms. Last year 24 states adopted laws intended to increase access to technical education or align it better to the needs of local businesses.
– Cheryl Hyman, the boss of Chicago’s network of community colleges, is only too aware of the pitfalls of poor training. In the 1980s she spent three months studying for an IT qualification that cost her $3,500 in tuition fees and turned out to be useless. To ensure that none of the 120,000 students in Chicago’s city colleges suffers a similar fate, she is working with Mr Emanuel, the mayor, on a programme called College to Careers.
– First, the city consulted local companies and economists to find out what qualifications were in demand now or would be in the future. It then enlisted businesses—84 so far—both to help shape the curriculum in those fields and to give students opportunities for work experience. This arrangement is good for both parties, says Larry Goodman, the CEO of Rush University Medical Centre, a local hospital. Employers can be sure of a steady stream of qualified job candidates and can see them at work before making any hiring decisions. Students, for their part, gain practical experience and can be sure that they are learning marketable skills.
Ms Hyman is also trying to make sure that the training the city colleges offer is “stackable”, allowing students to gain qualifications without wasting time and money going over the same ground twice. For example, local universities have agreed that they will accept a sequence of increasingly advanced nursing certificates earned at the college to replace the first two years of a four-year nursing degree.
– All this allows students to rack up qualifications faster and more cheaply. That, in turn, makes them less likely to drop out and helps them pay for further studies. Many places, including Chicago and Delaware, are encouraging (and paying for) dual enrolment in high school and community colleges or universities, in order to shift more people into this virtual cycle earlier in life. Kansas is going even further, paying a “bounty” to high schools for each student who earns a technical qualification.
– At Sussex Tech students will soon be able to earn enough credits for half a bachelor’s degree from a local university, at no extra cost, saving them tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees. As it is, they can get a certification in dental radiology as juniors, for