Thomas Friedman's favorite country, Taiwan, is center stage in his column this week. He writes that countries that have few naturual resources, like Taiwan, are forced to invest in the skills of their people. That's why countries like Japan, India, and Israel have well educated citizens, but countries with large oil supplies and other natural resources have poorly educated citizens. Education later translates into economic success for the entire nation.
Friedman is right about a few things. An educated citizenry is more important than natural resources in creating a wealthy nation. Some countries do invest more in education and have a culture that is oriented toward academic success, while others don't.
But Friendman is also wrong about other things. First of all, comparing education between countries is tricky. Does the entire population take the test or only an elite group of children? Is the population diverse? Do the schools have a different educational philosphy than the one on the test?
Some countries, like the US, do a very good job educating one portion of the population, but utterly fail at educating the test. We have oil. So, why do we do a good job with one part of the population and not the other?
I can't get too annoyed at Friedman though. If fear of becoming obsolete makes us improve our education system, why complain?