Falling test scores signal rising prosperity. The declines that have pundits up in arms are a signal of a much better future precisely because they signal soaring individual specialization.
Which requires a brief digression. In last week’s opinion piece about the scandalous fact that algebra is still taught in schools centuries after they began teaching it, it was predicted that falling math aptitude among UCSD students would surely elicit lots of commentary from the right about American decline. They didn’t disappoint.
The Wall Street Journal’s Alyssia Finley wrote “Read, and weep for the future of America.” Two days later in the Journal, former U.S. Senator and University of Florida president Ben Sasse wrote of the UCSD scores in Sputnik terms, only for the rather alarmed pol to conclude that “the UCSD canary in the coal mine might be bigger” than the alleged crisis of the Russians reaching space first. Sasse concluded that “It isn’t enough to be enraged about this national abdication; we need to build a plan to fix it.” Government must do something, get it? Nothing changes.
If war is the health of the state, then manufactured crises are oxygen for the punditry. What should readers do? Print out the columns by Finley, Sasse and countless other conservatives, put them in a safe space, and then set a time 5, 10, 20, and 30 years into the future to see how their commentary ages.
That’s because the declining math aptitude that worries them quite simply shouldn’t. They might agree in a light moment.
To see why, just think about trade and the brilliant division of global labor. Translated, it’s the gradual unlearning of knowledge and skills formerly required to eek out the most meager of human existence. That’s because in the past we were all generalists in a knowledge sense exactly because just about every human hand the world over expended endless effort, six days a week from dawn to dusk, on farms. Back then few knew math or knew how to read. There was no time, not to mention that the knowledge had very little practical applications when it came to feeding oneself.
Thank goodness for the tractor, and eventually fertilizer. Arguably the biggest job and by extension knowledge killers in world history, these technological advances didn’t put Americans and the world out of work as much as they freed them to specialize their work in ways previously unimaginable.
Applying all this to trade, what is it but the narrowing of skills required not just to live and work, but to prosper. This is important to think about with the pessimism of Finley and Sasse top of mind. Both would nod their heads about the genius of work divided so that the individuals who comprise what we call an economy can do the work that most elevates their unique skills and intelligence, but when it comes to classroom learning, they puzzlingly tie general knowledge to national prestige and power.
Looked at through the modern lens of Artificial Intelligence (AI), technology is poised to free Americans and the world from all manner of work and knowledge formerly required by humans, including math. Yes, AI foretells a great unlearning by individuals freed to specialize their knowledge and skills to an exponentially greater degree.
In other words, the falling test scores measuring general knowledge are set for further, extraordinarily bullish declines. Similarly check in on this prediction in 5, 10 or 30 years if you’re doubtful.
Originally posted to Real Clear Markets.
