The advertised purpose for the redesign of Idaho’s high schools is to more fully prepare Idaho’s children to participate in the global economy.  But what does that really mean because America was always able to compete in the global economy before, so what is different now?  To answer that question, one must examine America’s trade policy.  

With each successive 'Free Trade' agreement, the government has selected the winners and losers in the trade deal.  These deals identify the products and the amount of the products that can be imported and the rules for the import/export. As such, they are mislabeled as ‘free trade’.  They are actually ‘managed trade’.  In virtually all cases, U.S. domestic producers were put at a disadvantage.  The terms of these deals favored the multinational corporations who could make more profit by exporting their manufacturing and importing their products back into this country.  All of these agreements allow imports into this country virtually free of tariffs and barriers except for the quotas while domestic producers face high tariffs, barriers, and currency exchange differences.  The quotas are meaningless because we don’t have the inspection and enforcement capacity to actually investigate and stop the practice of dumping into the U.S. Markets anyway. 

What ‘Free Trade’ has actually been is the redistribution of national wealth at a global level - taking the productive capacity from the American economy and transferring it to the communist/socialist nations of China and India.  As we’ve seen over the last decade and a half, industry-by-industry, the U.S. manufacturing capacity has been wiped out.  Even America’s automakers are moving to China while  offloading American suppliers and employees.  America’s manufacturing loss is China’s gain.

Manufacturing in the U.S. has been replaced with 'Big Box' Retail.   The massive inflow of cheap products from China and other locations have made possible the Walmarts, Costcos, Home Depots, etc.  The loss of manufacturing has been so great that Gregory Mankiw, an economist on Bush's Council of Economic Advisors even suggested that the production of fast food hamburgers could be defined as manufacturing because they are produced in an assembly line.  To this writer, that suggestion was indicative of a government desperate to cover-up the extent to which our industrial capacity has been decimated.     

It was true that the future was in knowledge jobs and technology up until the point when the bilateral ‘free trade’ agreement was signed with India on November 9, 2001.  (Notice that the president mentions ‘terror, terror, terror’ but terror had nothing to do with it).  This agreement was for ‘Trade In Services’.  Succinctly, ‘Trade in Services’ defines people as commodities to be traded in the same manner as coffee pots and TVs.  We export high paying professional jobs and we import cheaper worker-bots.  As with manufacturing, our domestic ‘product lines’ in the services arena are being wiped out as the more attractive, cheaper products flood our labor markets.  This new definition of people as commodities is the full implementation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) agreement.  

Since this trade agreement was signed, our economy has hemorrhaged professional jobs.  A simple comparison in labor rates gives the reason why.  A computer programmer in India makes between $7,000 and $10,000 per year.  His American ‘competitor’ makes between $50,000 and $60,000 per year.  The cost of living differential and the cost of education are not factors for the corporate bottom line, so they don’t count when the ‘benefits’ for ‘Trade in Services’ are discussed.

The extent to which the export of professional jobs is wiping out the American middle class became so apparent that CNN’s Lou Dobbs began an investigation to see just how many American corporations were exporting jobs.  He not only compiled a list of the corporations ‘Exporting America’ which he has posted on his website, he also wrote a book titled, “Exporting America”.

Without a manufacturing and industrial base and without a technology and information economy, America’s future job market will be in those ‘careers’ that can’t be exported - also known as vocational jobs.  To be succinct, the ‘New Economy’ means big box retail and vocational jobs that can’t be exported.  The differences in the cost of labor between China, India and the United States dictates that the above is true as long as the U.S. ‘stays the course’ on our path to economic suicide.    

What these trade agreements have done is to ‘transform’ America’s capitalist market economic system to a socialist centrally planned and managed economic system.  The Department of Commerce controls our access to goods via the fraudulently named ‘Free Trade’ agreements.  The Department of Labor will control the American labor pool by balancing the inputs (imports) and domestically produced worker-bots.  Recently introduced legislation by Tom Tancredo (R-CO) - H.R. 3333 is advertised as a way to control illegal immigration (which is simply the de facto import of worker-bots for the low end jobs) but in fact, it actually gives the Labor Department the tools necessary to manage the entire system of worker-bots - including price controls. Tancredo’s proposal is actually the implementing legislation for George Bush’s plan for a government run system of matching ‘willing employers’ and ‘willing workers’.

[To see this legislation, you must go to the government’s Legislative system named Thomas and you must type in the bill number.  The system must have recently been changed to disallow links to actual webpages because it always worked in the past, but it doesn’t seem to be working anymore.  http://thomas.loc.gov/ ]

H. R. 3333

To enhance border enforcement, improve homeland security, remove incentives for illegal immigration, and establish a guest worker program.

(a) Short Title- This Act may be cited as the `Rewarding Employers that Abide by the Law and Guaranteeing Uniform Enforcement to Stop Terrorism Act of 2005' or the `REAL GUEST Act of 2005'.

 SEC. 102. INTERNET-BASED JOB POSTING SYSTEM   

(a) In General- The Secretary of Labor shall take any steps necessary to ensure that all State employment agencies and all employers in the United States are able to acquire secure, password-protected access to the Internet-based job database provided jointly by the Department of Labor and State employment security agencies and known as `America's Job Bank' in order to permit the posting of job openings throughout the United States.

(2) CESSATION- If compensation, including real wages, benefits, and working conditions, in a particular occupational category in a geographic region has been stagnant or in decline for the 6-month period immediately preceding the filing of a petition for an H nonimmigrant worker, the Secretary shall not approve the petition until--

(A) compensation in that occupational category and geographic region has increased each month for at least 6 months by an amount to be determined by the Secretary; and

(B) the Secretary has reassessed the prevailing wage for that occupational category and geographic region to ensure that it reflects the rising real wage levels.

SEC. 103. REQUIREMENTS FOR PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYERS OF H NONIMMIGRANTS

(c) Announcement Contents- Each job announcement posted pursuant to this section shall list, at a minimum, the following:

(1) The name, contact information, and description of the employer

(2) A description of the job and the minimum skills necessary to perform it.

(3) A description of any additional knowledge, skills, or abilities that are preferred by the employer

This is where the redesign of Idaho’s high schools comes into play.  First of all, this redesign plan is not local.  It originates from the National Governor’s Association.  Secondly, it moves America’s schools closer to the Soviet model of a basic primary education with the emphasis on vocational training for all but state selected ‘chosen’ students who will head for training in ‘leadership’ in an International Baccalaureat program.  The ‘chosen’ will become the future bureaucrats in a highly controlled and managed economic and social system.   

Idaho has not progressed as rapidly toward School-to-Work as some of the other states but a quick look at Wisconsin’s program gives an idea of where we are headed since this is a national agenda:

Governor's Work-Based Learning Board
http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/gwblb/

School-To-Work
http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/gwblb/stw/stw.htm

In Wisconsin, School-to-Work is a system of education-related opportunities that center on actively preparing all students to enter the global workforce of the future.  These opportunities provide students with strong academic, technical, and life skills deemed by both business and educational leaders to be necessary skills for the future.  The partnerships between business and education that have been developed throughout the state are the foundations of the School-to-Work system, and connect the classroom to the community and the world of work.

Students in Wisconsin's 426 school districts have access to School-to-Work opportunities.  the programs are coordinated locally by school-to-work, youth apprenticeship, tech prep, and vocational educational coordinators located in elementary, middle, high schools, technical colleges, the University of Wisconsin system, Cooperative Educational Service Agencies (CESA), chambers of commerce and other community organizations.

School-To-Work Programs
http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/gwblb/stw/stw_programs.htm

Many school boards have deemed School-to-Work programs essential to a student's learning experiences and have integrated them into elementary, middle, and high school curriculum.  These are some examples of School-to-Work programs that are present throughout Wisconsin:

• job career awareness and career exploration activities in elementary, middle, and high schools

• optional work-based learning opportunities like youth apprentices, skill certified cooperative educational programs, shadowing, and internships;

What Idaho has done towards the goal is to combine the Idaho Department of Commerce with the Idaho Labor Department to form the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor.   At the same time, the schools are being integrated into the ‘Workforce Development’ system.  Ultimately, when all the pieces are in place, Idaho and the other states will have ‘One-Stop Shopping’ for worker-bots.  The consolidated system will interface with America’s Job Bank System as called for in the Bush-Tancredo Bill H.R. 3333 Section 102.  The following are links to the Arizona Department of Commerce Workforce Development plan and Florida’s website for One-Stop Shopping for the ordering, training and delivery of worker-bots.

Arizona Department of Commerce - Workforce Development
http://www.azcommerce.com/pdf/annual_report%20pdf/fy99/wkfrcdev.pdf

Florida Workforce Innovation - One-Stop Shopping
http://www.floridajobs.org/onestop/   Be sure to look at the Office of Early Learning and Partners

In 1995, Rayburn Barton, Executive Director of the Idaho Board of Education included the following diagram in the application for federal grant money to implement Idaho’s integrated School-To-Work.  In 1999, Idaho’s Workforce Development Council described ‘their’ plan for Idaho’s integrated workforce development system - One-Stop Shopping.

To make national management of the workforce possible, it requires that every job have a computer manageable definition.  That means every job will have a set of specifications for the job and the required qualifications of the applicants.  The project to design the system of specifications and certifications was initiated in 1990 at the behest of then Secretary of Labor, Elizabeth Dole.  The project was named the ‘Secretary’s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS).  The follow-on project to SCANS completed the task of definition and certification.  The completed system is known as the SCANS Assessment and Certification System (SACS).  With a fully integrated education and workforce development system as it is being planned, a worker will need a certificate of skills attainment to dig a ditch.

What has been designed is a supply chain management system for labor - human resources.   What this means for Idaho’s children and for America’s children is that they will no longer be children.  They are simply factors of production assembled in the government human resources factory.  They will be products produced to specifications complete with a warranty of serviceability. 

What Idahoans and all Americans have to decide is if the federal vision of a managed economy and cookie cutter worker-bots is in the best interests of America’s children and America’s future.  It shouldn’t take a whole lot of thought to answer the question.  Obviously, it isn’t.  America’s children deserve better.  America deserves better.