I often questioned why my grades weren’t as high as I thought they should be in my school days many decades ago, but now I wonder no longer.
It couldn’t have been the quality, quantity or accuracy of my work. After all, I was as smart as every other teenager, and we all knew we were smarter than our parents and, of course, all those teachers.
But it wasn’t really the teachers’ fault either. I think they were shipping all my good stuff off to India for grading.
I can’t prove it, but after hearing the other day that one of Idaho’s charter schools, the Idaho Virtual Academy, outsourced essays to India for review in the grading process it all made more sense.
The outsourcing was actually first revealed in 2008, but it was only recently discovered that the Idaho Virtual Academy was one Idaho school involved in the outsourcing.
So it’s no wonder my grades weren’t up to snuff. I mean have you ever tried to listen to one of those telemarketers, or 24-hour help centers. All of the staffers have names like Joe, John, Charles, and the like, but they can’t pronounce them very well. It’s because they’re all in India, but the calls are coming from the United States. We can’t pronounce their names, so they take on American monikers we can pronounce, only they can’t.
And while our English language is relatively simple, with just 26 vowels and consonants, it can become pretty tricky when you try to remember the difference between laid and layed, or their, there and they’re, or i before e, except after c. We like to keep people guessing a little bit.
While America’s unemployment rate remains much higher than it should be, business is thriving in other countries where the U.S. employers, like the online charter school providers, have shipped their work. People work for less and expect less in those countries. Who can blame those businesses when they can save a buck?
It isn’t just call centers, either. There are plenty of those still operating in the United States, more every day. And it isn’t just the automobile makers, or the clothing manufacturers. It’s happening in every industry. I know one major Idaho daily newspaper that is now outsourcing some of its production to India. With today’s technology, distance is no longer a factor.
But to be totally fair, it occasionally works the other way. The Toyota pickup I drive, for instance, was built in the United States. At least the dealer told me so and we all know car dealers wouldn’t fib.
But it’s sad, just the same.
America is outsourcing its work, costing jobs that could be filled by Americans.
And to top it off, our country continues falling deeper in debt, borrowing trillions of dollars from China, Japan, and other more cash flush countries. Not only do they now have our cash, they also have our jobs to go along with it.
But rest assured. We at your local hometown newspaper won’t be outsourcing our work to foreign countries anytime soon. At the rate our federal government is solving problems, pretty soon those other countries won’t take our money.
Thanks for reading! Read more in this week's print edition.Subscribe Today! |