Q: As Vivek Paul said in the documentary, Americans don’t have economic opportunism as a motivator and have to find a different way to motivate themselves. How can we do this?

I think we have two choices. One, American parents and students can look at the facts of what’s happening around the world in education and economic growth, and we can realize that we need to change our culture and make intelligent changes. Or, more likely, the way we will develop motivation to be globally competitive is that a series of economic disasters will force us to change.

If you had asked me five years ago, “Bob, can you imagine in your wildest dreams that General Motors will be bankrupt in five years,” I would have said, “You are crazy. GM has been the leading automotive corporation for years.”  And that’s what happened — tens of thousands of people lost their jobs.

What your generation will see might be the collapse of major U.S. corporations and cities and states declaring bankruptcy.  I think there’s a reasonable chance that California or Illinois will be the first states to require federal bailouts. We tend to only respond in a crisis. Pearl Harbor was an example. We didn’t get involved in World War II until somebody attacked us. We haven’t felt enough economic pain at this point.

Q: Some schools have done away with class rank and valedictorians to avoid hurt feelings. How much can we blame political correctness for diminishing the drive to compete?

Political correctness is a major contributor to demotivating people to be competitive. Human beings are competitive. We’ve been competitive for millions of years. We do a terrible, terrible disservice to our students by not letting them experience hurt, by not letting them experience pain. Hurt and pain are parts of life. They’re going to experience those things when they get out into the real world. I think it’s important to let them experience it in school, where the consequences aren’t losing your home, losing your job. Let them handle success and failure in the safety of a school environment.

Some schools have removed grades so the students don’t feel bad about themselves. That is so cruel because they’re going to get their feelings hurt dozens of times. If they’ve never had those feelings before, if they don’t know how to manage them, they will have a harder time in their career.

Q: Amy Chua has taken a lot of criticism for her book, “Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.” Do you think that Chua’s parenting style is reflective of how most Chinese raise their children, and should American parents take a page out of Chua’s book?

Her style reflects how two million Chinese moms raise their kids. It is a perfect reflection of Chinese educational culture. Should Americans take a page out of her book? No. American parents and American children will never be like the Chinese. We have a very different culture. What we need to figure out is “what is a uniquely American way to strive for excellence at the global level?”  What is an American parenting style that will allow our students to be competitive with Chinese students?

Q: After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, there was a newfound appreciation for math and science in the United States. Will it take another Sputnik for Americans to realize how far behind we are?

Sputnik so terrified Americans that nuclear warheads were going to be circling the Earth and aimed at us that we rose to the challenge and wound up beating them in the space race and economically. I don’t see another country doing something in the next 30 or 40 that would equal the emotion and fear caused by Sputnik. We won’t have a Sputnik moment. We will have a series of events slowly wake us up to the new global economic realities. We know we’re behind. We’ve known we were behind since the “Nation at Risk” report by Ronald Reagan. It’s going to take just terrible economic upheaval before our political leaders have the will, and our parents and students have the commitment to bring our academic achievement up to world standards.

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