January 1, Why Tech Giants Rely on Foreign Workers

Wyatt’s Take

• Elon Musk’s support for H-1B visas highlights a deeper American problem.
• Our public schools aren’t teaching kids strong math skills.
• Common Core and new methods are confusing and failing students.

Elon Musk wants H-1B visas because he says America needs more tech workers. The real reason for these visas is our schools aren’t teaching math well enough.

By law, H-1B visas go to foreigners who do specialized jobs, mostly in tech. Every year, 65,000 regular visas are handed out, plus 20,000 for advanced degrees. A 2023 federal report showed 65% of H-1B jobs are computer-related, but less than 1% go to social sciences.

America’s math problem is getting worse. In 2024, a staggering 72% of eighth-graders failed to score at the proficient level in math, which is up from 66% in 2019.

Why is this happening? Math teaching isn’t working.

When Common Core standards came out, they promised to fix math education. They haven’t worked. Kids are told to draw pictures or shade rectangles instead of just memorizing basic math facts.

A California math tutor named Michael Malione says kids spend too much time drawing and not enough just solving problems.

“We’re going to draw a picture every time we’re given 10 problems with fractional multiplication, when you could do them in your head? That’s insane.”

Malione sees students struggling without clear guidance.

A federal study found Common Core actually hurt kids’ math scores. College math teachers see new students struggle with even basic algebra, saying, “we’re not producing the kinds of students and graduates that Silicon Valley needs.”

Sugi Sorensen, an engineer at Jet Propulsion Lab and math tutor, says we need to get back to old-fashioned basics:

“the memorization of math facts and procedures”

and a careful, step-by-step approach. She says this makes kids accurate and confident in math.

Sorensen also wants schools to stick with orderly lessons, so new skills build on the old ones. Long division and other operations need to be practiced until kids master them.

America’s schools serve nearly 50 million K-12 kids. If we go back to what works in math class, our companies wouldn’t have to rely on foreign talent. We’d have plenty of smart, job-ready young people here at home.

Let’s make school math strong again, so America leads and our workers fill good jobs.

Wyatt Matters

Families in the heartland know the power of old-fashioned learning—hard work and basics first. When our schools focus on strong math, our kids can grab good opportunities without being shoved aside by broken systems. That’s how we build a future for all of us right here at home.

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