Everyone, even in these politically paralyzed times, seems to agree that the U.S. is woefully behind many developed nations in the math and science performance of our students.  Both presidential candidates bemoan our students’ slippage to the lower tiers of the global education ladder, and insist that nothing less than America’s future as a world power is at stake when future generations cannot compete with Chinese and Czechs alike.

The problem is real, but the remedies seem all too remote.  Will abandoning the No Child Left Behind Act, or tinkering at the edges of classroom size, make a real difference for this generation?  Our limited consensus does not even extend to the question of whether or not we need more teachers.  See the July 9 Wall Street Journal piece by CATO scholar Andrew Coulson, entitled “America has Too Many Teachers.”  And if fixes could be agreed, the results might not show for many years.  The Education Problem seems intractable.  Most of us, with our web-trained 10-second attention spans, just have more urgent priorities.

I suggest that we “buy” educated students, rather than “build” them, as a bridge to somewhere later on, in U.S. schools.

In the corporate world, “build vs. buy” decisions are made all the time—especially in high tech, where global changes and constant innovation by competitors makes it impossible to stay ahead without acquiring talent and IP from elsewhere.   Cisco Systems famously moved this model to prominence, acquiring 15-25 companies a year for their products and their people.  So why not “buy” the best-educated and trained engineers, scientists, artists and architects, doctors and nuclear physicists, from other countries, until we can better educate our own?

Which raises that other hot-button issue, immigration.  I’m not talking about throwing open the southern border to migrant farm workers (however much needed) and drug lords.  This is a simple matter of recalibrating our immigration policy along the lines of Australia, or Canada—which, insane though it sounds, is accepting more immigrants than the U.S. these days.  Canada actively encourages immigrants who will contribute economically from the instant of their arrival.  Interestingly, 3% come from the U.S.  Meanwhile Silicon Valley runs out of H-1B visas in the first months of each year.

As the best depart in droves from ravaged economies like Greece, Ireland and Spain, or from less favored climes in China, India and Russia, why are we shunting their ambition and talent off to Canada or other competitor nations?

If America ever needed more citizens like Albert Einstein, Werner Von Braun, I.M. Pei, Madeline Albright, Charlie Chaplin, Andy Grove, Joseph Pulitzer, Irving Berlin and Sergey Brin, we need them now. According to a study by the Dallas Federal Reserve, foreign-born citizens made up 14% of the labor force in 2002, yet accounted for 51% of total jobs growth from 1996-2002.

We’re building far fewer great minds these days, and each day more funds are being stripped from the school systems.  Until we solve that long-term and much tougher education issue, shouldn’t we get the low-hanging fruit by accelerating our “buys” from abroad?