钱钟书经典美文翻译

Business Sees Profits in Education:

Challenging Public Schools

By Irving H.Buchen

由于私人企业的介入，美国的教育正在经历一系列快速、惊人的变化。

cation in the United States is undergoing a rapid and dramatic series of changes caused by private enterprise moving into the field.

教育吸引私人企业有三个原因。第一是财务上的回报。估计教育是个有6000亿美元的市场，超出国防部的预算。从幼儿园至12年级是最大的单个市场，1998年的价值达到了3100百亿美元。除此之外，人们对学习的毕生追求，企业与机构进行的培训项目是不断增长的领域。

cation attracts the private sector for three reasons. First, it can be financially rewarding. Education is estimated to be a $600 billion market, more than the budget for the Department of Defense. The biggest single market is kindergarten through twelfth grade (K-12), valued at $310 billion in 1998. Additionally, lifelong learning and training programs for businesses and organizations are growing areas.

第二，教育受到严重的压力，虽然内部尽全力进行改革，但人们对这个既有的体制信心不足。针对公共教育的种种败笔，居家自学者和公办民管学校有了增加，他们都是教育产品和教育服务的对象。居家自学者的家长们定期参加承办者们推荐其教育产品和教育服务的地区会议。

3.Second, education has received such a bad press that confidence in the established system is low in spite of all the internal efforts at reform. In response to public education's many failures, home schoolers and charter schools have increased, and both are customers for educational products and services. Home-schooling parents regularly attend regional conferences at which exhibitors offer their products and services.

第三，教育就在人们身边，伸手可及。人们普遍认为专业的公共教育家们有充足的时间来彻底改变这一体制。私人企业即便是以营利为动力介入来纠正这种体制，只能怪教育家们自己，尤其是因为这类介入许诺会产生效果。

4.Third, education is there for the taking. The general attitude is that professional, public educators have had sufficient time to turn the system around. They have no one but themselves to blame for corrective intervention from the private sector, even if that intervention is financially motivated, and especially since these actions promise to achieve results.

目前几乎所有在营销的新的教育产品和教育服务都带有技术的特征。这种技术能替代全部教师或减少教师的数量，从而解决一些传统教育中的致命弱点。譬如，替代教师只是降低了大量劳动密集型的教学过程导致的昂贵费用，而学生数量并没有减少。这样就取消了教师终身职位制，而终身制恰恰使那些既没有受过培训又没有水平，不适应变化及新方法的教员始终留在岗位上。这一技术最终犹如最好的教师，永远耐心温和。它适合每个学生的不同学习速度和知识水平，永不疲倦。

5.Almost all of the new educational products and services now being marketed bear the stamp of technology. Such technology replaces teachers altogether or reduces their number, thus solving several critical weaknesses in traditional education. For instance, replacing teachers reduces the high cost of an excessively labor-intensive instructional process while still serving the same number of students. Then, too, it eliminates tenure, which unfortunately locks in instructors who do not have the training or knowledge to keep up with changing fields and new approaches. Finally, technology, like the best of teachers, is infinitely patient and reassuring. It accommodates