Steve Sailer often says that people in the main stream press know what they are saying is nonsense, but they say it anyway because that’s just the way it is. The really smart ones use subtle language to lampoon the prevailing pieties of those around them. I’m not so sure. It could be, but I’m not sold. I’ve been around a lot of these folks and I suspect they really believe it. Maybe they are really good at pretending or I’m too dumb to find the heretical Easter eggs in their words. Like for instance in this piece.

America is widely considered a global leader in economics, business, and culture. But when it comes to education, the U.S. seems to be falling behind. In the 2012 PISA results, we ranked 27th in math, 17th in reading, and 20th in science. Our high school graduation rates are ranked 18th internationally.

A month ago, I had the pleasure of spending two weeks in Korea and Japan, meeting with leading education, technology, and telecommunications companies, as well as a ministry of education interested in Knewton adaptive learning technology.

I couldn’t help but compare the education systems in these countries to that in the United States. Globally, Korea and Japan have some of the highest rates of academic achievement. In the 2012 PISA survey, Korea was ranked fifth in math and reading and seventh in science; Japan was ranked seventh in math and fourth in reading and science. Japan has the second highest high school graduation rate internationally, with Korea in fifth place.

It’s obvious that Korea and Japan both value education enormously. But so does the United States. We regard education as a basic human right.

So what’s driving this huge discrepancy?

Some say it’s cultural. In America, we prize exceptionalism; in Korea and Japan, the focus is on raising the mean. Others point to socioeconomic inequality; schools can’t fix poverty. American K-12 education is controlled at the local level, making it difficult to implement programs widely. We’re paralyzed by politicized debates over standards, testing, and budgets.

But I think there’s something more important at play here: the way we treat teachers. In Korea and Japan, teachers are revered and paid accordingly. Top students aspire to the profession.

We need to start treating teachers with the respect they deserve. Imagine if Apple, Google, Facebook, and the country’s top tech companies tried to recruit employees without offering them great pay, perks, top-of-the-line technology, development opportunities, and smart colleagues. It would be unthinkable.These companies have spent the time and investment to figure out exactly what it takes to get top people to want to work for them — and, once they’re there, to stay.

Once you correct for race, America’s schools do just fine. Our Koreans score the same as the Koreans in Korea. Our Mauritanians do as well as  Mauritanians wherever it is Mauritanians live. Replace 15% of Japan’s population with Chechens and see what happens to their overall test scores and crime rates. Does this guy know this? My experience say probably not. I’ve had this conversation and the other person looks at me like I’m speaking in tongues. But, maybe I travel in the wrong circles. Perhaps the super smart sophisticates like David Liu use language in a way that rubes like me can’t comprehend and he is really making sport of liberal pieties regarding education and IQ.

Now, I do have the Google and I can find that Mr. Liu seems to have ripped off his claims from a group called the Varkey Gems Foundation that has been humping the idea of treating teachers as gods. I can also look up teacher pay from these guys who do the hard work of tabulating this stuff. Japan’s average pay, in US dollars, is $43,775 and South Korea is $43,874. The US is at $44,917. So much for his claims about how we pay our teachers compared to the Orient. The US, by the way, is the second highest pay rate, just behind Singapore. You’ll notice in the HuffPo report that the US also does just as well on the respect scale.

Further, the average pay for a software engineer is $69, 215 per year. It is also an infinity more difficult job requiring an IQ at least one standard deviation higher than a teacher. Education majors score at the bottom of the SAT for incoming freshmen. Many struggle with basic math. Many states were forced to scrap their teacher exams because the teachers kept flunking. In some cities, teachers cannot be fired resulting in perverts and degenerates on the payroll. None of this is tolerated in fields like software engineering. There are far fewer people with the IQ to do software than teach gym at the elementary school. That’s why the software job pays better.

I can see why Sailer thinks these guys are putting us on. How can someone be so wrong and made it to adulthood?