Latin America Is Lagging. Someone Tell Its Leaders.

But the most troubling trend for Latin America is its stagnation in education, science and technology. While Asians and Eastern Europeans are creating increasingly highly skilled labor forces, most Latin American countries have barely modified their outdated education systems.

In China, to my surprise, I learned that children in all public schools begin English-language classes in third grade, four hours a week. I asked Mexico's education minister a few weeks later what grade Mexican public-school students start studying English. The answer: seventh grade, two hours a week.

That shocker is just one measure of Latin America's educational challenge. Among others that I cited in the book, further enraging the region's elites:

Many Mexicans, Argentines and other Latin Americans believe their big, state-run universities are great, but they're actually pretty mediocre. The Times of London's 2007 ranking of the world's 200 best universities features only three Latin American universities, at the very bottom of the list: the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (178th,) the University of Campinas, Brazil (179th), and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (195th). About a dozen universities from China, Singapore and South Korea rank much higher.

As the number of Asian students in U.S. colleges rises, the number of Latin Americans falls. According to the Institute of International Education, India has 84,000 students in U.S. colleges, China 68,000 and South Korea 62,000, and the percentage of Asian students rose by 5 percent in 2006. But Mexico has just 14,000 students in U.S. colleges, Brazil 7,000 and Venezuela 4,500, and the number of Latin American students fell by 0.3 percent last year.

While Asian and East European countries are mass-producing engineers and scientists, Latin America's state-run universities are producing large numbers of psychologists, sociologists and political scientists.

In the latest Program for International Student Assessment, a standardized test that measures 15-year-olds' proficiency in reading, math and science, Latin American countries' scores were among the lowest in the world.

Only 1 percent of all world investment in research and development goes to Latin America. The region's 32 countries together spend $11 billion per year in R&D -- less than the $12 billion that South Korea alone spends, according to the Inter-American Development Bank.

Why is all of this important? Because in today's knowledge economy, it's not raw materials that get you rich, it's services, marketing and brains.

My favorite example: Of each cup of Latin American-grown coffee that American consumers buy at any U.S. cafeteria, less than 3 percent of the price goes to the region's farmers. The remaining 97 percent goes to those involved in the genetic engineering, processing, branding, marketing and other knowledge-based activities that help produce a cup of java, most of which are based outside the region.

Despite these depressing statistics, I'm still optimistic about Latin America. The region is also experiencing several encouraging trends, including more democracy and political and economic stability.

Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Peru, among others, are breaking away from Latin America's age-old curse of extreme political swings, which led to instability, capital flight and ever-growing poverty. These and other countries have bet on economic continuity, which is beginning to draw growing domestic and foreign investments. In several cases, shrewd economic moves have been made by a new breed of economically responsible leftist governments.

Granted, U.S. officials and most of us in the media focus on Chávez and his allies in Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, who reliably get big headlines with their calls for socialist revolution. But Venezuela and its friends don't account for more than 8 percent of Latin America's gross domestic product. Latin America's real story is being written elsewhere in the region -- and it may still have a happy ending.

aoppenheimer@miamiherald.com

Andrés Oppenheimer is a syndicated columnist for the Miami Herald and the author of "Saving the Americas: The Dangerous Decline of Latin America and What the U.S. Must Do."