Herbert: Clueless in America (Failing Education System)

[RamboLiberal]

We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.

The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/22/opinion/22herbert.html?hp

[But....]

1. With all the crises facing the next president....

Education may lead the list, it affects nearly all other problems and it may be one of the hardest to tackle. :argh:

[DavidG]

2. It answers the question.

I keep wondering why America is is such deep trouble. This brief post has confirmed what I've long suspected. Democracy can't work if people are both ignorant and poorly educated.

So much for the American dream!

[TygrBright]

3. It's a tough issue to tackle from the Federal angle...

...because so much of the control is (and should remain) local. Still, there are three things that a new President could do that would make a big difference in the long run:

1. Dismantle NCLB

2. Put the cash (and anything else that can be squeezed out of the budget) into a fund for capital improvements in the nation's K-12 public schools; provide loan guarantees without strings but low or no-interest financing with the single string attached: guarantee class sizes of 26 or smaller for 10 years in the new/remodeled schools.

3. Put every other dime they can squeeze out into a scholarship program for education majors at the top fifty college/university education programs, scholarships carrying a three-year commitment to teach at the nation's most disadvantaged schools sometime during the first fifteen years after they graduate.

Those are comparatively small things that could have a big impact in the long term. They don't unreasonably impinge on local control of education, and they are reasonable in budget terms considering the deficit and the costly messes that the next Administration will be having to clean up.

hopefully,
Bright