Education
The
United States education system presents a myriad of problems in enacting system
wide reform, primarily stemming from extreme decentralization and localization
as well as being funded by a variety of different methods. Given these challenges to reform, I will
divide any advocacy for education reform programs into two distinct groups;
those relating to kindergarten through high school education and those relating
to university education. Given the
extreme localization of our education system, I will further divide
responsibilities and capacity for reasonable reform measures between local
governments, state governments, federal governments, and combinations of the
three governments. Within these guises I
will propose a few measures and general policy focuses to improve the quality
of education for children and young adults in the United States. I will argue for a new generation of land
grant colleges specializing in computer science and technology to provide
affordable university education in areas of current and future American
economic need. Next I will argue for a
new orientation of education programs with a primary aim of intertwining
families in the education process from the earliest age of students. Finally I will argue for the federal
government to withhold funding for a variety of projects to states until the
states force local communities, which provide most individual school funding,
to raise more revenue for their local school systems themselves.[1] In return the federal government will provide
more funding to states and thus to local communities for schools which will
partially aide in the increase of revenue from each localities citizens. If these steps prescribed are enacted I believe
we can increase the education and thus the capacities of the American workforce
to not only endure, but thrive in the globally competitive world.
In
the late 1800’s the United States was on the cusp of its industrial revolution,
a technological and economic movement that would transform the United States
into the world’s largest and most dynamic economy. Railroads and telegraph lines were
crisscrossing the nation. Americans were
utilizing and exploiting many new technologies.
The United States needed a new class of engineers, architects, and
workers to master and maximize these new technologies. During this era the United States began
expanding and really utilizing a system of land grant universities to produce
the engineers of the future.
Universities such as Cornell, Ohio State, and many others were started
on public land with aide from public funds to provide affordable education to
the public and to train the workforce in the demands of new technology. These engineers, who were educated at these
intuitions, designed and created railroads, skyscrapers, automobiles, planes,
and seemingly countless products and devices which substantially bettered the
quality of life of Americans. With the
invention and widespread adoption of the internet, the next revolution has been
and is sweeping across not just the United States but the world. The technology revolution is changing the way
people shop, interact, and work, in short it is radically changing the
world. The United States needs to adapt
and change to the new demands and opportunities of the technology
revolutionized world. We need to change
our education system to adapt to the new requirements of the technology
revolution.
A
simple, time tested way of augmenting our system for the technology revolution
is to create a series of land grant universities for computer science and
technology to train the next generation of engineers for the technology and
jobs of our new technological and economic era, a public land grant
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in every state. Public universities have traditionally been
the best avenue for advancement into the middle class for Americans. We need to help our public universities
continue to provide an avenue for Americans into the middle class by giving
Americans public universities that educate them for in demand jobs of the
future. The United States has created a
hot bed of technological innovation in Silicon Valley. The United States needs to provide firms in
Silicon Valley with highly trained workers to aide in the incredible innovation
and products being produced there.
Public universities focused on computer science and technology can
provide education for future jobs to large numbers of Americans at affordable
prices. Creating a capable workforce
with the skills for the technology revolution is paramount to economic success
of the American people domestically, but is also incredibly necessary in a
globally competitive world where the United States does not have a monopoly on
technological innovation and firms can easily outsource jobs to workers in
other countries. Given current levels of
economic competition from other countries never experienced before by previous
generations of Americans, creating a workforce with the knowledge and skills
needed to compete in the global economy is paramount as well. Americans are no longer competing only with
themselves. While the United States is
currently the world’s largest economy, we cannot rest on our laurels.
In
order to achieve a drastic increase in public land grant universities for
computer science and technology, I propose a partnership between the federal
government and state governments. The
federal government will have to make a substantial financial investment in
these institutions, primarily involved in construction costs and creating endowments.[2] A
state government will provide a track of usable land for the university to be
constructed upon and grow. The federal
government will provide the initial funding for the endowment with additional
future payments made in decreasing amounts until the land grant university is
no longer funded and financially supported by the federal government. After this point with the federal government
is reached, the maintenance and responsibility of the land grant university
will be the responsibility of the corresponding state government. The federal government will also contribute to
the initial cost of construction which will be shared with the state
government. Each public land grant
university for computer science and technology will be a mutual investment by
state governments and the federal government.
The
mammoth underperformance of the kindergarten through secondary school education
system across the United States in educating American children to think and for
future career opportunities has many causes.
Adequate financial funding is certainly a necessity that is missing from
many local school systems across the United States and children need an
adequate level and quality of resources to utilize in order to develop to their
full potential, but we should not make the mistake of placing the burden of
improving children’s educational performance on financial funding alone. Highlighting the disparity in funding between
school systems is the easiest way and most political powerful way to advocate
for education reform, but we will do a grave mistake to focus solely or over
weight financial funding as the cause and solution to our education
problems. Many other factors play into
the United States’ failure to create a better education system, one of the
largest determining factors in a child’s educational success is the value
placed on education by their family, in essence, family values. Along with family income, parents’ education
levels are highly correlated with the success of their children
educationally. Given that one’s parents
or authority figures play perhaps the biggest role in shaping a child’s values,
it is no surprise that educated parents who value education and instil an
importance for education within their children are overwhelmingly parents of
successful children both educationally and economically. If one looks at the two most economically and
educationally successful immigrant groups by culture in the United States since
1965, one finds that cultures that places great value on education and success
in educational pursuits produce the two most economically successful culture
groups; South Asian and East Asian Americans.
With their well know
‘Tiger Moms’ becoming an easily recognizable pop culture reference, East Asian
parents have become easily recognized for the value they place on education and
the degree that it is instilled in their children. Once the state of California lifted their
affirmative action policy at their state universities, East Asian and South
Asian American student enrollment made a significant increase. It is no coincidence that East Asian and
South Asian Americans are overrepresented in undergraduate institutions and
professional graduate schools such as medical schools, law schools, and
business schools. The cultural
importance placed education by East Asian and South Asian families has produced
tangible results in graduate school enrollment and along with higher education
levels, individual economic success. One
cannot objectively ignore the fact of the value East and South Asian American
cultures put on education towards their individual economic success.[3]
The value East Asian
and South Asian American cultures place on education is a great American
success story that ‘feels good’ to hold up and pronounce as well as bringing up
few issues of current popular political correctness and niceties. We must also correctly diagnose cultures that
do not value education, in order to better craft solutions for all of America’s
children. If we become beholden to
current popular political correctness and are too worried about not remotely
offending any culture group, we risk falsely diagnosing problems and failing to
provide better education for those Americans affected. Without singling out any particular American
cultural groups, there are certain American cultural groups who do not place
the same value on education as other groups.
As a result over decades of placing less emphasis on education
culturally, these cultural groups are often more highly correlated with low
income earnings.[4] Considering that local, state, and federal
governments in the United States already have many programs aimed at giving aid
to low income citizens in a variety of ways, a tremendous opportunity is
presented to utilize existing government programs to aid in educational
development. We have an opportunity to
make government programs more efficient without increasing their cost. If the United States is to meet all of its
large outstanding financial obligations, citizens cannot count on an increase,
in real terms, in funding for government programs in the future. I believe policy maker will have to turn
towards efficiency to achieve any gains in effectiveness of government
programs.
Therefore as a general
strategy, I advocate utilizing existing government programs or in the
utilization of new government programs to incorporate education and educational
development into the end goal of each program.
Shifting existing funding to new outlets that incorporate new aspects
while still dispensing funds to those citizens targeted and setting new
conditions for government aide if done in an imaginative ways have the
potential to increase aide to low income citizens without drastic increases in
government funding cost. For example,
welfare benefits and food stamps given to parents with children can be linked
to their children’s school attendance rate.
A similar program linking government aid to school attendance rates has
yielded substantial increases in the percentage of children attending school in
Brazil.[5] Providing more incentives for low income
individuals to send their children to school is a low cost addition to our existing
efforts as well as targeting a demographic of children who have the lowest
school attendance rates in the United States.
A further addition could be to redirect a portion of aid, whether
through direct cash payments or the food stamp programs, towards providing food
at schools. A portion of that money
could be sent to schools so schools can provide breakfast, lunch, and an after
school mean to children, directly tying government aid to schools. Children will have to attend school in order
to receive their aid. With advances in
technology over the past 10 years, most American schools provide their students
with identification cards similar to driver’s licenses. These identification cards are used for entry
into the school and most often kids can purchase a school meal plan and/or put
money on their school cards which in turn are used to pay for meals at
school. Government funds for low income
students could be supplied directly to the students’ account at the school
which would enable them to visibly pay for their meals with their student card
without the social stigma of visibly using food stamps or some form of
government aid. Also, providing meals
through the school gives the government more control over what children eat. The government can guarantee healthy options
for three meals a day, ensuring the student receives their daily amount of
nutrition, with the potential of increasing the health of American children. Schools providing meals to low income
children also relieves the burden from parents who are often working long hours
and may not have the time or energy to research the nutritional facts behind
healthy means or buy healthy ingredients.
Programs like these will be essential in a future where the United
States is operating with a diminished financial capacity. Programs will have to become more
efficient. We will have to focus more on
what we do with our resources than on the level of our resources.
Throughout the
kindergarten through secondary school education levels, the federal government
has very little control over individual school system funding. At best the federal government can exert some
control over school systems by raising standards. The main culprit behind the lack of federal
government control and influence over individual school system funding is the
extreme decentralization of America’s school systems. The federal government has very few ways of
influencing local communities or bringing pressure on them. The most effective tool the federal
government has at its disposal is the federal purse, funding for state and
local government programs, ranging from highway funding to Medicare and
Medicaid funding. The federal government
provides billions of dollars to states mostly in partial and sometimes full
funding of state programs. By utilizing
funding for state and local programs as leverage, the federal government can
influence local governments. If the
federal government wanted states and localities to contribute more towards a program
the federal government could withhold funding for other programs until states
and localities agreed to provide more funding for the program in question. The federal government did this in the 1980’s
in order to achieve an increase in state legal drinking ages. In the 1980’s the federal government withheld
highway funding from states that did not maintain a legal drinking age of 21
years. No state held out for even an
entire year. If this was achieved with
just withholding highway funding, the added pressure of withholding funding
from other programs would bring even more pressure onto the shoulders of state
and local governments.
In order to achieve
increased funding for individual school systems across the United States, I
advocate that the federal government increase the amount of educational funding
to states and localities along with increased educational standards and
practices, conditional upon states and localities increasing their funding for
school systems. If the federal
government increases funding to states and localities for local school systems,
the federal government becomes a partner with state and local governments. However, the increase in federal funding to
states and localities for education should not be drastic. In the future the United States will have to
operate with a relatively diminished financial capacity. Therefore the bulk of increased funding for
school systems needs to come from local governments and to a lesser extent
state governments.
Along with increased
federal funding for local education systems, the federal government will also
require higher educational standards and certain educational practices changed
or added. Given the nature and rate of
technological advancement in recent years and the increasing dependence of
businesses and people on technology, the government should mandate a curriculum
that incorporates computer science and programming classes for all
students. Most American high schools
require two years of study of a foreign language; a similar requirement can be
made for the study of computer programming languages. Education experts can decide what age range
is best for learning computer programming languages, although I would lean
towards a much earlier introduction to programming than high school, ideally in
grammar school. The standards for
teaching qualifications need to be increased as well, along with a much needed
increase in teacher pay. For secondary
school teachers, a requirement of holding a bachelor’s degree in the subject
they will instruct will be a requirement.
Other changes to the standards required to teach should be implanted as
well, with the guise of attracting and obtaining better more effective teachers
in American school systems. To
compensate for these changes and to attract more qualified individuals to the
teaching profession, teaching salaries should be doubled at least. Teaching is one of, if not the noblest
profession an individual can undertake, we should reward our teachers financially
for their service and place a financial weight on education in our society.
Other standards that
should be adopted involve the increased utilization of technology in class
rooms to give teachers faster and in certain instances instantaneous
feedback. Teachers should not have to
wait until the end of the semester or school year to receive the results of
standardized tests, by then it is too late to help their students. With increased use of technology, more timely
feedback can allow teachers to correct their lesson plans to better accommodate
the needs of their students during the school year.
On a larger macro
level, our conception of the school year needs to change. Too many public school systems in the United
States have a mandatory limit of days they must remain open, which springs from
a conception of education that treats time as an independent variable and
results as a dependent variable, x input of hours equals y return on
results. Educational results rarely work
in this fashion. We need to conceptually
change results as the input. The
duration of the school year should be dependent on the results and learning of
students. Increasingly, better
performing school around the world are moving towards year round education,
conducting classes on Saturdays, adding an hour to the school day, and many other
practices with the goal of achieving results for their students. In a globally competitive world, United
States students must not be shackled by old ways of thinking and comfortable
practices of the past. We need to adapt
to a changing world that is more competitive, if we fail to do this we put our
future workforce at a competitive disadvantage.
While these educational
reforms will vastly help American students, there will almost certainly be
without question, large levels of hostility in local communities to increasing
taxes to pay for these educational advances.
Simply put, people do not like to pay more of their income to the
government. Even with the increase in
educational funding from the federal government, local communities will most
likely not be swayed in support. The
federal government will have to utilize its power of the purse to coerce local
communities and states to pay their portion of the proposed increase in
educational spending. The federal
government should withhold all educational funding as well as highway funding and
any other funding for state and local programs until local governments and
state governments acquiesce to the increases in funding advocated by the
federal government. The cost of making
up the loss of federal educational funding and highway funding alone will
greatly exceed the proposed increase in educational funding to be paid by local
governments and states. Local
governments may be able to hold out longer than state governments, but the
increased venerability of state governments is an asset to be utilized against
local governments. Currently, many states have serious budget problems, given
the federal government’s suspension of funding more bite. The federal government can then exert more
influence on state governments to place more pressure on local governments
through a variety of means to force local governments to acquiesce, raise
taxes, and increase funding for schools.
While the plan laid out above is incredibly draconian in its execution,
it however is the most viable and effective way for the federal government to
achieve lasting and sustainable change to kindergarten through secondary school
education systems through the United States.
This plan will require elected public servants, with no small degree of
courage and the stomach for being disliked.
This elected public servant will without question have to expend a great
deal of political capital in enacting this plan. I do believe that the results to be gained by
this plan far outweigh the costs of not bettering the education system in the
United States.
The United States need
to improve its education system to be competitive in the world we currently
inhabit and any future world. As other
nations grow economically and move out of the third world, American students
and workers will encounter ever increasing workplace competition, creating
downward pressure on wages. We must give
our students and workers the ability to compete with competition from around
the world. The United States was one of
the first industrialized nations to embrace universal grammar through secondary
school education and our universities have become the envy of the world, our
past educational advantages have contributed greatly to the economic, cultural,
and technological supremacy the United States enjoys today. If we are to maintain our place at the top we
will have to embrace changes and improvements in our education system.
[1] I
realize how series and draconian this last propose seems. I also realize how political unfeasible this
may seem as well. However I believe it
is the most effective and the only way to achieve nationwide long-term systemic
change to the education system. It will
require our elected public servants to exercise no small degree of political
capital and stomach no small degree of negative public sentiment.
[2] Endowing
these public land grant universities will make each university more
self-sufficient and defray the future maintenance cost to the government.
[3]
Given the conclusion reached that the East Asian and South Asian American
cultures put a greater emphasis on education than other cultures, one may find
oneself confronted with a question; Why then do India and China lag behind the
United States in many education criteria such as school attendance rates,
educational investment in real terms and per capita, and in general economic
success? A very good question
indeed. First, it is important to make
the distinction between East Asian/South Asian cultures and East Asian
American/South Asian American cultures.
East Asian Americans and South Asian Americans certainly borrow a great
deal from the geographic areas of their cultural roots, but they are also
living and interacting in the United States, which undoubtedly influences and
in part constructs their cultural experience.
So drawing a direct parallel between East Asian American/South Asian
American culture and East Asian/South Asian culture is not an apples for apples
comparison. Second, there is a disparity
that should be accounted for between China/India and the United States in terms
of per capita income, quality of educational institutions, general economic
development, sophistication of the public sector and public services,
corruption, rule of law, etc.
Considering the differences between China/India and the United States in
these previously mentioned areas, there are many factors that enable a cultural
value to achieve higher levels of success.
[4]
This statement in no way attributes causation or the majority of causation for
a specific American cultural groups lack of economic success to their value of
education. Placing value on education is
simply one of the factors to be considered.
[5] Note
that Brazil is staring form a much lower point of economic development than the
United States and gains will be much larger in nominal terms as a result.
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