When I was governor of West Virginia in the early 1990s, there was a ranking of developed countries based on the number of young people who had earned college degrees. Among 25 to 34 year-olds, the United States ranked third. I remember thinking that wasn't good enough. We used to be No. 1; we should lead the world in education attainment again.
Today we're ranked 12th. Behind Russia. Behind Japan and Korea. And if the pattern continues, soon to be behind a host of other nations smart enough to match their understanding of the importance of college completion with the investments that make it possible.
At the precise time that the importance of a college degree is increasing, the ability of the United States to compete in a global economy is decreasing.
This is a trend we must reverse.
We can debate the congressional stimulus package and the vast sums of money it includes to help pull us out of the recession. But those investments will mean little in the long run if we do not fuel the real engine of economic growth and the key to our global competitiveness -- education.
Each year 1.3 million students leave high school without graduating -- that's 7,000 students per day. Only about half of African American and Latino students earn a high school diploma. And the unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma is more than three times higher than the rate of those with a college degree.
Make no mistake -- our growing education deficit over the long term is as great a threat to our nation's well-being as the fiscal crisis.
The College Board recently released an action agenda detailing steps the United States must take to regain its global competitiveness. Our goal is to ensure that at least 55 percent of young Americans earn a college degree or higher by 2025. As of today, no state has achieved this goal; for more than half of the states, less than one third of their population ages 25 to 34 hold a degree.
Changing this requires establishing and supporting efforts to support first-generation, low-income and minority students as they complete college. Equally important, we must strengthen the pre-kindergarten through college completion educational pipeline.
Building the foundation for college graduation starts well before a child enters primary school. A growing body of evidence suggests that children who attend high-quality pre-kindergarten programs begin grade school equipped with larger vocabularies, the basic and critical building block of language and learning. Yet just 47 percent of low-income 3- to 5-year-olds are enrolled in preschool programs. That is why it is essential that states provide voluntary, high-quality preschool programs.
But that is only the beginning. We also need to ensure middle and high school counseling supports students' college aspirations. Today, there is only one counselor for every 467 students; that's almost twice the professional norm. In some states the ratio is as high as one counselor for every 800 students. Further, public secondary school counselors spend less than a quarter of their time on post-secondary admission counseling. We can turn this around by having colleges and universities provide college planning services in their communities, especially to low-income families.
There is also a growing gap between high school graduation requirements and the expectations of employers and colleges. Almost 45 percent of students who enter college seeking a bachelor's degree fail to graduate. That's why a rigorous high school curriculum must give students the knowledge and skills to master college-level courses and succeed in the workplace. We can do this by adhering to world-class standards throughout the nation so that all students are prepared for future opportunities in education, work and life.
Still, college will remain an unattainable dream for many unless we reduce costs and revamp student aid, providing clarity, predictability and greater simplicity for families.
We can do more than just remain competitive in the global economy. America can be number one again. We can reach the 55 percent by 2025 goal. But only if educators and policy makers alike take a hard look at the entire educational pipeline, from preschool through college completion.
We have to act now. In good times and bad, we must remember that a quality education remains the most valuable currency we have.
Joel Shatzky: Educating for Democracy: What Makes a "Great" Teacher?
Randy Proto: College: Worth the Investment?
College Entrance Examination Board
But I also know some students that go to America with an exchange to attend the senior year in high school; and if in Italy their cultural and scholastic level was quite good, without any A mark, in America they were considered a sort of genius. I think that this way of concern American school system as a business in which bigwigh invest their money (sometimes also to ensure that their son could be admitted to Harvard or Yale), It is counter-productive for the education itself. Focusing on the most important subject like maths and literiture and history, that is important, so that teenagers could be helped to find their way into work-life, their vocation. In other words: go into more deth maths, literiture, history and scienze and less psychologists and counselors, because a student has the right to find his path by himself, professors have just the role to teach him how do that.
I think colleges would be much more effective if most young people took a year or two to mature - working, volunteering, and being in the world - before going off to college, once they have some direction. This isn't for everyone -- I had a passion for science in high school and went straight to college -- but most of the freshmen I see could stand to mature a bit.
1) There are large swaths of our society who have no respect for learning - look around at the airport sometime, and you'll see lots of bemuscled, tattoo'd guys with shaved heads trying to look tough. They're rebels! And they're doomed to a lifetime of marginal existence, and they sort of know it.
2) A bit about anti-intellectualism: Look through the comments on any "college" thread and you'll see people sneering about how college is worthless, because it doesn't "pay". Need I say more?
Every person's work has dignity and worth.
College bigots vastly under value the worth of skilled technicians and somehow think any degree makes them a more worthy component of society. Not.
Anti-intellectuals deride anyone who wants to study a topic in a serious way.
Both are wrong.
In any case, our entire educational system is not up to the task today. Telling young people that any college degree is their ticket to global competitiveness is just pouring dollars down a stuffed and leaky hose.
I really wish that our high schools emphasized practical subjects along with the academic ones -- I suspect that one problem with our economy is that we've let ourselves become hollowed out, with fewer and fewer people who know how things actually work, and know how to make them, step by step. It's great to have a sophisticated understanding of Proust, or Maxwell's equations, but I wish that our students didn't feel they were somehow failures if they became, for example, a highly skilled machinist. That really does take brains as well as good hands.
Well, there goes the neighborhood.
This country is not slipping toward third-world status, it is plunging toward it.
American schools, for the most part, are not preparing their students to compete globally. And given America’s defiant anti-intellectual climate of late, I do not see much change in its future.
Quite cliché to say we get the government we deserve. Do people who vote against backward school board officials that still get elected, get the government they deserve, of course not.
FANNED,
and completely true.
If you had kids you pay for them and leave the people that don't the money that they make so that they can start businesses not keep spending on these kids. I paid $20,000 in property tax $13,000 of that goes to schools??? $7.23 went to my health dept. ?? Are you kidding !!!
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