On Education, Obama Blows It

I have not the expertise to address the merits of President Obama's speech to Congress on the issues of the economy. I do claim some expertise on education. He blew it.

He accepted the same garbage that the propagandists, fear mongers such as Lou Gerstner, Bill Gates, Roy Romer, Bob Wise, Craig Barrett and many others--God help us, Arne Duncan?--have been spewing for years.

Obama said, ""Right now, three quarters of the fastest-growing occupations require more than a high school diploma, and yet just over half of our citizens have that level of education. Scary, huh? Not really. This statistic was a favorite of ex secretary of education of education Margaret Spellings, about whom we can all express a sigh of relief that the operative word is, "ex."

If you look at the Bureau of Labor Statistics stats on job projections, it is almost true (but not really) that what Obama said is right. But there are two hugely compromising factors that make this statistic much less fearsome that it first appears:

1. The definition of "more than a high school diploma" is a weasel phrase, an incredibly slippery statistic. It does not mean a B. A., an Associates Degree, nor even a year of on-the-job training. The BLS projects that the overwhelming majority of jobs to be created between now and 2016 will require "short term on the job training." That's one week to three months.

2. The "fastest-growing occupations" account for very few jobs. For every systems engineer, we need about 15 sales people on the floor at Wal-Mart (and we have three newly minted scientists and engineers for every new job in those fields). The huge job numbers in this country are accounted for by retail sales, janitors, maids, food workers, waiters, truck drivers, home care assistants (low paid folk who come to take care those of us who are getting up in years), and similar low-trained, low-paid occupations. Note that I did not say these people are "low-skilled." As Barbara Ehrenreich showed after she spent two years working in "low-skilled" jobs, there really is no such thing (see her Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America).

"We have one of the highest high school dropout rates of any industrialized nation, and half of our students who begin college never finish."

Because test scores no longer work to prove American school failure, the statistic of choice to prove what a lousy job we're doing is the graduation rate. How dare those European and Asian nations have the audacity to recover from World War II! The dropout rates across nations are, so far as I can tell, incomparable, since secondary school programs in other nations range from two to five years. In other nations, once students finish the equivalent of 8th grade, they are tracked into vocational, technical or precollege programs whereas American students go to comprehensive high schools (although, as we all know, there is plenty of informal tracking within those).

Many people do not complete college for many reasons. One of my major regrets as a researcher is a failure to follow up, in the late 60's, on groups of students who failed to complete their education at Temple University, a center city school in Philadelphia vs. those who finished on time--at the time restrictions to access to personal data were much freer. The standout statistic in the data I looked at was that the SAT scores of those who finished in four years was only infinitesimally higher than those who had dropped out or been dismissed for academic reasons.

I also don't know much about college completion rates in Europe, but do know that you can hang around as a student at the Sorbonne in Paris forever. Incidentally, you want a riot in Europe? Try imposing college tuition.

The World Economic Forum, and the Institute for Management Development, two Swiss think tanks, rate the U. S. as the most globally competitive nation in the world, IMD using 50+ nations, WEF, 135. What things will look like when their new rankings emerge from the current catastrophe this fall is hard to say. But looking at tests, high-scoring Iceland is an economic basket case. High-scoring France is on strike. And even higher-scoring Japan, the idol that "A Nation At Risk" prostrated itself to in 1983 because its test scores surely ensured economic prosperity, endured a "lost decade" of recession starting around 1990 and, in 2007 was in recession once again. Japan's students still ace tests.

When will we ever learn?

Comments

[Neaguy]

Once again, Bracey's analysis was right on the money.

More and more this is looking like the third, and perhaps worst, the three Bush education terms.

These people are motivated by flawed concepts such as merit pay and standardized testing.
It's one thing to advocate for an idea that is unclear, but when so much research shows that merit pay, for example, doesn't work in any field that it's ever been tried, why would a college graduate such as Obama continue to advocate it. Talk about dogmatic. Teachers are underpaid. Pay them comparable to the other professions with similar training/education and hours of work or forget about it. Don't make it worse by adding on a disproven, divisive merit pay scheme.

[Riani]

When will we see the end of the age of mediocracy? Of course everybody does not want to, nor can they, be CEOs, engineers and history professors. But if you really want to be a waiter, then be the best, and the best trained waiter that you can be. Ot the best trained truck driver, or home care assistant, or gardener, or pool boy. What about education for its own sake? Simply because it will make you more informed and articulate? Because it will enable you to make better decisions, and give you a better understanding of the world you live in? Because it actually feels nice to learn something you didn't know before?

[dsws]

There are low-skill jobs. I've done some of them: Put these parts on these hooks as the racks go by. Sit next to this conveyor, and nudge the boxes if they get stuck. Take a base from the bag, stick it in the spot where the machine puts the filter media on, then when it comes out put it and a lid in the spot where the machine seals the lid on.

I would rather live in a country where the people who do those jobs have college degrees, and any entrepreneur who needs educated workers can hire some away from their underemployment, than in a country where the people looking to hire editors or engineers get applications only from high-school dropouts.

I've also tried substitute teaching, and I can say without a doubt that a whole lot of kids aren't learning anywhere near as much as they could. Letting those kids' time go to waste like that is shameful. The US education system is falsely maligned, but there's plenty of room for improvement.

[LitDr2B]

You have some good points, and I partially agree.

I don't think that people who do the jobs you describe should be forced to have college educations. I teach at the university, and I hate to say it, but there are people who are just not cut out for college. They don't have the aptitude, they don't have the discipline, and they just don't want to be there. They are only there because Mommy and Daddy made them, and because they have been told all their lives that if they don't get a degree, they will starve in the streets.

I -do- think that everyone needs to be "educated" in some sort of uniform way, at a level above that of high school. I think this is vital for creating people who can help create an engaged democracy.

Exactly what that post-high school education should consist of, though, I have no idea. I only know that not everyone should go to the university.

[MomfromTexas]

"They don't have the aptitude, they don't have the discipline, and they just don't want to be there."

What a shame! I wonder if anyone at their high schools tried to help them look beyond the university? Perhaps, they would be interested in restaurant management, culinary school, hotel management, carpentry, electrical work, machine work, plumbing, fire fighting, emergency medical technology, computer repair, etc., etc., etc.

[MomfromTexas]

As a college professor, you might be interested in these articles:

http://www.journalgazette.net/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090130/EDIT05/301309934/0/EDIT01

http://blogs.payscale.com/ask_dr_salary/2009/01/six-figure-jobs-and-no-4year-degree.html

[dsws]

"I don't think that people who do the jobs you describe should be forced to have college educations­."

I think it would be nearly universal if it were simply a norm, what everyone assumes that everyone else does. That type of norm is what I was referring to. Having college be compulsory like high school is a possibility I hadn't considered.

"They don't have the aptitude, they don't have the discipline, and they just don't want to be there."

I'm dubious about the aptitude part, in the vast majority of cases. Deficiencies of discipline, motivation, and background seem more than sufficient to explain approximately all of the non-achievement out there. Such deficiencies compound themselves, because of how people learn how to learn. Strategies that are relatively effective when you're behind and trying to keep from falling farther behind are not conducive to getting ahead and staying ahead.

[AgathaX]

Public education is a mess right now. School boards haggle over which books to get, but the teachers often don't use them because they don't match the tests that the state imposes and/or what the teacher wants to teach. As a result, everything is worksheets-- individual pieces of paper just waiting to fall out of the pockets of a spiral notebook which is--of course--requried. And which are seldom posted on the teacher's web site.

Moreover, while teachers complain about having to teach to the test, after the test is finished--often more than a month before break--the remaining time is utterly wasted.

[gisellestwocents]

I'm missing your point--possibly because I want to... Yes, education without opportunity and/or entreprenuerial skill can be a frustration. Yes, there will always be a need for low skilled (face the real facts) laborers. HOWEVER, wise decisionmaking, leadership ability and innovation are the products of educated (formal or informal) minds and any successful society needs to support those efforts to the extent possible.

Granted, education is no guarantee of a successful life or a financially prosperous society. There are no guarantees in this life. But education is a promising beginning with unlimited potential -- a wise investment in the future.

As an educator (?), you should know that...

[LoveLifeLightLaughter]

"Propagandists"????

Perhaps if you stepped out of your lofty ivory AZ State tower and actually took a look at an actual school or three, you might not be so quick to dismiss education reformers as "propagandists".

When my boys were all in the public school system a few years ago, I had to move them to a different set of schools, incidentally in a nicer, more prosperous neighborhood, because the buildings were run down and the teachers were of low morale and often unqualified.

The main driver here was when my (then) 9-year-old came home to tell me that he'd tried to correct his teacher, who said during a science segment that the atmosphere was made of oxygen. My son, coming from a science-geek family, piped up that it included nitrogen and carbon dioxide too. The teacher, with a BACHELOR'S DEGREE, insisted that only oxygen was in the atmosphere, that those other gases weren't part of it. When my son insisted, she got angry and sent him to the principal. When I told the principal that my son was correct, she told me that the TEACHER has the final word on what is taught in the classroom, and she couldn't interfere. Within a month, I had my kids moved out of that school.

But I shouldn't have HAD to do that.

This is my personal experience, but I know that thousands of other schools across the country are just as bad. So how is this "propaganda", exactly????

[LoveLifeLightLaughter]

These statistics are nothing new. Your attempt to disembowel "A Nation At Risk" isn't the first and won't be the last, but despite the over-fawningness towards Japan, the 1983 report findings haven't improved one iota; if anything, they've gotten worse.

I recommend a video to you and everyone else who reads this post. Very enlightening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjKBsfk_O8c
(originator website at http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com/)

Although I appreciate your effort to debunk the "China graduates 600,000 engineers to our 70,000" myth http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19//AR2006051901760.html), you really seem to be missing the point here with your apparently broadbrush dismissal of Obama's education talk. The point here is that we DO have schools (thousands of them) that are substandard, that produce high school graduates with barely legible handwriting and reading skills at 3rd grade levels, and colleges and even vo-tech schools that are so far out of reach of their financial means, much less educational level, that we as a nation are falling far behind.

To scoff at Obama's call for education reform because other countries track their students into specialized programs and offer free college educations is non-sensical and borderline reactionary. How about offering some real answers and potential solutions instead of poo-pooing the whole idea of reform? For someone who does educational research, it might be nice to hear some alternatives, if you don't like what Obama had to say.

[Shavano]

Gerald - I noticed your credentials and I'm shocked. For someone who is a fellow at the ..... at Arizona State University, I thought your article might have at least been logical. You set up 4 straw-man arguments and then used nonsense as your reasoning. What in God's name does education have to do with some French workers being on strike. I could go on, but there's only 250 words to describe how absolutely fallacious your argument truly is.

I'm assuming the point of your argument is that we shouldn't spend money on education; that encouraging education is wrong and that the economy doesn't need educated workers, scientists, engineers, etc. Although, it looks like it might be to simply disagree with some of the brightest minds in America. If the latter was your point, you proved it nicely.

Are you sure your a fellow in education. Could it be that you're a fellow of nihilism? Or, have you just spent too much sun in the Arizona desert?

[gisellestwocents]

I'm missing your point. Yes, education without opportunity and/or entreprenuerial skill can be a frustration. Yes, there will always be a need for low skilled (face the real facts) laborers. HOWEVER, wise decisionmaking, leadership ability and innovation are the products of educated (formal or informal) minds and any successful society needs more not less of those.

And of course education is no guarantee of a successful life or society. There are no guarantees in this life. But education is a promising beginning with unlimited potential -- an indispensible investment in the future.

You should know that...

[MomfromTexas]

I could talk about this subject for days, for it's one of my favorite subjects, and it's quite interesting to me to read the responses below. I come to this subject from different perspectives:

1. Someone who worked menial jobs for many years before completing a collge degree at the age of twenty-nine, which I totally paid for myself, by working as a waitress, bartender, and tutor. No parent, boyfriend, or husband contributed a dime towards my education. I also used student loans and a credit card, all of which I paid off.

2. A teacher, who has taught in inner-city schools and taught students who had learning disabilities, spoke English as a second language, were categorized as "at risk," or were students who struggled but did not have any label that adequately described why these students' struggled.

3. An adoptive mother, who has a very bright child with a learning disability (dyslexia) and ADD.

Since there is a 250 word limit at HP, I'm going to discuss each of these separately in separate posts. :)

[raechel]

Hi, MomFromTexas. Always enjoy your posts.

[MomfromTexas]

Hi, Raechel!

[MomfromTexas]

I worked in the restaurant business, and you are correct that the jobs are abundent and do not require a college degree. However, there is a hierarchy in these jobs, and if you do not climb the ladder, you will be left out at a certain age. There's a reason why you don't see a lot of waiters or waitresses who are over forty, and it's not because of the money. The money can be quite good, if you work in a busy restaurant, but the work is back breaking. There aren't too many people over forty, who can run back and forth on a hard floor for ten-to-twelve hours, while balancing huge trays weighed down with food on their shoulders. So, you work up to white table cloth restaurants, where you have back waiters and bussers, who do a lot of the physical work. If you go into these restaurants, take a look around. Notice the hierarchy. The older waiters are often the top waiters, and, notice closely, they also, more often than not, are men. Yes, there will be women, but men greatly outnumber women as top waiters in white table cloth restaurants. But, if you do not get into a white table cloth restaurant, where you have back waiters to help do the heavy physical work, waiting on tables is a tough, tough job past a certain age. Retirement comes early.

[MomfromTexas]

As a teacher, I have seen many children struggle with our current educational system. Trade schools simply do not exist at high schools, like they did when I was in high school, yet many students would benefit from trade school and enjoy it much, much more, than they do academia. Personally, I would like for students to have an option of trade school for half a day, if they want to. They would still study the basics--English, math, science, and history--all four years, but they wouldn't have to study foreign language, music, social science, P.E., and all those other "electives" they are forced to take. I, also, don't think trade school has to be plumbing, car repair, horticulture, etc., like it traditionally has been thought to be. It could include restaurant management, enterpreneuership, professional cooking, etc.

[MomfromTexas]

As both a teacher and a mother of a bright child who has struggled in school, I think there is a void in our schools, particularly our high schools. The void is a lack of understanding that students can't be pushed into molds. I'm a big fan of President Obama's, but he and I disagree on education. He continually discusses the importance of math and science in high school. Well, no matter how good the math and science programs are in our high schools, there are only so many students, who are going to be interested in math and science and have any desire to go on and study these subjects in college. Continually pushing students to do so will only leave the students frustrated and disliking school. Yes, I agree with him that students need a good, basic education that includes four years of science, math, history, and English. But math doesn't have to be algebra I and II, geometry, trig, and calculus. It can be business math, accounting, bookkeeping, etc., instead, and for many students, these would be much better for the careers they are interested in. They don't want to be engineers and computer programmers.

[derWahrheit]

I too am a teacher - high school science.

The neuronal pathways laid down during the study of math and science can have many uses. Of course not every student will pursue a career in such challenging fields, but the changes written upon their minds by these exercises will prove invaluable to them in latter life. The intent is not to make every student an Einstein, but to exercise their native abilities to the utmost so they have the opportunity to reach their greatest potential. We want to "muscle up" their brains, so they do not become intellectual "couch potatoes." Of course, this task becomes even more difficult when those within the profession like yourself have so little understanding.

[leorising]

"Incidentally, you want a riot in Europe? Try imposing college tuition."

I dream of a world where all students, including those in the United States, feel so entitled.

Next stop for universal rights, health care.

[Vee]

Well, for somebody who claims to know a bit about education. You need to go back to school & learn some more. When you go overseas, make a point to really open your eyes & brain & make an effort to actually see what's going on.

Use president Obama's education reform & stimulus money & get some more education.

[ThePeacemakers]

All the education and economic experts coming out of the woodwork.

Where ya been the last 8 years?
More so the "economic" experts. They were totally absent from the discourse as fraud ran rampant and now suddenly the not only recognized the problem, but have solutions?
Please.

[Neaguy]

Bracey has been around for decades. Just because you finally read an article means that you haven't been paying attention to his excellent points.

[apoyo]

Can't see the forest for the trees.

It was meant to be inspirational. The comparison to other countries was in that maybe in other countries children complete their program of education and in our country not so much.

What I don't see anybody focusing on was his statement that quitting high school is not only quitting on yourself but quitting on your country. Those are powerful words. It gives all these kids who are afraid to be seen with a book by their friends cover and changes the dynamic from being shamed to be seen doing well in school to being shamed to not be doing well at school.

Maybe in your extended family you don't have relatives who didn't finish high school but I do. In my generation and the one following. And I fear for the next one who are presently school age. It's true that many occupations don't require a 4 year degree or even a 2 year degree but knowledge has no beginning or end. You can clean houses for a living but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be well read and knowledgeable. Not everyone aspires for an MBA and a job on Wall St.

[MEN8v]

Rachel Maddow was quite taken by that line from his speech and spent considerable time talking about it with Doris Kearns Goodwin on last night's show.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/29379742#29379742 (around 3:30 mark)

I know it wasn't focused on in this blog.

[zola77]

apoyo, you said everything I wanted to say.

[caterpol]

Sigh.

Right now, the middle-class is still shrinking, the poor are getting poorer, and the very rich, the top 5%, are getting richer. In the meantime, a lot of good-paying jobs have been shipped overseas, leaving our kids to scrap over low-paying, service-industry jobs. (Seems to me, we don't produce or export anything anymore other than dodgy financial schemes).

So in this climate, please don't disparage Obama for vowing to bring our specialized jobs back, create new green technology, and educate our kids for this opportunity. We obviously need both education AND jobs.

But the main point you're missing in your complaints, is OPPORTUNITY. ALL kids should have the opportunity to pursue a higher education if they're willing.

And let me guess. Did your "expertise" in education come from being a high school drop out?

[Gib]

"(Seems to me, we don't produce or export anything anymore other than dodgy financial schemes)."

Ah, there's weaponry.

[valkyrie607]

And crappy cars.