I know that I'm not as smart as Barack Obama, but I am educated enough (and lucky enough) to be a part of the 82.8% of folks who have a job. Trust me, I know that things could be different; I am from Detroit. I also know that education isn't the only answer to individual employment challenges. But the correlation that stuck with me the most from my service at the Department of Labor during the Clinton years was the one between learning and earning which can be summarized as simply, "The more you learn, the more you earn."
While that notion clearly inspires the crassest economic aspirations amongst us, it isn't enough. Not with dropout rates in some urban areas exceeding 50%. Combined with unemployment rates among African-American and Hispanic males at over 34%, and a "real" unemployment rate for the general population at 17.2%, it's clear that the need for education is as strong as ever.
So Obama's campaign goal of having more college graduates than any other country in the world by 2020 is Kennedyesque in its scope and ambition. But unlike the space program, we do not have a direct Khrushchev-ian competitor. China, India, and Japan are sufficiently different from us to make direct comparisons challenging. In addition, as most of us know, the finish line isn't at age 22 when you get your B.A. directly after having gone to high school. It's much more complicated than that.
In fact, the real strength of America's higher education system is the diversity of options. Everyone doesn't graduate from high school, go to their state school and graduate in four years. The U.S. system of community colleges, public and private colleges, and for-profit colleges provides a wealth of higher education opportunities for potential students.
Who are potential students? Aside from traditional students, there are working parents with jobs, unemployed manufacturing workers with aspirations for white collar jobs, early retirees with active minds, GED recipients with hopes for better skills and education - you name the demographic and it exists.
Recently, my friend Julianne Malveaux, President of Bennett College in North Carolina was on NPR talking about education. She spoke about the "experts" who talk about too many people going to college. She wonders - as do I - if that is code for race, for class, or for gender. Think about it, at one time higher education wasn't for all of us - it meant white, male, and wealthy. President Obama's plan to have millions of college graduates turns that antiquated notion on it's head - he wants as many oars in the water as possible.
And the American public supports him. In a recent poll done for Americans for Democratic Actions Education Fund, we measured the views of the American public regarding higher education and the various kinds of schools. It won't surprise anyone who lives in the real world, but most folks think getting higher education - of any kind - is good, and that whether you attend Harvard, the local community college, take classes online, or attend the big state university, you can improve your skills, develop your mind, and further your education. The President's challenge makes college graduation not only smart, but patriotic; not for just a few of you, but for all of us.
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What we really need is an improved K-12. The portion of our education system that is compulsory should provide a solid, practical, complete education; further schooling should be specific and related directly to career ambitions, whether it happens at a trade school or university.
I graduated high school in 1978. My 10th grade English class began with a "review" of the parts of a sentence. Despite hearing the review every year for many years, 80% of my classmates didn't know a noun from an adverb. How can schools teach critical thinking or good citizenship or decision making or basic economics when they have to re-teach the basics every year?
I don't have a solution. Well, other than suggesting everyone start school at age 2, in a modified Montessori program, and learn to read at age 4, skip 2nd grade and have excellent test skills and a good memory for facts. That worked for me, but I can see it really isn't a universal solution . . . :-p
Great work!
If you give a degree then you are just giving out paper.
In Germany people are trained for the jobs they want, not alway university.
(a conversation between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois)
By Dudley Randall
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"It shows a mighty lot of cheek
To study chemistry and Greek
When Mister Charlie needs a hand
To hoe the cotton on his land,
And when Miss Ann looks for a cook,
Why stick your nose inside a book?"
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.
"If I should have the drive to seek
Knowledge of chemistry or Greek,
I'll do it. Charles and Miss can look
Another place for hand or cook,
Some men rejoice in skill of hand,
And some in cultivating land,
But there are others who maintain
The right to cultivate the brain."
"It seems to me," said Booker T.,
"That all you folks have missed the boat
Who shout about the right to vote,
And spend vain days and sleepless nights
In uproar over civil rights.
Just keep your mouths shut, do not grouse,
But work, and save, and buy a house."
"I don't agree," said W.E.B.
"For what can property avail
If dignity and justice fail?
Unless you help to make the laws,
They'll steal your house with trumped-up clause.
A rope's as tight, a fire as hot,
No matter how much cash you've got.
Speak soft, and try your little plan,
But as for me, I'll be a man."
Sincere question.
Continuing with the example of the teaching of physics . . . .
A number of school(s) are now teaching Algebra and Geometry at the middle school level. However, those skills are not applied in any other subjects until Physics (not even Biology or college chemistry where the most that math is used is in balancing chemical equations). Therefore, it should be taught at the Middle School level. If a student wants to go into the engineering profession or into the field of Physics, they will take the AP Course or a secondary advanced course. If a student has no interest in pursuing physics, it makes no sense in drawing it out and teaching it at a later stage of development when the vested interest is not there. . . And to add insult to energy, states like NC have state exams on many of these subjects in order for students to show competence. However, if one group of students a learning at a faster pace and in more detail in other track, surely they will be in the higher percentile. So what is the point?
add to that the number of unemployed mba and phd's - you couldn't get a housecleaning job without
a high school diploma. forget about "moving the cheese" - a couple steps have been permanently removed from the "ladder".
because we live in a capitalist society based on the ideology of scarcity we assume that a person is useless (and thus worthless) if he doesn't 'produce' something that is of obvious material benefit. we need to really rethink that assumption -- and i was hoping obama would articulate a different conception of man, the economy, 'education for education's sake' that made the case. unfortunately, however kumbaya-multicultural it is to expand opportunity to underprivileged groups (something i am staunchly in favor of -- and not just out of self-interest) we will never find a place for the 'educated' in society (read: employment) until we begin to expand and rethink what counts as a useful and worthy benefit to society.
as for kids who simply aren't 'smart enough' to take college classes -- there is no reason that working in the service industry should not be in their future. what we should do is make that work more valued -- and pay it appropriately (a good, decent minimum wage with benefits).
With even a little perspective after getting through the formal parts, I had to admit to myself [and others] that it really did matter, I really did learn what I was supposed to learn. And learned how to think more clearly. At one point, I wrote a letter to a pair of former bosses of mine, telling them I wish I had "knew then what I know now," and thanking him for giving me a chance in spite of my relative ignorance.
Should have used that mental preview button.
Why would we assume so?
(the reason is that most people snobbishly think that people's value can be determined by what they do, which is closely related to how much education you obtain).
There is nothing wrong with being a plumber, or a farmer, or bus driver. (telemarketers on the other hand...)
We need to get back to a philosophy that says that honest work matters. Not how much money you make. Or whether it is appropriate to wear a suit to work.
We are screwing people over royally by giving them the expectation that they should go to college. Most college time is wasted. And because the government subsidizes it, it is hugely overpriced.
Spend that money instead on trade schools.
But why is it that honest work means physical labor? Why isn't being a nurse or a teacher or a chemist honest work? I'm an anthropologist who works for a non profit cancer research center & hospital, and I do a huge amount of non profit and volunteer work both at home and abroad. Is there something dishonest about this because I have a degree?
It frightens me when I hear people talk the way you do, it reminds me of the anti Semetic/ anti intellectual mentality that existed in much of Europe before WWII...oh, look at those shifty eyed, bookish intellectuals, they only care about money, they can't possibly have those jobs just because they actually enjoy being intellectually stimulated and challenged, or want to use their intellect to better humanity through science or other means. They're nothing like us honest hard working farmers and laborers.