Last week started off with the eighth Republican primary debate of the year, on Monday night. According to my own count, there were 15 questions (and answers) on tax reform, 2 on energy and jobs, one heated back-and-forth on health care, 12 questions and responses on immigration, 5 on the home-mortgage crisis, 3 on the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, 4 on religion and values, 4 on the budget deficit, one on terrorism, 4 on foreign policy and a final question on who is the best candidate in general to win the race.
How many questions and responses were there on the public education crisis and education reform? Zero.
That needs to change. Education must be the top issue in the election season ahead. It is a question of economics, growth, basic social justice and human rights.
Being an American citizen gave me every opportunity in the world. I was born in Texas when my parents immigrated here in the 1980s. Even though I grew up abroad, I came back to pursue my higher education in the country that has the best universities in the world. More than ever before, I felt blessed to be a U.S. citizen as I applied for colleges, and throughout my undergraduate education.
A few months after I graduated in 2009, I got a job at a non-profit organization that worked with inner-city schools in Boston. That is when I discovered that even though being an American citizen had opened up every opportunity in the world to me, there were many U.S. citizens in this country that had very little opportunity at all, through no fault of their own, particularly children. That was when I first learned about the high school dropout crisis and the public education crisis in America.
I learned that almost 50% of children in low-income communities would drop out of high school. I also learned that "dropout factories" were producing 1 out of 5 students who did not graduate. I recently learned that each school day, about 7,000 students would become a dropout, adding up to approximately 1.3 million students who would not graduate from high school each school year (according to a 2009 brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education).
I found great injustice in the idea that so many people (including my own parents and grandparents) immigrate from all over the world to the land of opportunity, when so many children in the public schools across this land have very little opportunity at all for a bright, happy future. I find the injustice and inequality particularly hard to swallow now, as I pursue my graduate studies at Columbia University, five blocks away from a public school in Harlem where I have met eleven-year-olds who cannot read basic children's books.
The problem is not just about education and graduating from school but, really, what comes after. We know that high school and college graduates are more likely to find work and get higher paid jobs. Even more significantly, high school dropouts are 63 times more likely to be incarcerated than college graduates (according to a study from the Center for Labor Markets at Northeastern University). At a time when there is great emphasis on cutting costs and growing the economy and job force, this is more important than ever.
To be sure, there are many extraneous issues that add strain to low-income schools and contribute to dropout rates, including poverty and problems in students' homes, which need their own set of experts, social workers and general economic reform. However, these additional complications cannot become a scapegoat for struggling schools and should not prevent fixing what we can be fixed in the public education system.
Parents, teachers, school administrators, community members, and even students, need to write letters (or send emails, make phone calls, direct tweets, etc.) to their representatives in congress, local legislators, senators and every presidential candidate (including President Obama), making this the number one priority for the election season ahead of us -- and those voted into both local and national government next November.
Follow Michelle Chahine on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michelle_zc
Why are colleges raising tuition three times faster than the inflation rate and what should we do about it? Does the federal student loan program help promote tuition increases to rise faster? How do we hold these colleges accountable for their unreasonable rate increases?
Well, no. It's a larger question of the economy and jobs. That's the question on everyone's minds. To that end, Americans want the government to address the unemployment crisis, spend less on costly wars, reform the tax code so wealthy individuals pay their fair share, stimulate the economy, hold big business accountable with better regulation, alleviate some of the burden from the housing crisis and so on. Education is a priority, but for some it's an issue that can be tackled once we're confident that the economy has recovered.
To be honest, I hope the candidates avoid education entirely. Benign neglect would be a huge step up from the policies we've seen lately, and it's abundantly clear that they don't know what they're talking about on the subject.
It's also clear that Chahine is harboring some serious misconceptions of her own. If we blame the failures of children who attend "dropout factories" on the schools, how do we account for the fact that many of the kids attending those schools DON'T drop out? How do we explain the fact that many kids manage to get a perfectly good education in those schools? The schools aren't using poverty and parenting issues as a scapegoat; it's generally the other way around.
It is very simple. All high schools must institute a career path program as well as one for the college bound. Not all children should, or want to, go to a four year university. These career programs should start in the sophomore year and be run in tandem with local technical school or community college programs. Apprenticeships with local businesses should be encouraged.
At the same time states must pass laws preventing any student from dropping out of school before they either graduate and are accepted into a 4 year university program or are certified job-ready.
This issue is one which should be completely bi-partisan. I am a Conservative, and completely understand that most of our social dysfunction and follow on entitlement expansion is a result of low education level. In this case an ounce of prevention in the form of a certificate or degree is worth 7 pounds of baby to an unwed mother or 7 years of incarceration to a drop-out drug dealer.
No, trade skills arent high paying and there aren't all that many available either.
Add to all that the fact that our public schools are terribly underfunded, with large classes and most extracurricular activities eliminated. Studies show that American children are falling behind other students in foreign countries, which bodes for our children and grandchildren's future.
Everyone should make education a priority for all children, not just those who are born within a wealthy family, we owe this to future American generations.
People are so quick to jump on firing teachers and disbanding unions, but the reality of the situation is, there is a SHORTAGE of qualified teachers in the country. Our desperate need to fill classrooms, especially urban ones, with warm bodies has created the need for alternative certifications, Teach for America, etc. I have not heard any viable solutions. We are not going to get better teachers until we elevate the profession, and that's going to take time. My question is, when you fire all the "bad ones" who is going to come teach your kids in the meantime?
Unfortunately, expecting this to make much headway into the super-congested primary "debates" (more like candidate showcases) is probably overly optimistic. It will come up later or in the general election, though I am afraid the harsh reality is that the electorate cares to much about it's pocket book to headline this when the economy is bad, even if it's critical to the long term economy (all about the quick fix...)
The bigger problem though is how the government can hope to try to combat bad trends in education, especially when many federal initiatives have fallen flat. Some federal guidelines/baseline might be advantageous but bureaucracy's effect on education reform causes me to side some with this being more of a state/local issue. Congress won't get this type of thing passed. Would love to see additional help to struggling schools, but do not have faith in the federal level creating real change in the ed system. We've had consistent erosion on school quality that need a lot of detailed care that doesn't come from that level.
Do you believe the federal government should have a larger role in education? What is it? and what are you going to cut to pay for it?
Functional education policy is not accomplished by the federal government. It simply isn't and will never be until they put their money where their mouth is.
You have the right intention but the battle is with governors and state legislatures. They are the money and therefore power in education.
We spent the money we could have used on education on this bomber/tank/aircraftcarrier/sSDI system etc.... In short federal priorities aren't changing. They'll talk tough on education and give no money to get the job done.
Our schools don't "produce" students, as if they're some sort of product coming out of a factory. Students either choose to work hard in school or they don't. Many of the worst schools serve students who come to school with attitudes and mindsets that cause them to do very poorly in the classroom, and many others show up many, many years behind where they should be.