<p>An interesting column by David Brooks appears in today’s NYT, tracing the amazing rise of American education in the first part of the 20th century and then its confounding stagnation compared to other countries. The blame is not placed on the schools (for once!) but rather the family environment:</p>
<p>and finally, which political party is prepared to do something about the situation: According to Brooks, it’s the Democrats and Obama.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Assuming conservatives agree with the research that suggests it’s poor family environments that are to blame, it seems to me that most conservatives would choose to ignore the issue. They would argue that it’s a family’s “personal choice” to not raise children with appropriate “motivation levels, emotional stability, self-control and sociability.” Government should not get involved, nor, as the mantra goes, is government effective at solving our problems so let’s privatize and continue to bash the public schools at every turn. Vouchers are the answers, etc, etc…</p>
<p>But, while I actually agree that parents deserve more school choice, schools need to be held highly accountable, teachers’ unions need to be disarmed to great degree, and bad teachers need to be fired or preferably never hired in the first place, none of these fixes will make one bit of difference… to the children raised for their first five years in homes that are not preparing them to acquire the skill sets they will need to a) become desirable employees 20 years later, and b) keep America’s economic advantage.</p>
<p>So I’m curious to know how the conservatives on this forum view this issue, assuming they agree with the need for America to produce its own highly skilled workforce. Why is the GOP so silent on this; it would seem to threaten our economic futures to a great degree. Collectively, that is.</p>
<p>It’s interesting to note that all advancements in American education preceded the creation of the US Dept of Education, and the institutionalization of federal hegemony of educational policies. This is not meant to be a snotty partisan comment – just an observation that one-size-fits-all-areas federal policies may not be the answer, and that the feds may not be the best way to address this issue.</p>
<p>I also wonder how educational outcomes vary with the marital status of parents, and the birth age of the mother. Correcting for family stability and the age of the mother how does the educational outcomes of US kids compare internationally? Applying things like “no child left behind” to kids who are likely to be successful anyway is probably a waste of resources and energy.</p>
<p>Okay, WashDad so do you suggest that disbanding the Dept. of Ed is a key to regaining our educational advantage? If so, specifically how would it help? If states run their own systems with no help/intervention/oversight from the federal government, how does solve the issue?</p>
<p>(I’m temporarily accepting your idea that the timing of our educational decline is somehow caused by the creation of a federal agency, though I don’t think I agree that in this case correlation implies causation). </p>
<p>And regardless of correcting for family stability and the age of the mother, and whether or not that paints a brighter numbers picture for us on an international scale, we still can no longer keep up with our competitors. Apples or oranges, something is wrong with our outcomes. What do we do about it? </p>
<p>Or is doing “nothing” the answer because those families that can get ahead will be able to continue to do so? (I see how this is attractive to conservatives on a national scope, but I would think it loses a lot of appeal on an international field).</p>
<p>This is of course a problem that needs a solution. What that solution is exactly, I’m not sure. Personally, I am opposed to vouchers. When our family bailed out of public schools to Catholic schools (our choice) it never occurred to me that the govt should pay for that choice. The govt paid for the public school system, which I could have chosen to stay in war zone that it was. I have friends who stayed in and stuck it out. The Catholic schools are so smug about how their system “costs less”, but they get school buses for free and have no special ed services. If they had to provide their own transportation system and provide all that special ed it would blow their financial argument to kingdom come.</p>
<p>That said, one thing I learned about the schooling in other countries is that it’s not a democracy. We met many foreign families during our years in public schools and in their home countries by and large you take tests that are gate keepers, sometimes as early as 5th grade. Usually by 9th grade, if not before, students are sometimes irrevocably tracked to either university or trade school. The trade school kids are job ready at 18, often with more verbal and math skills than some of our college prep hs grads, but they don’t really have a choice to go to college. The society as a whole is better educated, but there is a cost in personal freedom that I don’t think the US is prepared to make.</p>
<p>*Personally, I am opposed to vouchers. When our family bailed out of public schools to Catholic schools (our choice) *</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings about this.</p>
<p>I don’t feel that only those who can afford to pay for private school should be able to have a choice.
Our area, doesn’t even have charter schools- so the choice is to move ( which some can’t afford) or private school ( very competitive)
Schools should give financial aid, but you can’t force them to give enough to make a difference for low income families.
Ive heard horror stories about areas with vouchers, but I still think that families who have education as a priority, should be able to get some sort of help- </p>
<p>(the usual answer of raising taxes to increase pay for teachers and for new buildings hasn’t made the anticipated difference- & the response , we still haven’t raised taxes enough :rolleyes: )</p>
<p>I think private school education should be deductible at least as long as the school is accredited. ( and education expenses should be deductible for homeschooling families)</p>
<p>EK, I also sympathize with the poor family who is stuck in a truly terrible public school system, and yet in our town I suppose we are lucky that there are charter schools, special gifted programs, special magnet programs, and there is even a “transfer” program that allows you to transfer to a different regular ed school that performs better if your home school falls below a certain level on some measure or another. At one point I felt like we lived in the most complicated school district ever, there were so many options. But make no mistake, this voucher stuff is not really an attempt to help anyone, it is an attempt to eliminate the public school system altogether. That’s it’s ultimate goal, carefully, and sometimes not so carefully, hidden. And I am not a fan of teachers unions or any left wing liberal schooling ideas. It’s also my feeling that the NCTM has destroyed math education in this country, relevant perhaps to why we rank so low compared to other countries. Nevertheless, I see the vouchers for what they really are. An alternate idea, imo, would be to eliminate private schools, force everyone into public school and then let the fur fly on how to run them. The more people are able to “escape” the fewer are left behind to argue effectively for meaningful improvement because it no longer affects their kids.</p>
<p>We also have an active bunch of home schoolers here. But that movement doesn’t help the inner city poor either.</p>
<p>“But that movement doesn’t help the inner city poor either.”</p>
<p>So is it safe to say that the right is okay with ignoring the inner city poor (and the rural/suburban lower- to lower-middle classes, who also drop out or are otherwise unprepared for highly skilled work post high school) when it comes to educational achievement and job preparation?</p>
<p>WashDad, David Brooks says it this morning:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>He’s basing the point off the new book "The Race Between Education and Technology " which argues: “that technological change, education, and inequality have been involved in a kind of race. During the first eight decades of the twentieth century, the increase of educated workers was higher than the demand for them. This had the effect of boosting income for most people and lowering inequality. However, the reverse has been true since about 1980. This educational slow-down was accompanied by rising inequality.”</p>
<p>And according to Friedman of “The World is Flat” fame,
“cheap, ubiquitous telecommunications have finally obliterated all impediments to international competition, and the dawning ‘flat world’ is a jungle pitting ‘lions’ and ‘gazelles,’ where ‘economic stability is not going to be a feature’ and ‘the weak will fall farther behind.’ Rugged, adaptable entrepreneurs, by contrast, will be empowered.” [The</a> World Is Flat | Thomas L. Friedman](<a href=“http://www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/the-world-is-flat]The”>The World Is Flat, 3.0 - Thomas L. Friedman)</p>
<p>Which ought to make conservatives happy because they really seem to believe in the “rugged adaptable entrepreneur model” but what about when we as a nation are not able to compete internationally in commerce? Outsourcing of software engineering is just the beginning.</p>
<p>“So is it safe to say that the right is okay with ignoring the inner city poor (and the rural/suburban lower- to lower-middle classes, who also drop out or are otherwise unprepared for highly skilled work post high school) when it comes to educational achievement and job preparation?”</p>
<p>I can’t speak for the right as I am in the middle, but from what I’ve read and observed the plan seems to be to use vouchers to get everyone out of public schools and then shut down the public school system, thus eliminating the need for the Dept of Education and then shutting it down too. The people advocating this probably think it would help inner city kids cause they would wind up in perhaps Catholic schools (which have been documented to do a better job with inner city kids) or some other private schools that would spring up to accept the voucher money, and that these schools, free of all those pesky regulations, would devise a back to basics approach which would, in the proponents opinion, work better. That is the impression I get. Perhaps they are thinking something else entirely. I don’t think it would all work as easily or as well as the voucher proponents do, but then I am not them.</p>
<p>If “family environments” are to blame, then perhaps the U.S. should offer incentives to people to defer reproduction until they can provide a stable family environment. We give corporations incentives to establish themselves in certain areas, to grow or not grow certain crops, etc. Perhaps we should offer lucrative incentives to individuals, to encourage them to make reproductive choices that will enhance every child’s likelihood of being reared in “an atmosphere that promotes human capital development.”</p>
<p>Monetary incentives for sterilization for unfit parents might be a possible solution.</p>
<p>One can probabilistically determine who is going to be a poor parent by age 18. Offer monetary incentives for them not to be parents. That is something with a very good payoff.</p>
<p>Agreed with Mr Payne… the causes of the decline in education are complex and, I believe, stem from the ideal to make education more accessible to everyone. That ideal led to making lighter, less academically-oriented curricula that could be adapted to a larger number of students. Thus entire fields of knowledge fell off the radar (geography, hard-core grammar) – and coupled with educational “improvements” (whole language; new math) – we ended up with some of the weakest high school programs in the western world. I do not think blaming “schools” (whatever that means) or teachers is an effective means to address, much less solve, this huge problem.</p>
<p>One of the worst performing school systems in our state (CT) is near our town. It is a poor city. The issue is not the poor school system. The school system is fine with more dedicated teachers making less money than those in the suburb in which we live. The problem is a pretty near total lack of parental involvement in the educational process. Unless parents instill in their children the love of learning and the value of an education, things will only get worse.</p>
<p>Sterilization is an interesting suggestion. We know a woman with 13 children with 4 different men. In one case, she has a child with the father of the father of one of her children. The son is raising the child as his own, even though it is his half brother. This occurred because he told his father to watch his girlfriend while he was in jail. This woman is in her early 30’s and is a grandmother. One of her daughters is in 8th grade and already has 1 child.</p>
<p>Um, I’m thinking that financial incentives to sterilize might not solve the problem or even make a dent in the number of families unprepared to raise children in an environment most conducive to future learning. Most single men would have nothing to do with sterilization, for cultural reasons and because they would (rightly) view it as class warfare, and so they would constantly find fertile women/girls willing to have sex with them. Most likely, it would just result in upper- to middle-class couples cashing in on the incentives when they are done having their families. This idea just seems impractical and like political suicide. Next.</p>
<p>Any other ideas from the conservatives out there? How do we protect America’s economic prowess internationally when we are growing a population that is apparently becoming more and more educationally unprepared to compete? The jobs of the Industrial Age were outsourced abroad; seems the Information Age jobs are trending the same way. Service jobs will survive, but where’s the money in them?</p>
It would most likely have to implemented in one sex only. I do not know which gender would get the best results.</p>
<p>
Yeah, that’s the point. Low class parents create low class, low performing kids.</p>
<p>
If these women had already been bought off and were sterile this would not be a problem.</p>
<p>
The incentive could be structured to be age related. Very few middle/upper class families have kids post 23 years old. One can effectively target the lowest classes by making the buyout available in a block between 18-23 years of age.</p>
<p>
No doubt that it is political suicide. I’m not sure it’s impractical though. Putin offered significant amounts of cash to Russian women in order to have them reproduce. It seems like the opposite could easily be done. I think it could be structured to be extremely hard to game.</p>