Complete reform of the school systems. Test all students for IQ upon entering kindergarten. Separate kids based on IQ initially and teach based on the level of student. The dulls (under 85 IQ) are simply given the basics, all day, every day. Basic reading/writing/arithmetic. Upon reaching 8th grade they are put immediately into vocational training of some sort. To be honest, these people will likely always be a drain on society (economically), but if we can train them up to a minimum level of efficiency and keep them from becoming drug addicts and criminals I think that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>The average class is taught the basics + more advanced topics like personal finance, history of the US, sciences, etc. Vocational schooling at 10th grade.</p>
<p>The smartest class, minimum IQ of 110-115, would be on the college prep track. Calculus standard by senior year in high school.</p>
<p>Now, of course some underperformers or overperformers would be better suited in other groups. People can be bumped or kicked to lower groups depending on how they handle the material. Obviously, this probably disgusts many liberals who think IQ has no place in our society. Many, many, school systems are already setup like this ---- and guess what, they are kicking our butts right now.</p>
<p>
I always laugh when people seem to think that service jobs add substantially to our economy. The economic growth engine of all knowledge based economies is <em>knowledge</em>. Service jobs add virtually no knowledge to our economy and thusly do not enhance productivity.</p>
<p>2) You would need a massive increase in the size and scope of the federal government to oversee and implement such a forced/permanent tracking system. And to handle the appeals from parents, etc…</p>
<p>3) Many colleges would be pretty unhappy to lose a big part of their customer base (students with IQs less than 110.)</p>
<ol>
<li>I don’t see how this reorganization/tracking fixes the problem. Are you saying that the kids on the college track right now are being somehow held back by the kids who are dropping out of school or who are minimally preparing themselves for work?</li>
</ol>
Huh? The physical structures are already in place. I’m not sure what you are talking about.</p>
<p>
States already control public schooling, I see no reason why the federal government needs to get involved. Regardless, tracking people is not “that” expensive. Certainly no more expensive than any number of useless programs touted by conservatives and liberals alike.</p>
<p>
I’m questioning that they even needed a college degree to begin with.</p>
<p>
Yeah, of course.</p>
<p>The proof is in the pudding. Our educational system sucks (our parents suck worse). Other countries do not. They destroy us in most broad based academic measures.</p>
<p>Well, in the U.S. students have multiple opportunities to seek higher education, starting in high school (where most tracking begins). Students can decide to step up into college prep classes or step down from honors/AP, etc into vocational (where it still exists). There is flexibility. Post high school they can choose at any point in their lifetimes to attend college or receive “knowledge” training, often subsidized. That’s freedom. Your idea would lock people into an economic strata starting in kindergarten. Hard work to achieve “beyond their intellectual ability” would cease to matter. And there goes the incentive to improve. And the students in the upper tracks would probably feel entitled and secure enough that they would cease to try hard also. I don’t know, in a weird way the effects would be quite like the effects of communism. Too much state control leads to too little enterprise.</p>
<p>Tracking is nothing new – it was in place when I was in elementary and high school. Getting rid of it was a new idea 20 or 30 years ago.</p>
<p>Momof2 – my comment about the federal department of education up there on page 1 was trying to suggest that it hasn’t done any good, not that it caused bad results.</p>
<p>Some other education news around the world. India running very short of college graduates: [Bloomberg.com:</a> Bloomberg Columnists](<a href=“Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg”>Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg). From the same article: “About 8 million students in India begin their undergraduate studies each year. That means only about seven out of 100 youths aged 17 to 23 seek higher education. In most developed countries, the ratio is at least 50 percent.” He goes on to lament the high dropout rate.</p>
<p>The same article states that the off-shore income in India is about $60 billion. That’s a tiny drop in the US economy, and with India running out of college educated workers, salaries will continue to rise, the cost differential will drop and work will either move on to other third-world countries (all of which have shortages of college-educate workers already), or come back on-shore. My personal opinion is that off-shoring is a temporary business disruption, but not a permanent one. Sort of like auto manufacturing moving off-shore, and then returning. Even Mercedes, BMW and Hyundai build cars in the US now.</p>
<p>Roughly 15 million Americans were enrolled in college at the time of the 2000 census. That’s about 5% of our TOTAL population (not just 18-year-olds that just finished high school). The similar number in India is about .25%. Over half of high school grads go on to college in the US. </p>
<p>I’m just as willing as the next middle-aged white guy to think that everything is getting worse, but I really don’t see the education problem everyone is going on about.</p>
<p>My complaint about schools here is:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Vocational education is simply not available in our school system. You either are pre-college, or a special ed kid. There’s no in-school career path for carpenters or diesel mechanics.</p></li>
<li><p>There is no tracking. Slower students hold classes back, and faster kids get bored. Ask a teacher how much easier it is to teach a class where the students all run at the same speed.</p></li>
<li><p>The schools have goals around all sorts of things that have little to do with educational outcome, and have become resistant to parent and community influence. With federal funding tied to blackmail requirements, and most states completely taking over policy settings from local school boards, there is no accountability to the people using the service.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>(First part of this post got cut off somehow… I was responding to WashDad by saying that the tracking he experienced was hardly the same as Mr. Payne’s idea of tracking based on IQ at age 5. The tracking we grew up with and that exists in lesser form today, was more flexible, with no gatekeeping in kindergarten. Students could self-select into higher classes or lower (or vocational ed) in high school, and still can.)</p>
<p>Anyhow I don’t see this as the answer to making our future workforce more competitive internationally. We need greater numbers of highly skilled knowledge workers willing to work for really cheap to compete with India and China, which are producing engineers like crazy. We can’t dumb-down engineering so it seems the only answer is to increase our numbers from “the bottom” up (or increase immigration?). Mr. Payne’s ideas are to delete the bottom (through family planning) or to lock the bottom into a rigid path of less/lower education. But this doesn’t increase the number of kids being prepared in the middle/top range, even if the rigor were ratcheted up.</p>
<p>It’s sort of ironic on this forum that so few people want to discuss a critical issue like this. They’re going at it over taxes/government ineptitude/campaign gaffes. I guess the RNC hasn’t emailed out any talking points in response to Brooks’ article, which is currently number 3 on the “most emailed list” on NYT website. Maybe it was this line of his: </p>
I’ve had this very same discussion on the engineering forum. As an engineer I think I appreciate this problem a bit more than most.</p>
<p>I would personally prefer engineering education in the USA to be free. That would instantly increase the supply of knowledge workers in the US. This is not to my own benefit or any US degreed engineer’s benefit because a shortage obviously increases wages. This is a relatively cheap thing to do.</p>
<p>Mr Payne, what you advocate is nearly identical to the system practiced in China & the old Soviet Union. And it works great, as long as you’re happy living in a dictatorship/totalitarian regime. I can tell you: been there. done that. It ain’t pretty, or fun, or in the long run, successful.</p>
<p>There are differences between social and fiscal conservatives but we’ll leave out the fiscal conservatives because I think that the question was about religious conservatives.</p>
<p>In not funding private religious schools, the choices left to social conservatives are private schools and home schools. The latter costs an income. So both options are tough financially. The response to a lack of societal interest in funding private schools results in an overt or covert defunding and support of public schools. That’s a pretty simple dynamic.</p>
<p>Other countries do fund private schools that compete with public schools and do fine. I think that this improves with population density.</p>
<p>It seems to simplistic to believe that classifying students into categories created direction for students who had no idea what they wanted to do in life. I remember to this day sitting down with a guidance counselor in Jr. High. She provided each student with a list of electives ie; wood shop, metal shop, auto shop, cosmetology, home econs. etc. Simultaneously, we took pre-algebra and an english class of composition/grammar. Each student was instructed to decide by the end of 6th grade which track, vocational or college prep. If you were still unsure the guidance counselor would help provide guidance based on your test scores and vocational skills. I can honestly say it was rare to hear anyone dissatisfied with their decision. Like cream rising to the top, students who chose college prep were placed on a fast track with honor classes, foreign languages, etc. These brighter students began to challenge themselves as well as each other. They thrived on the competition!</p>
<p>Today, we fail at providing direction. Our kids feel stifled in classes where instruction is slow to come b/c teachers are told " no kid left behind" nonsense! Not every kid is meant for college, we’ve pushed so hard that education is the only measure of success in life. Happiness as well as success can be achieved in other ways beside college.</p>
<p>IMHO, I believe our colleges are over-saturated with inferior students. I believe early direction and guidance with programs that offer choices other than college will allow the cream of AMERICA’S BEST TO RISE AGAIN !</p>
<p>After reading the article in Post #1, it is not clear to me how America’s education system has “stagnated,” nor exactly in what capacity our skills are deficient. (Or maybe it is my reading comprehension skills that need help!) If anyone can clarify, it would be appreciated.</p>
<p>“I see no reason why the federal government needs to get involved.”</p>
<p>You’re proposing a uniform nationwide system to be implemented in tens of thousands of schools. State and local governments cannot do that – only the federal government can. So you are, in effect, proposing a federal takeover of public schools. That may be defensible on its merits, but it sure isn’t conservative.</p>
<p>Mr Payne, China is not whooping us educationally. Neither is Western Europe. America still has the largest number of top universities and all that goes with it, including Nobel Prize winners and patents.</p>
<p>Bay,
I have not read the book on which Brook’s bases his column; it came out in June and looks like it’s sold out on Amazon, so hopefully, they’ll do another printing or I can find it used. </p>
<p>However, I have purchased the DVD “Two Million Minutes” and watched it. </p>
<p>With this information as the context, along with the research Brooks cites that places the blame for the stagnation on ill-prepared students (home life from birth to 5 being the critical factor), what do we do? </p>
<p>I like Payne’s suggestion of the government subsidizing certain majors/training (i.e. making engineering instruction completely free) but this seems like a pretty fiscally unconservative proposition (where’s that good old confidence in the free market to sort everything out, guys?). Plus, I think if you are going to do that, then you have to ante up with paying math/science/engineering teachers a lot more to attract them into the field.</p>
<p>TerpDad, I agree that we should offer kids who have no interest in college some other types of job training and vocational opportunities in high school (along with core curriculum that teaches thinking skills, proper English, practical math, etc…), however, I don’t think this addresses the problem that we are discussing: international competition for “knowledge” jobs from highly educated workers willing to work for 1/6th the salary overseas. (see my post #37).</p>
<p>katliamom, we’re not talking about college level education, we’re talking about K-12 education. That’s where the other countries are beating us. We were ahead when we educated a larger % of the general population than they did, but now that they too are putting the majority of their citizens through high school, the US is falling behind.</p>
<p>“Compton specifically points out that Maths and Science subject in India have far higher standards compared to US. After researching the Indian school math standards, Bob assessed that math skills of an average US students was at least two years behind the same aged children who studied in India. He also saw that Indian students were being evaluated more frequently and practiced math more intently.”</p>
<p>This is the sort of thing I found when talking with my foreign friends in public school, esplly families from Switzerland and Germany. On average their home school systems were 2 years ahead of ours in math, esplly. We had our kids in a gifted program where even there we had to argue with administrators to have the kids placed 2 years ahead in math. The teachers usually felt this far ahead “wasn’t necessary” because “nobody else does that”. Instead we would be offered “enrichment”. What the foreigners told me was that their kids needed to be 2 grades above level in math in the US to be considered “on level” in their home schools overseas. The parents did not want to have their children have to repeat a grade (or two) when they were transferred back home.</p>
<p>The irony was that these families had to have their children in a US “gifted” program in order to get what they would have gotten in regular ed in their home country. Of course, I will also add, as I stated in my earlier post, that their home countries tracked students very early on based on ability testing, a notion that as predicted is not popular here in the US, and not on this thread either.</p>
<p>I will have to look this up, but I remember reading about the migration of tech companies like IBM and Microsoft to Ireland about 10 years ago and how Ireland got them to come and build up the industry there. What I recall is prior to this national economic push, Ireland did not fund free public education past 8th grade, so the only people who went to high school, much less college, were the wealthy who could afford private school tuition. Part of the high tech initiative was to start free public high school. Now almost everyone in Ireland goes to high school so they have a much better educated populace than they used to. Again, the US loses its advantage as the other countries educate more people.</p>
<p>Someone mentioned how students in the US were tracked back in the day. When I was in elementary school in the early 60’s we were tracked based on IQ tests. The school was very up front with the parents about it. I don’t recall any parents boo hooing about it. This was post Sputnik and it was considered a matter of national security to push the best and brightest ahead. It wasn’t until the 70’s that it became politically incorrect.</p>