Education Emergency
by Dr. Doug Cardell
The United States is currently facing an urgent education emergency. This is not just a matter of academic concern, but a critical issue that will significantly impact the US economy and employment. As an economist with a Master's Degree in education and three decades of experience teaching math and computer science, I can attest to the deteriorating state of the system. The situation was concerning when I left it twenty years ago, and it has only worsened since then. We have entered an era in which the demand for workers with significantly more proficiency in reading, math, science, and computer science will be higher than ever. If you consult my previous article, 'Income Inequality', you will see that the effects of automation and artificial intelligence will demand these foundational skills to remain employed. However, the educational system is producing decreasing levels of competency. Why is this happening, and how do we fix it? Let's start from the top down. Education in the US is one of the few areas of production where there is no agreement on what the product is and who the consumer is. What are the chances of any enterprise succeeding when it literally doesn't know what it is doing and why it is doing it? Is education the product and the student the consumer? Is the student the product and the parents the consumer? Is the student the product and society the consumer? Is the student the product and the employers the consumer? I've heard these and many more theses vociferously advocated by one group or another. Who cares? Well, we should all care. From an economic perspective, we must know who the consumer is because, ultimately, the consumer must decide whether an enterprise succeeds or fails. There can only be one correct answer. Since parents, society, and employers may all have different needs and wants, none of them can steer the outcome at the expense of the others. The answer must be that education is the product, and the student, guided by the parents, is the consumer. The parent's role is not just to help students make wise educational choices, but also to actively participate in their children's education, to advocate for their children's needs, and to hold the education system accountable. The parent's responsibility is to act as the primary 'guidance counselor.' The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote thirty years ago for a system dynamics magazine. "If a time traveler from the year 3991 AD accidentally set the controls of his 'wayback machine' to the year 1993 instead of 1893, and rewound back for a visit, and landed in a public school, he would see just what he expected to see. He would expect a system from the 1800's, with teacher directed learning, authoritarian control structures, and a grading system designed to sort students so that a few would pursue higher education but most would immediately enter the force of physical laborers. He would be prepared to see large, somewhat sterile rooms designed to mass produce learning, to produce persons of minimal competency not accomplished thinkers. He would expect a time schedule and a calendar based on the contemporary agrarian economic base. Imagine his shock when upon leaving the schoolroom he enters the world of 1993 and sees, not the world that the school was preparing students for but a world a hundred years more advanced. If he were a thinking individual he would probably conclude that an evil totalitarian government had done this to oppress the people. He would not be capable of believing that free people had done this to themselves and their children." We are providing an excellent education for a world that no longer exists. Students are not stupid; they see that the system is not preparing them for the world they see outside the classroom. In another paragraph of that same article, I wrote, "The educational system is unique. Alone among businesses, it serves a clientele that would prefer to be cheated. Most students, given the chance, would take an 'A' for the course and forego the education. This is like pulling into the drive-thru, paying for the burger, and then asking the clerk to keep the burger and give instead a note saying the bearer possessed a full stomach. Maybe the customers know the food better than the restaurateur. The students see nothing of value but the grade. They are regularly admonished to keep their grades up, but almost never encouraged to learn as much as possible. How often do parents tell their kids to stay after school to see if the teacher will teach them a little extra for free? Maybe all of society knows the secret. Is the system offering anything worth having beyond a grade?" What's the answer? We must rebuild the entire system from the ground up. First and most importantly, the system must prepare the student for a rapidly changing world where the only constant is change. This means preparing them for jobs that don't even exist yet, for technologies that haven't been invented, and for societal issues that are still emerging. A crucial part of this is that the student sees a direct connection between their learning and success in later life. Every day, when they come home, their parents say, "What did you learn today?" The student's answer should provoke a response: "I wish I'd been taught that when I was in school." Today, the more likely answer is: "I hated having to learn that and I've never used it." What should we be teaching? The educational focus should be on math, reading, and computer science in the early grades. These are the foundational skills that allow the study of everything else. You can't do science if you can't read or do math; computer skills are also required nowadays. The same is true of the social sciences. To learn any of the social sciences beyond the most rudimentary level, one must discern fact from fiction, which requires the ability to read and to comprehend formulae and statistics. The curriculum must ensure that these skills are taught in a 'real world' context so that students see their learning as valuable and will help them succeed in life. The system has failed if a student asks why do I need to know this. The next step is science once students have adequate grounding in math, reading, and computer technology. The goal here is not to train scientists but to ensure that students have the means to understand the world around them. Folks of different political bents are fond of saying, "Trust the science." But precious few people today have the background to understand the science or to investigate for themselves claims about what the science says. Record numbers of students are leaving the public education system, which is reasonable given its ineffectiveness. However, I would rather see a reformed public system capable of doing the job for which we intended it. Sadly, I don't see any signs of that happening. As the election approaches, your vote in school board elections is more important than ever. I urge you to vote for candidates that come closest to the ideals expressed in the article.
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