“Education is the foundation upon which we build our future” - Christine Gregoire
The future of of our country, of civilization, of this world depends on education. We currently spend about 5% of our GDP on education. For reference, that’s about 1 trillion dollars. Divided across about 51 million public school students, it works out to about $19,566.07 per student. Contrast this spending with a McKinsey Global Institute Report (5 years old...meh) that there will be a shortage of about 40 million workers with college/postgraduate degrees, a shortage of 45 million workers with secondary education in developing economies, and a surplus of 95 million of low-skill workers by 2020. That’s 85 million short in high and medium skilled jobs and 90 million high in low-skilled jobs. This matters, and it’s bad. It’s with these trends looming that we’re left wondering why our education system isn’t better. The answer is simple - it’s actually the best that it’s ever been, but it wasn’t designed to accomplish what we need it to. I’m going to jump into the past first so that we have context within which to discuss the future.
The concept of public education isn’t new, but for the sake of not going farther back than is relevant, let’s start with the time period when public education took root in the U.S. - 1821 - when the first public high school was founded in Boston. Following the revolutionary war states had begun establishing tax-subsidized elementary schools.
“The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole of people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.” -John Adams.
By 1870, all states had subsidized elementary schools, and, by the turn of the century, public high schools began to outnumber private schools. The growth of the school system wasn’t driven by the desire to increase the literacy rate in America, though America quickly came to have the highest. It wasn’t driven by the desire to build a strong foundation for the future by investing in children. The public education system rose to prominence because of the immigration of 6,990,035 Europeans. In 1830 the population was 12,866,000 - by 1860 that number had swelled to 31,443,000. The United States was attractive for its breadth of opportunities. The industrial revolution had begun to create a huge number of jobs, not to mention the quantity of land that had still yet to be claimed and cultivated. This new population base needed to be “Americanized” and prepared for work on the factory floor to feed the first Industrial revolution. It was with this objective in mind that the public school system was implemented.
The public school system of the mid-1800s was, by and large, a factory model. Each student, being grouped by age, was considered to be of roughly the same aptitude with roughly the same style of learning. They would spend approximately 20% of their time in school moving from subject to subject, or as school buildings grew from classroom to classroom. Teachers became such without formal training because teaching wasn’t an attractive career, and school boards were invested in efficient use of tax dollars(as if investing in education has somehow ever been inefficient). This model was assumed to yield a high school graduation rate of about 10%. That is, the assumption was that 90% of students would find themselves in low-skilled jobs, which aligns unsurprisingly well with the labor needs of the Industrial Revolution.
The period from 1870 to 1970 was transformational for the United States in terms of technological advances. In a few words: Electricity, indoor plumbing, mass transportation, and modern medicine. I’m not going to claim that correlation implies causation, but despite being designed to socialize immigrants and move them to the factory floor, the rise of the education system was quickly followed with a rise in the standard of living for everyone. When I say standard of living, I’m not just referring to the fact that life expectancy grew and child mortality fell, but that but that a world lit by candlelight became lit by incandescent bulbs. We live in a completely different world when the power goes out and yet 150 years ago, that was the reality. Anyway, back on topic...education.
Right, so 1870, all states have tax-subsidized public schools. By 1900, most states had compulsory schooling laws. By 1910, 72% of children attended school with 9% of Americans having a high school diploma. By 1918, every state required children to complete elementary school. What set in motion what I consider to be the second great push for public education was the Great Depression. I’ll start with the result: By 1940 about 25% of people 25 and older(white males) completed 4 years of high school.
That number has continued to increase since 1991 in case you’re wondering - it was about 83.2% in the 2015. I give credit to the Depression because it made the state of public education abundantly clear. What I’ve left out, what is often left out in general, is impact metrics and qualitative measures - you know the “Are schools actually “educating” people?” question. What the Depression showed us was that, no, they weren’t. For reference, the Department of Education opened in 1931. The Civilian Conservation Corps(CCC), part of the New Deal, was tasked with employing youths. What the leaders of this program found was that illiteracy was widespread and that most people did not possess basic job skills. Remedial classes were offered through the CCC, and by the late 1930s more than 90% were enrolled in educational programs. If 90% of people are doing something, it would suffice to say that there was demand for it. What had made the system ineffective up to this point? Well, I think it can be best summed up by a quote by someone else.
“All this about anyone being able to go to school who wants to is sheer nonsense...I grant you there are a few exceptional students who can do it, but the great majority of people cannot; and anyone who knows anything about this game knows that in the good old days of 28 and 29 tens of thousands of young people were leaving school to go to work for no other reason than that they were poor.” - Harry Hopkins, Director of the WPA (another New Deal program), 1935.
The simple reality is that there’s a trade-off between going to school and working. The great technological leaps during the period prior to the Depression did not create wealth and income for everyone. Inequality had grown, and the Depression simply widened the gap. So, it’s with all of this in mind we get the next push. The Federal government became more heavily involved in education - the idea that it has the right and the responsibility to ensure that all Americans enjoy equal rights and opportunities. That is not to say that suddenly the government took over and the education system suddenly became 3000% better. But by the mid-20th century, education became an area of study and of investment on a national level. Particularly, our focus on education past the age of 14 distinguished us from our peers among developed nations. We began to attempt to support and nurture creativity in students with emphasis on science and the arts. What’s even more notable is that we began producing educational television, educational toys, and redesigning schools with students in mind rather than as symbols of privilege.
I think I need to stop for a moment and summarize(and point out oversimplifications that I’ve made). The process started in the 1830s. The public education system of that period was tax subsidized, so ultimately there was still a cost for attendance. By the turn of the century, not only did most states have public schools, they had compulsory education laws. The graduation rates and quality of this system were relatively low, and the Great Depression made these failings abundantly clear. Following the Depression, the Federal Government began to take a larger role in the oversight of State level education management. The increase in government involvement meant that differences in curricula and standards across states became more visible. With this new focus came great progress, but also the need for performance metrics.
And so the standardized test came into existence. In an effort to ensure that students were reaching a satisfactory level of literacy and knowledge, public policy gave birth to standardized testing. As far as I can tell the intention was positive, but the long term ramifications have been, at best, problematic. By the nature of needing to hit or exceed a benchmark, the content of education started to shift to focus on whichever topics were present on standardized tests. Simply, in order to chase the national average, in the 1980s we shifted away from the creativity and science driven content. I don’t think that the concept of standardized testing is inherently bad, in fact I think having a means of measuring performance is critical, but implementation is everything. This implementation caused a shift in what I consider to be the wrong direction.
In any case, we move to 2001 with the No Child Left Behind Act. Each state develops its own standard. Emphasis is placed on: annual testing, annual academic progress, report cards, teacher qualifications, and changes to funding. Again, the premise and intention are reasonable. In 2015, we replaced the NCLB with the Every Student Succeeds Act, which addressed some of the issues related to standardized testing and added more focus to closing the achievement gap. This is all fine and good, but I consider everything that I’ve listed in the last two paragraphs half-measures. Half-measures are not good enough. It’s time to talk about the future.
At the beginning of this now-way-longer-than-I-originally-intended essay, I mentioned that MGI predicted a shortfall of 85 million jobs by 2020. A few paragraphs ago, I mentioned that the graduation rate in 2015 was a little over 83%. I also added a quote about people leaving school to go to work because they were poor. These three things are not independent of each other. Jobs - Education - Wealth. In fact, I would say that they’re some of the most tightly connected things we can even talk about. I’m going to avoid the wealth side because I think it should have it’s own way-longer-than-is-reasonable-to-expect-someone-to-want-to-read essay. But this education and jobs issue is pressing. The jobs side might get its own essay too, but, before it fades into the background, I’d like to refocus. The report referred to a shortfall in high and medium skilled workers, but a surplus of low-skilled workers. What exactly is high-skill? What does a tertiary degree give you? I’d like to assume that it means that you know what the word tertiary means. My personal take is that high-skill refers to being able to bring both technical knowledge as well as creativity to the process of solving problems. Medium-skill refers to being able to bring technical knowledge to the process of solving problems. Low-skill refers to jobs focused on task-completion, not on innovative ways to complete the task. It goes without saying that standardized testing lends itself to low-skilled thought. Your job as a student is to know the answer to the question or to know the right process from a list of processes to get to the answer. There is no creativity in solving an equation with one variable - there is only moving the variable to one side and moving everything else to the other. I’m not arrogant enough to say that it’s easy for everyone, but it’s an example of a well-defined process. You know exactly what you’re getting into. How do we move the education system towards preparing students for work that requires creativity and struggle in the search for answers to questions that aren’t in textbooks?
I don’t know. I will say that I do know that the answer is going to involve restructuring our education system. The system that we are using is a factory model that was designed with the assumption that 10% of students would graduate. Students would spend about 20% of their week on education - that is where we were in 1910. Since then we’ve added programs, expanded curriculums, and raised the performance bar. The graduation rate has increased massively, but last time I checked 83% or even 86%(where it probably is today) isn’t that good. Furthermore, we’re not imparting the skills that we need to and students still spend about 20% of their week on their education. We’re going to have to redesign the system - a full-measure.
The Specs:
Hours spent on education per week increases to 40 to match the current standard workday.
Reasoning: Our “Jobs” do not start when we start working for company X. Learning is the “job” of every person from when they are born until they turn to dust.
Teacher compensation and qualification needs to be increased to reflect its value as an investment in our future.
Reasoning: My personal progression as well as the progression of countless other students has been due to the presence of great and influential educators in our lives - we remember bad teachers, but we also remember good teachers.
Psychology surrounding learning style and strategies is taught first.
Reasoning: Learning how to learn is the most important thing to learn. The earlier it’s taught, the better off students will be.
Learning tracks are designed around learning styles.
Reasoning: Based on the above point, there should be an option to absorb the same material through written words, spoken words, through images, as well as through hands-on experience.
Mentorship and connection with Professionals starts early.
Reasoning: Many kids start with dreams of becoming doctors or firemen. Few kids have conversations with doctors and firemen about the work it takes to make those dreams a reality.
Financial Literacy takes the same precedence as literacy literacy.
Reasoning: Not being able to read makes it hard to succeed in the world, but not being financially literate will get you killed.
Education Spending increases.
Reasoning: Education is an investment that pays. Individual lives are improved, but the whole of society benefits.
I don’t think that sweeping reform is in the near future. I truly wish it were, but we have to deal with what is. It’s baby steps to move forward, so just keep swimming - just keep learning.