1) Eliminate summer vacation.
My colleague Conor Clarke has for years argued that summer vacation means that our kids have less time in classrooms than students in other countries (in America, we average about 180 school days a year; Japan averages 240). But Conor isn't just being a workaholic killjoy: he also makes a good point that summer vacation gives richer parents a chance to maintain their kids "education" with expensive summer programs, which less fortunate kids' parents cannot. This leads to backsliding, or the inability of less fortunate students to retain the past year's lessons as well as their richer peers. Imagine: better achievement equality could be an August away.
2) Extend the School Day. The Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), the brainchild of Teach for America grads, has demonstrated remarkable national results in low-income areas, largely by attracting teachers and students willing to work in an extended school day. Longer days mean more time in classrooms and less time to students to spend in the troubled areas that sometimes surround KIPP schools. Given the myriad factors that contribute to a student's learning, it is remarkable and noteworthy that extended days -- as opposed to higher spending per student -- are one of the most consistent indicators of better achievement.
3) Expand Bilingual Education.
Research on the impact of bilingual education on student achievement is mixed, but studies continue to show the verbal benefits of being steeped in two languages from a young age. At a time when America's term at the top of the world appears increasingly limited, now would make a good time to ask ourselves whether it's appropriate to revisit the question of expanding elementary bilingual education. Also this way, we could presumably pronounce Sonia Sotomayor's name without getting loco about syllable emphasis.
4) Raise Compulsory Education Age
This is a straightforward one. The longer you stay in school, the better chance to have to get a job and make more money. So why not ask state governments to go further to recognize that? As I wrote yesterday, every level of education (from high school dropout to HS grad to college dropout to college grad) corresponds with higher levels of employment. Harold Levy argues that if the government guaranteed one year of post-grad education to every American (even if the classes are online), it could mark a turning point on par with the GI Bill with incredible benefit to our GDP and employment levels.
5) Kill the SAT.
In 2001 Robert Atkinson, the president of the University of California, proposed the school's admissions discontinue its SAT requirement. He argued that the test is old-fashioned, that it does not measure appropriate skills given the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Another popular argument is that the SAT gives richer parents a chance to put their kids through a grinding tutorial process that inherently puts them at an advantage over students without the means. As this article points out, "when Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania and Bates College in Maine stopped requiring the SAT, minority applications doubled."
6) End tenure.
Earlier this year, an incendiary piece about changing universities in the New York Times called for, among other things, the abolition of modern departments and the end of tenure. Tenure calcifies teaching methods, he said, makes professors impervious to criticism and generally weakens departments. We could replace tenure with seven-year contracts to be renewed on the basis of performance, publishing and teaching quality, to give professors the incentives to be better, which tenure now works against.
7) Pay for Your Major. Here's one I heard from former-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush a pizza party: colleges should charge different amounts of money depending on a student's pre-professional track, so that, for example, a nurse would pay less for school than a psychologist. This one would be difficult, I imagine, because dropping the price of some majors will require them to raise the price on others to make up the difference, and if student aid doesn't keep up with that shift, we could be pricing out less fortunate students from certain professions, such as pschology. But still, an interesting argument to grapple with.
8) Smart Loans to Make College Affordable.
In Slate, Elliot Spitzer suggested that we replace college loans (which so often leave graduated students in mountainous debt) with a more calibrated system. He describes it like this: "Instead of paying upfront or taking loans with repayment schedules unrelated to income, students would accept an obligation to pay a fixed percentage of their income for a specified period of time, regardless of the income level achieved." This, Spitzer said, would both allow students to finance their own education and free up space for parents to save for other expenses, such as health care. To make enforcement universal, the IRS could be in charge of collecting.
9) Smart Certificates to Make College Non-Essential.
Charles Murray added to his lightening rod status when he called the college system of Bachelor degrees "cruel, not so say insane" and said certification checks would provide a much better indication of knowledge and potential to succeed in a given field. One model, he wrote, could be the CPA exam for certified public accountants. In addition to giving employers a better sense of applicants' capabilities, it would reduce the burden on parents paying for college: "Under a certification system, four years is not required, residence is not required, expensive tuitions are not required, and a degree is not required."
10) Rank Everything.
Ranking is fun and controversial, but when it comes to identifying the best schools, it's also crucial. Harold Levy says the Dept of Education should start ranking colleges and universities publicly to give parents and students a better guide than US News & World Report. And why not do the same for high schools, too? If we mandated a national standardized test, it would not only remove the pernicious incentives among states to lower the bar for students, but also it might allow the government to provide an fair ranking of elementary and high schools both within and across state lines to provide a clearer picture of which schools are rising up or falling behind.
That's me! Who's got more ideas to publish in a follow-up?
*Flickr image of pensive student (foundphotoslj) and cake graduate (Carbon NYC).
I love a lot of these ideas, maybe 7 and 8 are somewhat interchangeable unless you think it's smart for a society to both provide incentives (via cheaper costs) to major in certain areas and at the same time charge more on the back end of professional life for those who do well in their careers.
I've long wondered if such a system as the student loan variable by income would be viable - but unless it's universal then it will be a money loser since people expecting to make big bucks would avoid it and those expecting to make nothing for several years would make out. Further, such a program could be very difficult to encourage any private companies to take on the loans since calculating their return might be a lot more complicated than, say, calculating the real value of a mortgage-backed security. That said, it has a lot going for it in terms of making college more affordable for a lot of people.
I think #3 is problematic for the US a bit - since English is the default international language - how do you choose the second one? Should it be Spanish, French, Portuguese, Mandarin, Hindi? With no one clearly dominant language in the world, it's a lot easier for non-English speakers to choose English as a Second Language. It's a lot harder for American or British kids to know what the next most useful language will be.
Given the proximity to Mexico and large hispanic population, I'd say Spanish would be a natural choice.
As far as I know, kids in Britain (and Western Europe in general) learn multiple foreign languages compulsory.
Though I can't say my mandatory 6 years of French classes has done much to make me bilingual. On the other hand, I do know how to clearly state that I don't speak French in about 5 different ways now.
Great post, as always, Mr. Thompson. However, a few questions.
What about smaller class sizes and smaller schools? No mention is made of this idea above. Smaller class sizes would make our students more accountable, allow for more individual attention, and ease the workload for our teachers who already put in a lot of effort outside of classroom hours.
Not only that, but smaller schools would allow our students more extra-curricular opportunities. If you took a large school and cut it down the middle, you now have twice as many spaces available in Model UN, on the basketball team and in the one-act play.
In regards to suggestion number 10, "Rank Everything"; well, fine, but what is everything? I agree that the rise of independent counseling and an over-reliance on the US News and World has had a negative effect on our students. But will a better ranking really solve that? And what would a better ranking even look like?
The problem with the USNWR rankings is not that they favor the wrong factors so much as that they exist at all. College is an individual choice that rightly should be about fit. Studies show that what university you attend matters far less than the programs available at the university. If Harvard is #1 and Stanford is #4, can I really say that Harvard will be a better school for me to attend than Stanford? I have no problem with having a public list of certain criteria (graduation rates, employment prospects, etc) but it seems assinine to assign a numerical ranking to a school in total.
And even if you do think that such a rating can be established, what criteria are you looking at? School A may have a better reputation than School B, but will that matter if your classes are being taught by graduate students?
Great stuff except for killing the SAT.
Also, I would like to see more effort on vocational training. There are lots of blue collar jobs (electrician, plumber, nurse, construction worker, mechanic, etc.) that pay good money and are needed by our country.
Why not add school choice (i.e. vouchers) to introduce more competition/innovation and let parents choose where to educate their kids?
Also, make it easier for people who do not have teaching degrees to become teachers (the certificate based approach should help with this).
Also, let kids advance at their own rate (in any particular subject) rather than stay in lock step with their classmates who are the same age. Use computers to present the material and facilitate testing. Teachers could focus more on helping individuals with specific problems.
When people who know next to nothing about education make proposals such as these, we all should bring out the tomatoes and start throwing. Hard. If Thompson himself characterizes his ideas as "crazy," we should dismiss them out of hand. I suspect, however, that many readers will mistake his ignorance for irony. Let me address just the more egregious proposals on Thompson's list.
1. Expand bilingual education: States throughout the Southwest spent billions on bilingual education programs for decades under Title VII of the education act of 1968. Although one could argue that these programs were not run effectively, it was nevertheless the case that they failed to help nonnative English speaking children improve their chances for academic success. Indeed, children in bilingual programs showed improvement through grade 3, but their academic achievement began to decline in grade 4, so that by grade 6 they were significantly behind their native English speaking cohorts. The reasons for the failure of bilingual education are complex, but some of the more salient factors are: a) effective bilingual education typically requires an immersion environment that motivates English language learners (ELL) to acquire/learn the target language, yet the flood of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Central America has made immersion impossible--many schools are 100% native Spanish speakers; b) lack of education among parents--the average education level of illegal immigrant parents from Mexico is third grade; c) the Spanish language infrastructure, which encourages the use of Spanish rather than English.
2. Lengthening the school day: First, the problem with our public education is not the length of the school day but rather the number of days children actually are in school. Many states and districts have a school year that consists of about 180 days. Meanwhile, the school year in other countries is typically much higher. In Japan, children attend 240 days. It also is worth noting that in China the school day is 8.5 hours, but many students actually spend as many as 12 hours at school. One seldom noted consequence of the long school day in China is a very high dropout rate. I also would point out that elementary school children simply lack the stamina for a longer school day. This proposal would be especially problematic for young boys, who find it difficult to contain their energy in the best of circumstances; forcing them to sit in a classroom for an additional 2-3 hours would not be healthy. No, the real problem with the school day is that it begins too early. Several studies have shown that children are more attentive when they begin classes at 9 rather than at 7.
3. Raise the age of compulsory eduction: There's an old saying among teachers that is appropriate here--"You can lead a student to knowledge, but you can't make him think." Raising the age of compulsory education would do nothing to solve the dropout problem, and I would submit that it actually would further diminish educational effectiveness in our schools, increasing the number of unmotivated, hostile students who make it impossible for teachers to teach. Ask any public school teacher what his or her biggest problem is, and most will state that it is classroom discipline. The nation's dropout problem is socio-cultural. The rate among black students hovers around 35% by the end of 10th grade in many states; the rate among Hispanics is close to 50%. These rates have held steady for decades.
4. End tenure: The assertion that "Tenure calcifies teaching methods, . . . makes professors impervious to criticism and generally weakens departments" is very popular, but it also is totally lacking in evidence. Broadly speaking, there are two types of universities in the US. One focuses on teaching, and professors at these schools typically are not expected to conduct research or to publish. Many professors at these school nevertheless do conduct research and publish, but this work plays only a minor role in any tenure decision. In fact, I have served on tenure committees at such schools for faculty whose "research" was so fundamentally flawed that it wouldn't pass muster in a freshman class, but the candidates were popular teachers and received tenure. The other type of university focuses on research. A professor at such a school is expected and required not only to publish regularly but to publish significant work. Anyone who fails to do so within the six-year probationary period of the assistant professorship is dismissed. The focus on research and publication, however, does not make effective teaching irrelevant. Many top research universities years ago organized faculty-development offices dedicated to helping faculty become better teachers, and an assistant professor who is a really horrid teacher will have a difficult time getting tenure, even if his or her research is good. Furthermore, the idea that professors work hard merely to obtain tenure is just wrong, as several studies over years have demonstrated. At research universities, faculty generally become MORE productive after receiving tenure, not less. In addition, their research infuses their teaching, ensuring that the knowledge they transmit is current--exactly the opposite of calcification. At teaching universities, faculty typically are always striving to improve their syllabi and their teaching, even after receiving tenure. And for whatever it may be worth, my experience as a professor for nearly 40 years at both types of universities has convinced me that most professors not only love learning but also love passing on their knowledge to young people. Are there some poor teachers among the lot? Of course. But they tend to be the minority overall. Not surprisingly, most of the calls for ending tenure have come from administrators and politicians who see it as a way of reducing costs. Without tenure, schools can establish a revolving-door policy--hiring young assistant professors, using their services for 6 or 7 years, then showing them the door so they can be replaced by another cohort of young assistant professors.
I will conclude by recognizing that American education is in dire straights. The problems we face, however, are largely social in nature and require social changes that the nation is unwilling to make. We insist, for example, on the myth of intellectual equality. Efforts to eliminate the SAT are not grounded on the exam's deficiencies but rather on its effectiveness at sorting students into those who are likely and those who are unlikely to succeed at university. Because the SAT belies the validity of the myth, many schools over the last several years have opted to drop the exam as part of the admission process so as to ensure that students from those groups that historically have performed poorly on the exam are granted admission. Likewise, as a nation we do not celebrate intelligence but rather beauty and talent, which can lead to quick wealth without hard work. As a result, too many young people want to be rock or sport stars, not scientists. I would submit that the ignorance that underlies Thompson's proposals panders to the very worst aspects of American pop culture. They certainly offer no reasonable perspective on the real problems our educational system faces.
James, thank you very much for your long and well thought out comment. Let me hasten to say that I presented these ideas not as a manifesto but as as the first leg of what I hope will be a debate about how to break out of the straitjacketed discussions about school spending, smaller class sizes, and other familiar tropes that end up moving the education reform debate in shuffles rather than strides. I bring nothing to the table if I present allegedly provocative ideas that provoke nothing at all, and inasmuch as I've provoked you to call me stupid, I'll consider at least one aspect of the piece successful.
Onto your critiques. On bilingual education, I think you're right to be critical because as I mentioned, the evidence is highly mixed that bilingual education adds significantly to achievement. I hope I made that clear when I wrote: "Research on the impact of bilingual education on student achievement is mixed."
On lengthening the school day, I'm frankly not sure we see eye to eye. You're in favor of more school time (so am I! See the first "Crazy" idea) and for rescheduling the day, but you provide little evidence that longer days are bad for young boys. Only the evolutionary suggestion that they probably won't be able to sit still for very long. That's true, but it's a reason for more recess, not an argument against KIPP.
I have not thought very deeply about the idea of expanding compulsory education. But the argument is straightforward that the longer kids stay in school, the better chance they have to be employed and make more money. There are stats to back that up. I would be interested in seeing stats that show the twenty-six states requiring children to attend school until age 16 have better behaved senior-year classrooms than the states than mandate education until 17 or 18, as you suggest.
Ending tenure would be extremely messy. Again, I think it's an interesting idea, but not a slam-dunk for a more dynamic college classroom.
Thanks again for you comments. Hope you come back soon.
Derek
Derek,
There's a difference between stupid and ignorant, and I believe I characterized your proposals as the latter, not the former. There's also the probability that I overreacted owing to the fact that I've seen similar proposals pop up again and again over the years: All strike me as missing the point, for they offer "easy" solutions to problems that are complex and deep.
Yes, you and I do seem to agree that children need to spend more time in school, with me suggesting a longer school year rather than longer days. But even here we both are skirting certain realities, such as the fact that children spend more time watching TV and networking on their computers than they spend in school. In a study of middle-school children I published a few years ago, I found that the participants were able to do so because they had little interaction with their parents. Given that various studies have shown that parental support of children's education plays an important role in academic success, the obvious question is how do we increase parental interaction when so many parents are working 10 and 12 hours a day, often 6 days a week, simply to make ends meet?
As for discipline and age, the studies I'm familiar with, such as Heaviside, et al.'s Violence and Discipline Problems in US Public Schools, do not report statistics by state, only by age; they indicate that the older students are, the higher the incidence rate. If you know of any studies showing discipline issues by state, please pass them along.
Best,
James
As a public school teacher, I absolutely agree with Mr. Williams when he states "Ask any public school teacher what his or her biggest problem is, and most will state that it is classroom discipline. "
Having taught both high school and college for many years, I can tell you that it is MUCH harder to teach high school than college (and much harder than most people realize), primarily because of the discipline issue. At the high school level, my experience is that discipline is at least half the job.
My crazy idea is to give teachers the ability to kick a student out of class, and potentially out of school altogether. That single ability would improve education by more than all of these other suggestions put together.
That is a slippery slope methinks. How about instead of kicking kids out of class and/or school you make punishment productive, say, making them complete a project or do community service instead?
You know as well as I do that taking a "problem" student and forcing them out of the classroom/school is the exact opposite thing these kids need. It may not be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.
Anal_yst
http://1-2knockout.typepad.com
Very interesting article!
Many great points above, but I have to point out a critical issue with expanding compulsory education. First, the stats you mention are merely correlational, so expecting that higher education is the "cause" of employment and income increases is flawed, and is more likely to be a spurious relationship due to other key factors. For example, many people who stay in school longer have higher amounts of self-control, self-discipline, and delay of gratification; all of which due have more causal linkages to employment and income because of behaviors(being a reliable, conscientious employees), and not due to an educational "number." There is a saying in academic job searches--"everyone has the same degree as you do," so we all are well aware that the level of education does not "get" you the job (or let you "keep" the job). Although of course NOT having a certain degree limits possibilities, it is a huge assumption to say that it is THE constraint given the complexity of factors associated with successful employment.
Second, do not confuse quantity with quality. There is some excellent research (even published in Science) showing that educational interventions have critical points that yield substantially lower "returns on investment" over time in K-12 students, with essentially no gains after middle school. So, no amount of additional education on the back end (when students have already mentally checked out) can make up for those critical early years. As a teacher myself (college level), I see many of this students in my classes (and my colleague's classes) already who are there merely for a paper and make surprisingly little effort to truly learn skills despite our best efforts. So, if we keep focusing on irrelevant symptoms, such as years of education, instead of the root cause of the issue (broader social and cultural influences-per James' post), then we are only exacerbating the issue for teachers at all levels.
Larissa B
James, your case is passionately argued, but in your haste I believe you made a few key omissions and/or assumptions.
For example, in finding flaw with Derek's proposal to expand bilingual education, you focused on the troubles of non-English speakers trying to assimilate into American culture, citing the lack of education among the students' parents and the Spanish-speaking communities they inhabit. If you reread Derek's post above, although the idea is not entirely clear, it does seem that he meant for English speakers to learn a second language. I believe that for every point you made, this is a great move. For many reasons, the growing Latino population has trouble with linguistic and communication skills. What better way to find common ground with our new neighbors - illegal or otherwise - than for Americans to learn Spanish? In fact, many students now face the awkward position of being born in America to illegal immigrant parents, making the children American citizens but with parents risking deportation. It will be crucial for our English speaking students to be able to communicate with them in the future, whether as bosses or coworkers or just on the street.
Next, within a few sentences you claim that tenure does not in fact "calcify teaching methods" or "weaken departments"... and then give an example of your experience on a tenure committee for faculty deciding on teachers "whose "research" was so fundamentally flawed that it wouldn't pass muster in a freshman class, but the candidates were popular teachers and received tenure." Isn't that an argument against tenure?
Later you comment that "Without tenure, schools can establish a revolving-door policy--hiring young assistant professors, using their services for 6 or 7 years, then showing them the door so they can be replaced by another cohort of young assistant professors."
Why is that a problem? There is no right in the constitution to job security, and if both parties agree to a contract of 6 or 7 years with an opportunity for renewal at its close, what harm exists? Both the institution and teachers gain from the agreement, and if a teacher does a good job, it will be in the institution's interest to keep them on staff, lest he entertain an offer from a competing school.
Save the tomatoes, sir, for a more worthy target.
Looking at brain functionality can certainly add to this conversation: Interesting observations by a neurologist (Judy Willis, M.D.) http://bit.ly/YtS1z
I'd add, tell Parents that if they don't take responsibility for their kids then there's a good chance that their kids will be too poor to care for them. And back it up by pointing out that social secuirty will not be there fore the parents. A little self-interest promotes improvement.
1 2 & 4 take the opposite track and assist in the enfeebling or excusing of bad parents. 1 is not a poor v. rich issue. Summer camps are as cheap as a year's cable subscription or supply of beer. Plus, summer school is generally available.
As an elementary school teacher I'm going to get a lot of flack for this one, but I would add to eliminate tenure for elementary and secondary teachers as well. There is a definite climate among many teachers (good ones as well as bad) that you just have to make it three years and then your golden (this is when you get tenure at least here in MA). Good luck getting rid of them then. Even if they are the most ineffectual teacher you can imagine, as long as they don't do anything illegal (and sometimes even if they do) the best a school system can hope to do is bury them in some administrative job somewhere.
Tenure is NOT the problem. Ineffective administrators ARE the problem. There is a process to terminate ineffective teachers, however the average administrator is too lazy to follow the process. As a 25 year veteran in public education, I have watched, year after year, poor teachers allowed to continue even though everyone in the building knows they should be terminated. Why? Because the building principal won't do his job.
In fact, I would say most, if not all, problems with public education are the direct result of ineffective administrators who are more concerned with keeping his/her paycheck. Rather than do what is right and necessary, they continually look the other way or roll over to appease parents so that the parents don't complain to Central Office administration and/or the Board of Education... a group of elected officials, usually with NO background in education who are also only concerned with maintaining their positions.
How can any institution succeed when its "leaders" are ineffective?
I think the most difficult task in adjusting the education system is separating causation from correlation. In number 2, you use the phrase "students willing to work in an extended school day". That's a very telling phrase because it indicates that the kids that KIPP has had success with are selected based on their willingness to work. Would KIPP's programs work so well if they had to educate everyone? It might be worth a try, but I'm always suspicious of programs that get praised for having success with students they get to choose.
With #7, I'm not exactly sure how it is in America, but I know the tuition I pay for an engineering degree is like doubled that of a general arts program (which is still much less than your universities thanks to socialist Canada hurhur). I think it has to do more with with the resources needed than the projected graduate salary though, because tuition for something like CS is also considerably lower than engineering.
I also disagree with regards to #6, but other people have commented already so I'll refrain from beating that horse further.
Clarification, I support tenure for college professors, not entrenched union teachers. Because it's not like the average high school teacher is going to be making significant research.
As a disclaimer, I'm writing this as a University student in the school of business.
First of all, with all due respect, James Williams' position on tenure is both self interested and out of touch. I go to a school that ought to in theory excel at teaching. It is small, private, and selective. Most of my professors have little interest in teaching or helping students beyond repeating precisely what was previously said in classes, or referring students to readings. Obviously, there are great educators who were interested in genuinely helping students. Were they in any way the majority? No. And the great professors were universally younger. They were more technologically literate, understanding of the issues facing today's students, and willing to really help students. They didn't rely on set curriculum from ten or fifteen years ago that was completely unconnected to "today's realities". The experience from my peers at "research" focused universities was even worst to say the least. Many of my professors, especially older ones are disconnected, with no real experience in the field they teach in. Is this partly a product of my major? Undoubtably. But after I graduate I deal with reality not contrived systems without any particular connection to real world experiences that are endlessly self referential.
I see few defenses of tenure besides naked self interest. Companies don't fire good employees after six or seven years to replace them with younger ones. In almost every industry besides education there's no such concept, it's hard to argue with a straight face that they are all in terminal decline because of this. Free speech? The power of the internet to allow for unpopular views to be heard certainly is a far more powerful defense of liberty than anything professors provide. Are universities incapable of recognizing good instructors and keeping them? I certainly hope one doesn't take such a dim view of the intelligence of administrators.
What about research? The purpose of research universities is in many ways archaic and puts the cost of a socially desirable outcome on those least able to pay it. I'm clearly not capable of generating significant income as a student. Yet, on paper, I expected to pay in excess of 50,000 dollars a year once all is said and done. This cost is higher than average, but it's not particularly obscene for a high profile school. Yes, I had cheaper options. I could have gone to the flagship state school where I pay approximately 20,000 a year to help fund a premiere research university. I spend a still considerable sum so I could go to class with 500 other people. My prize is that I get to help pay for research that has little if any connection my learning. Instead this research propels my school to a high US News & World Report ranking. Yes, my school is a so called public ivy. Yes, knowledge is socially desirable. But it's been admitted that teaching and research are divergent courses. How is it then that one can honestly maintain that an institution serves students when its raison d'être is research not teaching? And what is the purpose of institutions that serve their own self interest (creating and promoting research) with little connection to the people who ostensibly are its reason for existence? Shouldn't all schools be focused on serving students? Is there any purpose to a school that does anything else?
I haven't really seen an argument for tenure that lays out the real benefits-for students. Instead, it's far easier to attack tenure's foes as against academic freedom or gimlet eyed cost cutters. I'd love to see one, if someone reading has the time and interest in making one.
Now onto the very concept of the modern school. It's largely pointless, at least for non technical fields. I learn very little in school. Every week, I learn more in the 6 hours I spend interning at a local investment group. I don't learn cute theories that fail spectacularly when risk is misjudged. Six sigma events can happen, and do happen. More importantly, there is no reason that they won't happen merely because a model says they ought not to. The knowledge learned from helping work on deals, on sitting in on client meetings, and by talking to people with decades of experience doing is far more valuable than reading about efficient markets. Why am I still in college? Because I have little choice. Most jobs that are remotely interesting require one.
That said, I fully believe in the purpose of technical education. Engineering, nursing, ect, are best and only learned through college. I'm not defending universities fully, only that complex technical fields with a well established canon need to be learned in a rigorous formal setting. However, a statistically significant number graduates are going to be working in fields with little connection to their majors. These students are the ones I'm referencing. Their only purpose in getting a college education is the paper. Is it any wonder they have little interest in what they're being taught?
An overarching fallacy of educators is that everyone can be brilliant or succeed. It is naive to blindly state the problem is always lack of resources. Not everyone is mentally capable of anything. I am, for example, awful at calculus. I can struggle through it, but it's painful to say the least. I spend hours longer than my peers to understand the same material. To suggest that I have a could have a career involving higher mathematics is naive. My talents are in other areas. Few suggest that anyone is capable of playing in the NBA. We commonly recognize that a rare combination physical and mental gifts coupled with years of hard work. Similarly, college is not for everyone. While far more people have the gifts to graduate from universities than have the talent to play in the NBA, many simply do not. We could do a great deal of good by not obsessing on getting everyone past some false milestone and instead work to maximize each student's achievements not against his peers but against his capacity. I won't play professionally, but that doesn't mean I won't be pretty good at basketball or that I can do everything possible given my natural constraints.
As for how to genuinely improve the education system? Much of what has been said has been said. Lengthen the school year. Keep schools smaller (don't worry as much about class sizes). What about giving parents more control over who taught their children? It's an easy way to separate the bad teachers from the good. (And no, it wouldn't merely separate the hard from easy. I've known brutally difficult teachers who parent's would have fought for their kids to have.) What about moving away from standardized testing as a measure of success? (To use a track analogy, we are setting a bar for the high jump. It's ludicrously low for some kids, and equally beyond the abilities of others. Yet every student faces this same bar regardless of his ability.) What about giving our education system more flexibility to innovate and find successful models? I don't know the solution, and suspect there's many things needed. But I believe if we have enough smart people try enough things, we'll start to figure it out. We'll start to teach kids more at a younger age. We'll change the curriculum to be more relevant for this generation. We'll find how to maximize the potential of those without as much without despairing at being incompetent and push the glittering talents to achievement not disillusionment with a broken education system.
I think David Jacobs, above, hits on many great points, but I'd like to add, IMHO and ceteris paribus, that parenting is the "x factor" in education, above all else.
Anecdotally, many of the "underachievers" I knew growing up had parents who weren't too involved with their kids' academic career, while myself and most of the "achievers" had parents who were on our ass (more often than not). Additionally, I observed that the parents in the latter group seemed to be themselves better-educated than those in the former. There were some "achieving" kids whose parents didn't exactly fit the mold, but I think that was more the exception than the rule, so to speak.
I haven't seen the data, but as others have mentioned, improving education is really about improving and addressing larger social issues first and foremost.
Anal_yst
http://1-2knockout.typepad.com
Amen and amen to better parenting resulting in better achievement. The question is: How do you teach better parenting? One thing KIPP does really well (along with plenty of great low-income area charter schools) is make the parents understand that they're part of a team with the teachers when it comes to teaching the kids. Some charter schools actually require parents to dedicate a certain amount of time at the school, whether helping with teaching, coaching, mentoring, after-school activities, etc. This can be controversial given that low-income parents often work long hours, but it's been demonstrated to help improve communities, which as you say is an x factor in improving student achievement.
It's obvious from all of these comments that people/critics have very different expectations of education.
As a recently retired college teacher (non-research institution)I could see very well the lack of preparation of many high school graduates, together with their sense of entitlement--"good grades, of course, but don't require me to do anything much." The students who were serious, did well, tended to be from homes in which there were books and involved parents. But any changes in high school requirements or standards--I don't go below that level--would be highly political and, whatever the public criticism of education, I think most parents (especially those not educated) are quite content that high schools should mostly tend to keeping the kids off the street, fielding great football teams, and allowing much social interaction in school, before they head off daily to the minimum-wage part-time jobs that support their wheels.
The proponents for ending tenure (I was tenured)have attractive ideas to urge: mostly getting rid of bad teachers, making sure that all teachers continue to shape up, etc. This assumes, of course, that the administration--on whatever level--is committed to good teaching, good education rather than holding onto power. What constitutes a "good" teacher? Scores on standardized tests? Somebody who makes the administration/school look good? Who/what makes the judgment? Eliminating tenure might possibly be an improvement but with the unintended consequence of securing the positions of bad, administratively loyal teachers. Most educational changes have unexpected negative outcomes.
As is presently the case, many colleges (community colleges especially) have nearly eliminated tenure already since they operate with huge squads of adjunct faculty who are disposable at will. The increasingly corporate outlook of college and university governance would see this only as good management.
Some of the commenters seem to regard education as only vocational training. Apparently efficiency would be aided in removing the frivolous humanities and liberal arts. If suffering through bad teachers is unthinkable, it's good preparation for suffering through bad bosses.
Then, there's the kind of education that K-12 teachers get--or don't get--which is another can of worms.