When I see a headline “Education? It’s no longer the answer”, it certainly gets my attention quickly!! That is the title given by the Charlotte Observer of March 9, 2011, to a rerun of a column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times that ran on March 6, 2011 entitled “Degrees and Dollars”. Wonder why the Observer didn’t use the real title? Anyway, the gist of this op-ed piece is centered on Krugman’s contention that putting more kids through college is not the answer to restoring middle class America. He talks about the fact that a lot of “white-collar” work which is done by the well educated is on the way to computerization, i.e. legal analysis, medical diagnosis, etc. (think of “Watson”!) The menial, labor-intensive jobs such as custodial work and truck driving will require less-educated workers even in the face of technology.
When I was working on high school reform, we always said that college-prep was the default curriculum for all students. We were not naïve enough to think that all would go to college but raising he bar for all was supposed to help you no matter what path you chose. I still do not think that is a bad thing. We don’t know where technology will take us in the future so everyone needs to possess higher-order thinking skills to deal with the proliferation of knowledge.
I agree with Krugman when he states that we need to fix the inequalities that kids face from the start….where that loathed gap begins….as it is a waste of human potential. Yes!!! But to relegate people toward a lesser standard of education is not the answer. We need improved early programs accompanied by rigorous, relevant and personalized instruction for all to be successful in the 21st century.
On the other hand, maybe what we need to consider is what was discussed in the Pathways to Prosperity Project of the Harvard Graduate School of Education of February 2011. They discuss various European models and one I particularly like is from Finland and Denmark where they keep all students in a common, untracked comprehensive school up through grade 9 or 10, at which point students and their families, not the school, decide which kind of upper secondary education they will pursue. Some of those programs could include Project Lead The Way, a rigorous engineering curriculum, career academies or “schools within schools” or be modeled after SERB’s High Schools That Work. The main objective is to provide a smooth transition from adolescence to adulthood well supported by a sound, basic education for all in the earlier grades. Give up tracking? That's another topic for another time!!
Lot’s to think about…but surely education IS the answer!!!!
