In Defense of Education (but not the same education)

“Now is the winter of our discontent.” Tax cuts, two off budget wars, bank malfeasance resulting in the housing collapse, and the subsequent failure and rescue of banks, insurance companies, and auto makers have left the states and the federal government drowning in a sea of red ink and millions unemployed or underemployed.

The bailouts and other actions by the Fed and Treasury have had varying degrees of success. The economic free fall has stopped. There are signs that a sustained recovery is underway. Corporate profits are at pre-recession levels and those of the banks, whose financial geniuses created the instruments of financial Armageddon, are at record setting levels.

We are now facing the wreckage done to government budgets at every level.

Everyone knows that very painful choices will need to be made and the longer they are put off the more painful the eventual choice will become. We know that spending must be drastically cut but with only 19% of the federal budget available to work with this will not come close to closing the deficit (discretionary spending is about 38% of the total budget with defense and security taking up over half of that amount).

We must also grow revenues by creating well paying jobs. To do this we need an education system that is up to the challenge. What we currently have is decidedly NOT up to the challenge and our deficit crisis will make this worse unless we rethink our priorities.

Education is the largest expense for states and its budgets have been the piggy bank that gets raided time after time. We have for years balanced our budgets on the backs of our very own children. Not some generation down the road. Our very own kids, here and now! We are selling their future as well as our own to pay for broken systems and poor decision making.

With calls from every corner about how we must innovate and compete, the very next thing we do is put education on the chopping block. If we hope to be anything other than a backwater on the world stage we need to invest in the only thing that will allow us to recover and lead once again.

We have already given up much ground. The Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2007 International Mathematics Report shows the US in 10th place for the percent of eighth graders reaching the International Benchmarks of Mathematics Achievement behind Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan,, Hungary, England, Russia, and Lithuania. (Report available at http://timssandpirls.bc.edu/TIMSS2007/mathreport.html ).

Similarly, the 2009 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) measuring 15 year-olds’ proficiency in reading, math, and science puts the US in 7th place in reading behind Korea, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, and Australia, 18th place in math behind Korea, Finland, Switzerland, Japan, Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Belgium, Australia, Germany, Estonia, Iceland, Denmark, Slovenia, Norway, France, and the Slovak Republic and 13th place in science behind Finland, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Canada, Estonia, Australia, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Slovenia.

More money is not necessarily the answer but less money is certainly not the right direction. Our education system is still geared to the need of an economy that existed half a century ago. Our teaching methods and tools must be re-examined and our notion of grades and the knowledge expected at each level needs to be rethought.

We need unwavering commitment to end social promotion and we must assure that teachers and administrators focus is on what is best for the STUDENT, not union members and the union coffers. We must reward teachers for performance and return teaching to a profession that is sought after and attracts the best talent.

With the call to emphasize math and science we must assure a balance with the arts and literature. Being an engineer, I did not always hold this view but with the tools available today the line between art and science is becoming indiscernible. The geeks may keep the server farms running that render Avatar but it is the writers who create the story and the artists that make new worlds come to life.

World class education for everyone, not just the better off, is the only way we will regain the initiative. Cutting education is like cutting off the oxygen that keeps us alive. We may breathe OK for a while but we will suffocate in the not too distant future having committed suicide in the name of smaller government.