Krugman worries about college while K-12 founders; al-Qaeda at CERN; and Nobel also-rans
By LisaB on October 10, 2009 at 10:30 AM in Current Affairs
1) Paul Krugman talks about the decline in American education today. It can be difficult to know how seriously to take such talk, since people have been in despair over education since the first attempt to teach someone how to create fire. But Krugman’s take is interesting, if simplistic.
He does give credit to the GI bill of post-WWII America as helping to move the country forward in many ways. Of course, Krugman is most worried about colleges and universities, the so-called “higher ed” community.
About that erosion: there has been a flurry of reporting recently about threats to the dominance of America’s elite universities. What hasn’t been reported to the same extent, at least as far as I’ve seen, is our relative decline in more mundane measures. America, which used to take the lead in educating its young, has been gradually falling behind other advanced countries.
Most people, I suspect, still have in their minds an image of America as the great land of college education, unique in the extent to which higher learning is offered to the population at large. That image used to correspond to reality. But these days young Americans are considerably less likely than young people in many other countries to graduate from college. In fact, we have a college graduation rate that’s slightly below the average across all advanced economies.
Clearly, Krugman worries about the economic impact to the country if higher education becomes unaffordable. Then Krugman segues nonsensically to what is probably K-12.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States economy lost 273,000 jobs last month. Of those lost jobs, 29,000 were in state and local education, bringing the total losses in that category over the past five months to 143,000. That may not sound like much, but education is one of those areas that should, and normally does, keep growing even during a recession. Markets may be troubled, but that’s no reason to stop teaching our children. Yet that’s exactly what we’re doing.
Then he goes back to colleges. WTH?
For example, the Chronicle of Higher Education recently reported on the plight of California’s community college students. For generations, talented students from less affluent families have used those colleges as a stepping stone to the state’s public universities. But in the face of the state’s budget crisis those universities have been forced to slam the door on this year’s potential transfer students. One result, almost surely, will be lifetime damage to many students’ prospects — and a large, gratuitous waste of human potential.
Well, yeah. But “education” doesn’t merely refer to students in college trying to get better jobs. “Education” also refers to the six-year old learning to read. Not much point in worrying about higher ed. if “lower ed” is stiffed, eh?
What most of us are familiar with when it comes to “education” are local property taxes or local funding of K-12 schools. We’re much clearer on what it takes to educate children on a per-capita basis. We see that every year in our tax bill.
Public universities, in contrast, are funded by states and tuition payments from (most often) parents and/or students themselves. So, higher ed funding is more removed from the majority of the population.
“Higher ed” also pays better, has better facilities; and those who work there enjoy a higher status than the lowly first grade teacher, notwithstanding how important we say all those people are. (My theory: the younger the person you work with or on behalf, the lower YOUR status.)
But where is the bigger “bang for the buck” in education? Early childhood. I know, I know. We need engineers, etc. But education is a lot like compound interest. The early money pays off bigger than later money. And as any teacher can tell you, it costs much more to remediate someone who has not learned the basics than it does to teach the basics in the first place.
All of us who tried to learn a second language (except for you gifted types) as an adult can relate to that. The earlier, the easier. And it’s very hard to hold 10th grade English teachers accountable for teaching World Lit if the students have a 3rd grade reading level, for example.
Colleges can always raise tuition (no matter how egregious the rise in college costs is, it always rises). K-12 cannot “get” more money unless taxes are raised – unless you live in an affluent area where parents donate by the bushel. (And that sets up inequities among school districts. Where you live largely determines the quality of education. Don’t believe me? Check out the highest performing K-12 districts in your state.)
So, while Krugman is worried about people not able to afford college (and that’s no small worry), I’m more worried that without attention to K-12, it won’t matter if college is affordable or not. Already we can count on the same affluent school districts having outsized numbers of graduates taking slots in “elite” schools, while students in rural schools, in particular, have far fewer options. I know of a local school district offering so many Advanced Placement classes that a student can test out of freshman year in college. That’s an additional break for those already enjoying affluent public schools.
And, don’t forget, private colleges and universities (as well as some public ones) enjoy huge endowments whose purpose is to generate interest revenue for the university. Wouldn’t it be cool if your local K-12 had, oh say, a $10m endowment? Maybe more science labs in high school? More books for first grade? Teaching assistants in kindergarten?
The problems plaguing education are wide, deep and systemic. It’s certainly fair to look at the particular issues of “higher ed.” But wait until you get into the weeds of K-12. Krugman should spend some quality time at non-affluent K-12 school board meetings.
2) What news items are being overshadowed by Teh One’s Nobel award? Well, there’s this. The Times (UK) reports that a nuclear engineer from Cern has been arrested because of links to al-Qaeda.
French agents have arrested a researcher from Europe’s top atomic lab on suspicion of links to al-Qaeda, fuelling fears that terrorists could be targeting the nuclear industry.
The 32-year-old man, who was detained along with his brother, works for the prestigious European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern) in Geneva, Switzerland, according to French police sources.
Cern, if you’re not familiar with it, is the premiere nuclear research lab in Europe. It is also credited with being “the birthplace of the World Wide Web.”
Luckily this individual had been under observation for some time.
3) The Weekly Standard has the Nobel Peace Prize also-rans. Whew! Good to know these people are sooooo less worthy than BO. It’s short and worth reading.
“Dr. Denis Mukwege: Doctor, founder and head of Panzi Hospital in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo. He has dedicated his life to helping Congolese women and girls who are victims of gang rape and brutal sexual violence.”
———“Wei Jingsheng, who spent 17 years in Chinese prisons for urging reforms of China’s communist system. He now lives in the United States.”
Hey, I guess these folks can hope for change in next year’s Nobel committee.
by Ronald Scott
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