  Karl Member Username: Karl Post Number: 5396 Registered: 09-2005 |
The thread title came from the WSJ, not me. Needless to say, this is not exclusively a Detroit issue, but one every city must wrestle with in order to thrive. Flabby, Inefficient, Outdated By MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG December 14, 2006; Page A20 WSJ Today a bipartisan commission of high-profile academic, government, business and labor leaders selected by the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) will release a report that provides a sobering assessment of our nation's education system: Only 18 out of 100 high-school freshmen will graduate on time, enroll directly in college and earn a two-year degree in three years or a four-year degree in six. Just 18! It used to be that those without college degrees could count on well-paying jobs in manual labor; those days are long gone. Now, not only are we losing low-skilled jobs to nations with lower wages, but more and more of these nations are developing education systems to compete with us for high-skilled jobs. And as technology and communications make the world a smaller place, they are growing ever more competitive. For much of the 20th century, the education level of America's work force was second-to-none. But others have caught up, and even moved past us. Now, unless we take bold action, we risk losing our competitive edge. The problem is not that America doesn't spend enough money on education -- we spend enormous amounts, far more than any other nation. But we're not getting a sufficient return on our investment. The fact is, our education system looks a lot like the U.S. auto industry in the 1970s -- stuck in a flabby, inefficient, outdated production model driven by the needs of employees rather than consumers. For instance, we have built too many bureaucracies that lack clear lines of accountability, which means that mediocrity and failure are tolerated, and excellence goes unrewarded. We recruit a disproportionate share of teachers from among the bottom third of their college classes. Then we give them lifetime tenure after three years, and we reward them based on longevity, not performance. We fail to help struggling students in the early years, when costs are lower, and then, in the upper grades, we pay for expensive remediation programs which have very limited success. And we allow vast funding inequalities to exist between school districts, with poor students, who are disproportionately black and Hispanic, paying the price. We can continue to invest enormous sums of money in this failing system -- and remain like Detroit in the 1970s, slipping further and further behind our international competitors. Or, we can put our famous American ingenuity to work and build a better system -- and become like Silicon Valley today, which is leading the world in innovation and technology. The choice is clear, but the challenge will not be easy. It will require a top-to-bottom rethinking of our school system, one that insists on a performance-based culture of accountability that is oriented around children, not bureaucracies. It will require us to offer higher teacher salaries to attract more of the best and brightest, and to offer financial rewards to the most successful teachers. It will require us to set and uphold high standards, encourage innovation and competition, and end social promotion -- the harmful practice of advancing students to the next grade despite their poor academic performance. And it will require us to invest in early childhood development and distribute funding more equitably. These are exactly the goals we have been working toward in New York City, and even though we still have a long way to go, the early results are encouraging. These goals are also at the heart of the new NCEE report. Deciding how to achieve them will require tough choices, and not everyone -- myself included -- will agree with all of the commission's recommendations. But beyond the specifics of this report, achieving real progress requires all of us to think anew and to challenge conventional ways of doing things. This means that politicians must show a willingness to stand up to special interests, including unions. School administrators must lead from the front in exploring more innovative, performance-driven ideas. Teachers must be given the tools and support they need to succeed -- and be held accountable for results in their classrooms. And parents must recognize that the schools can't do it by themselves; values and ethics begin in the home. Nothing less is required to keep the American Dream flourishing in the 21st century. It won't be easy, but we can do it. And to keep America at the head of the class, we must. Mr. Bloomberg is the mayor of New York City. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 1895 Registered: 10-2004 |
It is hardly startling, Karl. These facts were already much the same ten years ago, with only minor change. Just why do US employers have to import engineers through special visas or offshore the work directly. China graduates twenty times as many engineers there than the US graduates American engineers. Even the US engineering colleges graduate four foreigners for every three American engineers. And we haven't even addressed the country with even more people than China--India. They too swamp in numbers whatever the Americans turn out--and those Indian engineers often speak and write better English than, surely, Detroiters can. The expertise in education from the Pacific Rim is far better than the US. Those Pacific Rimmers at high school graduation are some six years ahead of their American counterparts. When they enter college, they hit the ground running. I predict that having Americans in US engineering colleges will be a rarity in a decade or two at the rate we're going, especially in engineering graduate schools which are already now almost all foreigners. (Message edited by LivernoisYard on December 14, 2006) | ||
56packman Member Username: 56packman Post Number: 812 Registered: 12-2005 |
one possible answer: in the 80's the wisdom going around the schools was "go into law, there's more money in law than engineering" less lawyers, more engineers but then again, if you're an engineer you can't make more work for yourselves when things get slow. | ||
Ndavies Member Username: Ndavies Post Number: 2373 Registered: 10-2003 |
While the WSJ thinks all schools are in trouble, Time Magazine thinks Michigan is on it's way to better schools. http://www.time.com/time/natio n/article/0,8599,1568853,00.ht ml | ||
Janesback Member Username: Janesback Post Number: 173 Registered: 08-2006 |
China , the next super-power. The results are from "globalization" and outsourcing....kind of sad, China is one massive construction site and the U.S is eventually going to be 3rd world. I'm a true American, but I see lots of red flags when it comes to this country. Remember how powerful Russia was just within the last centry? Now look at the shape its in.... | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 1896 Registered: 10-2004 |
The CNN err... Time piece seems like the puff Granholm education program which again throws nothing more than money and some unattainable new rules which will be wormed around later just as the school districts do now. DPS is a prime example of regrading their failing schools--they just reset some parameters and Poof!, it's all better. | ||
Lowell Board Administrator Username: Lowell Post Number: 3426 Registered: 10-2003 |
The WSJ article has merit but I would liken our educational system to the auto industry in 1915. It is a late industrial age [assembly line model] model. The students are the cars, the teachers are the assembly line workers that plug in their limited knowledge from set 'work stations' and rarely see the finished product. So, as the saying went with the Model T, you can get it in any color you like -- as long as it is black. In the end junk gets pushed through to meet production quotas, a lot of waste falls by the side and innovation is stifled so that the cars that are properly made are obsolete. This process is great for the mass production of degrees and fulfilling demands of universal education, but totally out of step for the information age demands of business and society. Information age enterprise is based on project-by-project production, quick business formation and dissolution. Knowledge is relative to the project at hand and must be continually enhanced. Nothing is permanent and everybody must be flexible, be ready to move on, reeducate and readapt. The current assembly-line education system does little to prepare for that. Running my own information age cottage industry I am acutely aware of this and have evolved some principles of survival. 1-School's in forever. 20% of work is learning anew. Get over it; get used to it. Besides it's refreshing. 2-Learn only what you need to do the job now. Learning something you think you might need will generally be waste of time. Due to the fast pace of knowledge, if and when you finally get around to using it, you will have to learn it again because it will have changed so much. 3-Wherever possible avoid long term commitments and only accept overheads or make investments when funding is established or, better yet, in hand. Flexibility and mobility are of essence. Plant you feet and this world will whisk past you. Oddly enough, I feel that a return to the one room school house approach is more appropriate for the information age while still meeting demands of universal education. Returning to the automotive analogy, it means unit construction by workers who know all aspects of the vehicle. In one room schools, where my mother first taught, older students would help the younger and slower students. Brighter students stifled at their grade level could tune into the higher grade teaching. Outside resources could be brought in as needed. In the end, I think that if a student can be instilled with three things they will be well suited for the information age -–have 1- curiosity, 2-the ability to look up and find answers, and 3-the ability to organize and cooperate with others. | ||
Cambrian Member Username: Cambrian Post Number: 416 Registered: 08-2006 |
I like how Bloomberg points out there is room for improvement without saying the panacea is charter schools. | ||
Livernoisyard Member Username: Livernoisyard Post Number: 1898 Registered: 10-2004 |
Bloomberg is a RINO in a heavily unionized community. He's kissing ass to them. On another note: He said yesterday that his city was literally running out of real estate and was looking elsewhere (whatever that means). Wouldn't KK just love to have that problem? | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 228 Registered: 04-2006 |
Hmm, yet he heads the city with the worst school district of any major city in America (yes, it's even worse than Detroit's). Clearly he's no expert... but at least he's trying, I guess. He does keep an open mind which is about as much as you can hope for from a business man turned politician. There isn't much hope for America's schools because everything has to become a competition. Schools are focusing on the competition more than learning. Who spends more? Who has the higher test scores? Who has the smaller classrooms? Etc., etc. All of that does not equal learning. You also turn a lot of these kids into competitive learners. This is good for a select few, but the thing about strictly competitive environments is that everyone cannot benefit by design. It's very obvious in inner-city vs. suburban districts. The people with the power->money->influence (i.e. white people with money) have better districts. Their districts become favored. That segment of the population benefits, but that segment of the population is quickly becoming a smaller segment of the larger population. Thus, if there is any hope for this country to compete on a larger scale, the whole system needs to be scrapped from top to bottom. America needs to engineer a type of thinking to make learning a community effort. Maybe then things like district spending, test scores, and Affirmative Action will be beside the point. He's eerily accurate in comparing it to the American auto industry. The only thing he missed was juxtaposing it to what made the Japanese so successful... and subsequently, dooming the Americans. | ||
Mrjoshua Member Username: Mrjoshua Post Number: 1095 Registered: 03-2005 |
Why has there been no mention of bringing former military brass on board to clean up the DPS mess? And where is the diversity in the candidate pool? Many other major cities seem to be embracing this concept: Wanted: Schools Chief With Zero Experience L.A. is one of many large urban districts that have turned to non-educators for a fresh perspective. By Mitchell Landsberg, LA Times Staff Writer October 15, 2006 http://www.latimes.com/news/ed ucation/la-me-outsiders15oct15 ,1,101599,full.story | ||
Iheartthed Member Username: Iheartthed Post Number: 232 Registered: 04-2006 |
Maybe because it's a really dumb idea. |
