Economic/business experts should get together and sponsor a contest to bring U.S. education into the twenty-first century and
end our failed fifty-five-year love affair with academic college for everyone.
^{I would contribute as I'm tires of seeing science community contests get all the prestige/publicity.} e-mail the editor

     Investing in Education        

Standardized Tests

The Path Not Taken

Please  

Editor/Author Thoughts from Walter

Concepts Everyone Should Understand 
       
Retired Teacher Thoughts

Why College Tuition is Not Going Up Rapidly 

Other Information

Economics of Education

Education Reform

Career Options for Graduates

Education Improvement Internet Library

from textbooksfree.org
 

Investing in Education 

"HALF OF THE CHILDREN ARE BELOW AVERAGE
TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COLLEGE
AMERICA'S FUTURE DEPENDS ON HOW WE EDUCATE THE ACADEMICALLY GIFTED
ABILITIES VARY"     From
 Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America's Schools Back to Reality by Charles Murray, 2008, 
W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Instituted AND author of The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in America.

Editors Note: Years ago, when I read  Charles Murray's earlier book Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life,
I stopped reading when I discovered his intention was more investment in our best and brightest. I figured they could take care of themselves.
Now that the The World is Flat  according to Tom Friedman, and our best and brightest
must compete against many millions of the  the best and brightest from Asia, I have changed my mind.

"The cost of educational egalitarianism is doubtless high and may be difficult to justify in terms of economic efficiency and short-term productivity.
Some students can achieve a given level of education far more easily and therefore at far less cost, than others.
Yet there is a danger in a democratic society in leaving some children out sync with its institutions.
Such neglect contributes to exaggerated income concentration,
and could conceivably be far more costly to the sustaining of capitalism and globalization in the long run.
The value judgments involved in making such choices reach beyond the imperatives of the marketplace."

"Much of our skill shortage can be resolved with education reform. But that will take years."   From

  The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of The Federal Reserve
published in 2007 by Penguin Group, pages 406 and 407 respectively

"Can we get to a higher sustained rate of economic growth, and a material improvement in national living standards,
merely by pumping up the resources we devote to education?
That question turns on whether there is a shortage of skilled labor in the United States, a shortage not being met by our colleges and universities.
Despite all the ruminations about 'skills bias' in the patterns of technological change, there is no such shortage.
To the contrary, our economy is full of highly technical and skilled people. 
It remains short of jobs for those people, as every college councilor and every coordinator of a training program knows."  From

 Created Unequal: The Crisis in American Pay by James K. Gallbraith, professor at the Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas
publish in 2000 by University of Chicago Press, ^{from page208}

^* "...it is those college-educated workers with functional literacy little better than the average high school graduate..."   "... who end up in these lower-level jobs." 

From Who's Not Working and Why? Employment, Cognitive Skills, Wages, and the Changing U.S. Labor Market.

by economists Frederic L. Pryor of Swarthmore College and 
David L. Schaffer of the University of Wisconsin at Eau Clair, Cambridge University Press, 1999, ^{page 48}

Please contact us with your thoughts and suggestions.

"Education is a very lumpy investment where often there is little or no payoff from having a little bit more." 
..."There are big returns to the first years of education (the education where one gains literacy) and 
big payoffs to the last years of education (a college or graduate degree where one distinguishes oneself from the pack) but 
only small payoffs to those years of education that move the individual from somewhat below average to somewhat above average."  From

The Future of Capitalism: How Today's Economic Forces Shape Tomorrow's World by Lester C. Thurow, former Dean of the MIT Sloan School of Management
 and published in 1996 by William Morrow and Company, Inc. ^{page 283}

"When asked to make economic comments as if he were looking back on 1996 from 2096, 
economist Paul Krugman said the following on what he called "The devaluation of higher education."  
Or consider the panic over "downsizing" that gripped America in 1996. 
As economists quickly pointed out, the rate at which Americans were losing jobs in the nineties
 was not especially high by historical standards. Why, then, did downsizing suddenly become news? 
Because for the first time white-collar, college-educated workers were being fired in large numbers, 
even while skilled machinists and other blue-collar workers were in high demand. 
This should of been a clear signal that the days of the ever-rising wage premium for people with higher education were over, 
but somehow nobody noticed."  From

The Accidental Theorist and Other Dispatches from the Dismal Science
by Paul Krugman, professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University, and published in 1998 by W.W. Norton & Company^{, page 201}

"Delivering literacy--even on the high level appropriate to a knowledge society--
will be an easier task than giving students the capacity and the knowledge to keep on learning, and the desire to do it."...
"All it requires is to make learners achieve. All it requires is to focus on the strengths and talents of learners so that they excel in whatever it is they do well." 
" But schools do not do it. They focus instead on a learner's weaknesses." From

The New Realities by Peter F. Drucker, pages 236 and 237  Peter is the
Clark Professor of Social Science at Claremont Graduate School, California and considered by some
 “the founding father of the science of management (LA Times)” published in 1989

The Department of Labor reported on page 9 of the Fall of 2000 issue of Occupational Outlook Quarterly that the 
oversupply of college graduates for 1988-1998 was approximately 1,900,000 and for 1998-2008 it is expected to be approximately 900,000. 
This means there will be almost three million college graduates from this period not working at college graduated jobs in 2009. 
This number will be even larger if:

1) the outsourcing of college graduate jobs to India, Ireland, etc. continues to grow
2) baby boomers do not retire as expected because they have not saved enough to retirement.

From Walter Antoniotti, editor of this site.

Testing exists because of teacher egos, big profits for testing companies, politicians who realize it means votes, and the inability of parents to accept the special intelligence of their children.
Ironically the economic affect is reversed. Teachers and parents want a better life for young people and there actions hurt young people economically and emotionally.

 

Please contact us with your thoughts and suggestions.

College is an academic experience and a social experience. 
For those with SAT scores of about 1200 or higher, the academic experience should predominate. 
Below 1000, the social experience should prevail. 
If an economic return from investing in school is relevant, at some point,
probably around an SAT score of 1000,  
the person should consider training rather than college. 

For more information visit Education in a World of Multiple Intelligence

   Full Story   Authors Note: This is not the first study to reveal that computers do not enhance learning.
Like everything, if you really want to know what is going on, "...follow the money."

Alternative paths to college completion: Effect of attending a 2 Year School.

"Recent research indicates that college students who transfer from community colleges are significantly less likely to complete a 4-year college degree than students who begin at 4-year institutions.
This paper estimates models of college completion for both types of students.
Based on these results, an Oaxaca decomposition indicates that students who attend 2-year colleges
are at a disadvantage due primarily to lower individual quality rather than the lower quality of 2-year colleges.
This result has implications for public policies that seek to increase the role of 2-year colleges
as a means to increase the number of students completing 4-year degrees."

Education is an admirable thing, but is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.
Oscar Wilde

"Delivering literacy--even on the high level appropriate to a knowledge society--will be an easier task than giving students 
the capacity and the knowledge to keep on learning, and the desire to do it."... "All it requires is to make learners achieve. 
All it requires is to focus on the strengths and talents of learners so that they excel in whatever it is they do well."
 ..." But schools do not do it. They focus instead on a learner's weaknesses."

From pages 236 and 237 of The New Realities (ISBN 0060916990) by Peter F. Drucker, 
Clark Professor of Social Science at Claremont Graduate School, California and considered by some
 “the founding father of the science of management (LA Times)”

No child left behind should be changed to a job for every child. If this were done, data of contained in   
2004-2014 Job Growth by Required Education and Occupations, Not All College Majors Are Created Equal, and
Many Without A Bachelor's Degree Have High Earnings could be used to make educational decisions. Every college student choosing a major should be required
  to sign a document stating they have read Recent Earnings Data By Major.

Education should change from an answer based system to an Activity Based, Real World, Question Based Academic Curriculum.

Example: Unlike fractions, mixed numbers, and mathematics vocabulary such as real numbers  are not relevant to real world mathematics
and should not be part of the standard mathematics curriculum.

For more information visit   A Critique of Standardized Tests and
Not All College Majors Are Created Equal.

Concepts Everyone Should Understand

Why College Tuition is Not Going Up Rapidly 

Franklin Pierce College has< much higher tuition than Marietta College, but subtracting the funny money makes tuition actual paid by the students,
about the same. But average tuition is higher because of the 10 years it took both colleges to build the funny money portion of tuition.
Almost all college do this.

Sometime around the turn of the century, colleges began loaning funny money rather than giving it as a grant. This created he possibility of it being paid back. 
Bad debts often run over 50%, but whatever they get is found money as before it was a grant which is a gift! 

Tom Lane 7/11/06

About the Author of  Interesting Thoughts Concerning Education

Please contact me with your thoughts and suggestions.

Thoughts on President Obama's Educational Reform

I agree with the idea of a longer school year but disagree with having a longer school day.
Studies have proven that two ninety day terms with a long summer vacation is academically inefficient.
It is also economically inefficient. A longer school day does not take into consideration diminishing returns.
The attention span of many students decreases as the day wares on. 
Little additional learning, and for some, less learning would take place with a longer school day.

The present high school system has five fifty-minute academic classes per day for 180 days which yields (50 minutes)(5 days)(180 days) = 45,000 minutes per year.
The new system would have three 15 week terms separated by two-week vacations. The remaining six class days would be for holidays during the year or an added vacation time.
This 225 day school year would have five 45 minute classes with five minutes between each class. Total minutes per year would be (45 minutes)(5 days)(225 days) = 50,625.
This would be a 10% increase. Schools would run double sessions from 8 AM to 12 Noon an 1 PM to 5 PM. In the beginning, students would be required to attend 225 days per
year and teachers would be required to teach three sessions over 225 days but would have a shorter day. In time, both students and teachers worthy could be double up creating
additional vacation time and/or early graduation.

Twelve years of public free education was a good number for many years and now that pre-school and kindergarten is required, elementary and high school should be ten years.
Student scold stop at sixteen or go on to higher education of some kind.

School  facilities would be used much more efficiently. In affect, school utilization would double. School districts with below standard facilities could close poor schools.
School officials would find many unique uses for  vacant classrooms, facilities, and teachers who want to earn extra money.

We Should  Educate for Careers.   Visit Change Education for an innovative view.

by Walter Antoniotti, creator of the Free Internet Libraries, author of the free Quick Notes Learning System books series, and President of 21st Century Learning Products.

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