Changing Science

I'm curious to see what the results are from Vox's asking people how they would change science.  In my opinion there are lots of little things that could be better, but much of the problems faced by science today has more to do with funding and money than any other single item.  In particular, I think that the common use of science departments as piggy banks for universities cuts off a lot of potential science, and hurts science education at those universities.

My solution is simple: better funding of public universities (general funds, not department specific).  I submitted a [poorly organized] response to them to that end.  The funding of universities (and science) is very complex, but the dramatic relative cuts in funding from states have led to the business style administrations that are more common than they used to be.  Universities need a lot of money to operate.  Some comes from student tuition and fees, some from private donations/endowments, some from grants and some (particularly for public/state schools) comes from government funding.

It used to be that quite a bit came from government funding (yes, I could probably find out how much but this is not a research paper), but the combination of decades of Republican tax cuts (which require subsequent spending cuts) compounded by the current lesser depression has shrunk that part down.  Costs keep going up, however, and schools need to make up the difference.  So tuition has risen...sharply, but that isn't enough. One of the places a university can find extra money is the grants that professors are awarded.

There are some different ways that universities get money from professor grants, but for every ten dollars of granted funds a university may get $3-5 of that.  (Note: grants aren't all specified the same way.  Sometimes a $1M grant means that the professor gets $500-700k, sometimes it means the professor gets $1M and the grant will pay the university whatever over that is necessary to make sure the professor gets the award total).  Science grants are particularly nice ways to get money since they tend to be larger than grants in other departments/colleges.  Some of this is because of the often expensive equipment necessary for science.  Some of it is personnel, and some of it is, honestly, a value judgement.  Most people consider science research more "wothwhile" compared to, say, humanities or fine arts research.  (There is a bit of economics at play too, since there can be some financial rewards via technological advancement, but that often does not flow back to the grantor--particularly when the grantor is the government--it may, however, flow back to the university.)

The fact that science departments can be seen as profit centers for the university has some [potential] consequences.  Most obvious is the publish or perish mentality, though that would probably be better reworded as "get funded or get out".  While publications were once the hallmark of quality the number and quantity of grants fills that roll today.  That isn't inherently bad, or it wouldn't be in a world where quality research could always find funding, but that isn't the world we live in.

Yet even accepting that there is another problem: established professors, have an easier time maintaining funding and getting new funding than those starting out.  There are also "superstar" professors who have become funding juggernauts.  This is easy to understand since bigger name professors tend to get higher quality students/post docs who do good work (sometimes developing that work) which further advances the name/opportunities of the professor.  There are ebbs and flows and, again, this isn't by itself terrible since it can still lead to really good science, but the financial power these professors have at the universities has some downsides.

One is they often can negotiate contracts where they teach very little (sometimes not at all).  Ok, yea, they are teaching their grad students/post docs but someone still needs to teach the undergrad classes/labs. That means hiring more profs, but they can also demand large salaries against a university that needs their money in part because they aren't funded well enough, and that can mean less cash for other professors, so now instead of hiring a tenure-track position, they are hiring adjuncts: basically glorified post docs that get minimal salary and poor to no benefits.  PhD's teaching science as adjuncts at universities can be compensated more poorly than our under-compensated high school teachers.

Another issue with these super-profs is that their talents (mostly the one for getting lots of grant money to roll in) are in high demand.  The number of senior positions available at universities is larger than ever, while the number of entry level tenure-track positions is dwindling.  So while well funded big name professors can go pretty much wherever they want, aspiring researchers have to fight a lot harder just to get in the door.  (Note: large private research institutions still do hire a fair number of entry levels, but getting that job a Harvard, which has always been difficult, is even harder today since there are fewer StateU positions to go around.)

I should add in: super-profs are great.  They nurture talent, their labs can be sources for scientific breakthroughs, they can be good for public outreach (more of a mixed bag here but still).  Were it not for universities being desperate to get more money these profs would still exist, but the universities they work at would not be so beholden to them, and more people would have the chance to find their way to that roll.  Also, maybe the students would be getting better education.

Poor vs. Wealthier, College Degree Edition

I have a feeling this is a network effect.  Basically: wealthier people who get college degrees have a better network to plug into via family/family friends than do poorer people.  This makes it easier to get jobs straight out of college, and that makes a big difference down the road (promotions, experience...).  A college degree is nice, but it doesn't by itself get you a job.  Having better connections helps a lot when it comes to finding work.  The degree is just a check-mark on the resumé (more often required now).

"Liberal" Professors

Professors and universities are bastions of liberal thought.  Sure, but why?  This article states that the reason is self-selection, i.e. liberal youth consider academia an appropriate destination more than conservative youth and so choose it.  Fine, but this seems to me to be circular and so there is still a "why?" to consider.

First: it is circular, because the self-selection needs to be kickstarted somehow.  There needs to be a reason that liberals are more likely to see academia as a good environment to them that isn't "there are more liberals than conservatives in academia." It had to get that way somehow.  Note that that could have still been self-selection but the motivation to get from no apparent bias to professors are all liberal can't be that professors are all liberal.

So, why is it that academia developed into a place where liberals gather?  I haven't the resources (time or physical) to figure this out myself--I certainly do have a few thoughts on the matter--but this isn't a new phenomenon (some aspects are but not the whole liberal vs. conservative thought in educational settings).  

I should also note that while this has some bearing on US politics, that isn't necessarily a big part of it. Particularly today, the political side of liberal vs. conservative doesn't really register to me as an intellectual debate.  The two political sides are far more divided along emotional and group lines, though, yes, one side is far more welcoming of intellect/reason/facts/science/thought/... than the other.  

Arizona GOP: Anti-Math...I'll Assume Pro-Barbie

A state senator that doesn't know algebra isn't as surprising as I'd like it to be, but that he would state his ignorance so directly...

Actually, You Kind of Do...

In David Atkins' post "Serfdom Either Way" he references the report discussed here about the wage gap between college grads and high school grads.  He doesn't say much about it, in fact most of what he does say is:

Do I really need to comment here? The insanity speaks for itself.

I think I know what he is talking about: either go into massive debt or get a shitty job.  But you really do need to comment about it, because the implication of the price premium for college grads is that it is, in fact, worth it to go to college, even when it means incurring debt.  Now I certainly think that college should be much more affordable--in fact free to everyone--but so long as we have this capitalist fantasy about everything, it not only makes sense that college tuition has gotten high, this report clearly implies that the high cost is entirely justified.  Because the gap has been spreading it also implies that the value (and the cost) should grow faster than GDP.

If a college degree means an extra $17k/year (for life!) then it sure as hell is worth paying $30k/year for 4 years to get one.  Now this isn't the math that most students (or their parents) do, and the nature of student loans is borderline predatory, but it isn't "insanity" it's perfectly rational capitalism.

(Note: I hope this isn't a trend of him becoming increasingly irrational, because this follows a post of his from yesterday, that was mostly fine but that very oddly stated "Bill Gates isn't exactly an innovator"...I'm not sure what he would call Bill Gates, but innovator, at the least, is pretty damned appropriate.)

Student Loan Rates: Meh.

Lots of noise about the Senate bill passing (Bipartisan! Helping Students!), but it just mostly is not helpful.  There are two somewhat separate student loan problems: current and future.  The current problem is with people who have [recently] graduated into a crap economy with a mortgage worth of debt to pay off.  These people, who might be helped somewhat with lower interest rates, are not addressed, because--unlike pretty much every other type of debt on the planet--YOU CAN'T REFINANCE STUDENT LOANS.  People "lucky" enough to have 2, 3, 4% interest: good for you.  Those who have 5, 6, 7% interest: tough shit.

The other problem is the level of the debt (not the interest on it), and low interest rates, if they do anything, will make that worse.  If you make the price of money much lower for a specific activity (going to college in this case) then people will over-consume that good, and so the price of college will rise faster than it would otherwise.  So lowering student loan rates going forward may actually lead to higher debt levels for future students while doing nothing for current graduates with lots of outstanding debt.

We need low cost or free college education available to everyone, and we need to address the outstanding debt of [recent] graduates.  All this fucking around about the student loan rates is more distraction than help.  Yes, it may help quite a few current students, but at the expense of future students, and to the detriment of our nation, if education is in fact a driver for economic growth.

In Defense Of College (Partial, Short)

Specifically, in response to the rather stupid opinion reflected by the "employers" in this article.  When a person gets a college education, it must have rather limited real world use.  That's the nature of it.  It is the responsibility of the companies and businesses hiring to instruct their new hires on the application of their knowledge to their new position.  The university system isn't meant to be job training for Boeing, it's meant to be education, that allows for people to more easily move into certain fields.

That said, early on it sounds like the article is complaining that colleges are not doing that job well, but even that is somewhat misleading.  If you require people to have a college degree and more and more people get one because of that basic requirement, then you are naturally pushing down the educational value of said college degree.  People who would have gotten training (votec/practitioner/whatever) are now getting degrees, because of that requirement.  Moreover, by seeing this as a job requirement rather than an education, students and faculty alike are apt to downplay the education aspect.

We seem to want colleges to be this amazing thing (and considering the price, they sure as shit should be!) but college isn't really meant to be amazing in the way that people think of it.  Education is supposed to be a base of knowledge.  How large and well founded that base is makes a difference, so college is better than high school.  By the same token however, what goes on top of that base is not necessarily reflective of it.  Someone may have a good base, but be unable to build.  Someone else may have a base that seems good but is completely displaced from where they go.

Depressing Read

A pretty compelling case.  It's hard for lots of [liberals] to imagine something this well organized over this time frame, but Republican [elite] have demonstrated a remarkable ability to do this very thing.  (Now, it may be unraveling on them in some ways, as, thanks to the Tea Party, the crazies are taking over the asylum, but still...)

So I don't know how much of this is coordinated and how much of it is coincidence, but I'm a fair bit younger than the writer, and I noticed a difference in university education between when I started undergrad and when I finished graduate school.

Chemistry isn't necessarily the best position to see the whole problem (because research brings in lots of money and prestige to universities, professors there are not quite as hard hit as in other areas of study) so steps 1 and 3 are the ones I've most noticed.

Step 4 is almost a consequence of #s 1 and 3, though that doesn't make it less insidious, just something that maybe needn't be addressed independently.  I think if the first 3 things are fixed then this goes away (I also think that fixing 1 and 3 will fix 2 as well, but that's somewhat less certain).

The fifth step is one that I really want to address: "Destroy the Students."

Again, a lot of this is related to the earlier issues: if professors are poorly paid, then the education they provide will suffer as a consequence, and with all the money being pulled from state/federal budgets, and the administration and coaches needing their money, it has to come from somewhere, hence: lower quality education that costs more. 

That said, I think she misses one thing, though it is hinted at in the propaganda section: reinforcement.  In talking about the need or value of getting a degree, we are not actually at the point, that it isn't "worth it" and the reason is that companies doing hiring prefer college educated employees.  There is preferential hiring of people with degrees over those without even when the job requirements hardly necessitate that level of education.  This reinforcement of the need for a college degree by various corporations and businesses means that the current level of debt being assumed is, in reality, "worth it." 

Overall, I think that if steps 1 and 3 are remedied then the rest would follow, but it will take a lot of work.  It took 40+ years to undermine higher education.  Fixing it will take an equal effort.

How to Educate

I'm very torn about things like this new testing program in NYC.  Atrios is certainly correct that wealthier students in general will do better due to parental/money involvement.  This means they get better schools/teachers and will be better educated/prepared for college, meaning they will get into better colleges...

The other side of this is harder to state: no matter the reason that they are more advanced, it is not a good idea to hold back some children to bring others to their level.  I think where this goes astray is that a lot of districts are kind of backwards.  Advanced children (whether because of their own ability or because mommy and daddy have lots of money) don't need the best teachers and schools.  They will learn just fine with below average teachers.  The downside, of course, is that if the best teachers are not teaching "their" children "they" will pull their kids out of the schools: either going to the suburbs or moving them to private schools.  Advanced children without wealth will be less likely to have as much of a benefit in this case.

This is a nearly impossible problem to get around without lots of money and a less parochial system.  Basically, if we could setup a system that the worst schools in the country had the best paid teachers (I'm talking six figure starting salaries) and the best performing had the lowest (say $30k starting) then we could guarantee that the least advantaged students would get the best teachers.  It would really require pretty heavy federal intervention in public schools, however, to prevent wealthy suburbs from creating price competitive schools.  (Note: there will be private schools in either case, but even private schools would have a hard time matching a minimum teacher salary of $120k plus benefits.)

I'm thinking something like having all teaching jobs on a scale with a few variables: education level (+/- 0.5), experience (+/- 0.5), school rating (+2 to -1).  Most schools would exist on a +/- 1 continuum with a few very challenging schools over +1 (so median school would be 0).  A value of 0 would correspond to a median teacher salary of, say $47k.  +1 would be double that, +2 triple, +3 would be 4x, -1 and below would be half.  That way no matter how much education and experience a teacher has, she/he could never do better than the median at the easiest schools.

Definitely a Problem

I don't know that the housing bubble is the correct analogy for the student loan clusterfuck, but I suppose it references something people have some sense of scale of.

There are some fixes that would be hugely beneficial: the ability to have student loan debt written off in bankruptcy, no federal backing for private loans, caps on annual loan amounts for federal backed loans (maybe $10k/year for tuition plus some sliding scale for living expenses of up to maybe $15k/year, with most places being limited to $5k or so), probably a few other things.

That doesn't really deal with the problem of existing/outstanding student loan debt.  I like the idea of a structured, massive, one-time forgiveness plan.  It could be something like the stimulus idea(s) I've put up here before, or just a dramatically enhanced version of the slightly-better-than-it-used-to-be student loan debt changes Obama put through (pay a max of a certain percentage of your income, and all outstanding debt forgiven after, I think, 20 years).  Making student loan payments fully deductible rather than just interest (yes, I know, I hate deductions, but it's how we roll)--also maybe raising the income limit at which you can no longer deduct--and lessening the payment forgiveness term to 15 years would be a start, reducing the max payment amount to 10% of income, or at least by a point or two would also be nice. 

Cost of College

This post and this followup by John Holbo are pretty depressing reads.  They did make me think a bit about the cost of college and where it [maybe] comes from. 

While I have mostly felt that a sizable portion of the increase in college cost was due to [state] governments cutting or at least not increasing their funding, there is a real cost associated with adding departments/schools/courses and a smaller one with adding and improving other living aspects (the notorious climbing walls). 

John is very pessimistic about the possibility that state funding will ever come back.  I am not really optimistic on that front, but I am somewhat less pessimistic.

Something that wasn't really mentioned and that I do see happening at small levels now is private sponsorship of university.  The current extreme is well represented by Nike's involvement with the University of Oregon, and smaller scale has been happening for quite a while (I'd guess that most people who attended university in the past 20 years found either Coke or Pepsi products in the cafeteria but not both).

I don't really think that that is a particularly good deal either, but as it gets more expensive, it becomes more obvious a route for companies to get good employees.  Granted in our depressed economy this incentive is far less since there are more job seekers than positions, but in times of full employment it makes sense for companies to offer to pay for school in exchange for 5 years at a set salary after graduation.  More likely, as it is more flexible, would be companies offering to pay student loan payments in addition to stated salaries up to a certain amount per year (or to match payments as with 401k's).

Hell, if I were an employer I would consider buying out the student loan entirely to offer a lower interest rate for repayment (though this could be an issue for employees that leave or are laid off).  My guess is that our student loan and tax systems are sufficiently screwed up that a savvy employer could actually profit from this if managed correctly.

Surprising Obliviousness

So I read through this story on college grads "kids" moving back in with their parents and how it is a good thing for them.  On the face of it: duh.  In a crappy economy with very expensive cost of living (housing and student loan debt in particular), the ability to move back in with mom and dad is a sensible thing to do and a very smart move from a financial/career perspective.

But the professor author, who should really know better, makes this seem like a good thing.  It isn't.  It's something that happens when the job market sucks, the rent is too damned high, and students (and their parents) have to take on crippling levels of debt to go to college...which is pretty much required as the job market for college grads is only crappy and not non-existent.

The bigger problem with the piece is this however:

Both parents and children understand that in a world where the young are saddled with debt and find it difficult to quickly enter a career, parental support — where possible — is indispensable. [my bold]

It isn't always possible.  In fact grads and students with more debt, with less family support and therefore with greater need to get a job (any job) as soon as possible are most likely to not have this family support available.

The entire piece seems to say "it's okay that your son/daughter is at home, they aren't loosers, they are clever and will have better futures as a result" but the "your" in this case isn't struggling families. It's families that can afford to have their adult children live in the house and sponge off mom and dad.  Yes, the economy sucks, and it sucks for the children of upper middle class and higher parents, but is this professor unable to comprehend that it may really, really suck for those of his students who don't have that luxury?!?

Rather than console those who don't really need the economy to pick up too badly he should use his post to educate those parents as to exactly how bad things are and encourage them to maybe do something about it.

People need to know

Unlike me, Atrios gets read when he says this.  ...Of course, even he is not read by the people who need to get the message. 

So long as college grads are fucked, the economy won't recover.  The boomer generation is set or screwed already.  My parents' generation is still going, but they are largely too established in one way or another to be the source of change.  My generation and even more the one following are the ones that can really get us back on track (economically, anyway, politically, we still need the older folks).  If we're in debt to our eyeballs and having a hard time finding decent jobs things won't get better fast enough.

Just a Broken System

I kind of agree with the headline: "There is no student loan 'crisis'" but we do have a broken [higher] education system. A good system would send people to college for something close to free, and then extract a return on that investment by having higher taxes on their higher resulting salaries (i.e. a more progressive tax scheme). This means the successful grads pay back the gubment (many times over in the case of, say, surgeons), and those that have a harder time of it (like many today) are not saddled with an oppressive--and virtually impossible to get rid of--debt burden.

My student loans were pretty high, though not approaching the $100k level. But I got a very good job as a result of my education (I'm pretty middle of the road among my peers, maybe a bit low of middle compared to other non-academics, but very happy). As such I can certainly afford to pay off my student loans. If my education had been free, however, and my federal income taxes about 6% higher, then the government would have made a sizable profit on my college and grad school attendance.

I know that I've no chance of convincing conservatives of this (facts and logic are evidence of bias to them) but if we wanted to be really fiscally conservative, and run the government--at least in part--like a business then the intelligent behavior would entail free school and higher taxes. Of course it would also entail more infrastructure spending (i.e. investment) and higher taxes, but, again, they aren't actually fiscally conservative, and they don't want a well run government, they only want low taxes for rich people.

Note: Obama is pretty much in the same place as (non-crazy) conservatives on these issues.

Education Tax Credits/Deductions

I believe that there should be free options for college for all Americans. In the absence of that I would like to see many more student loan forgiveness possibilities. In the absence of that I would favor some pretty hefty tax credits/deductions for paying off student loans. But the absence of that too is what we have.

Student loans are tuition/fees/education expenses paid in the past, but are no longer deductible, so poorer students/families are penalized, while wealthy parents who can foot their children's bills get a tax break. The poorer individiuals get the benefit of the much smaller student loan interest deduction: only up to ~$2500, and not at all if AGI is >$75k. So M.D.'s with $125k in loans, but $150k in income get no breaks. (I think they can afford it, but that's another issue).

Since the first two just won't ever happen (as far as I can tell), the third issue is the only one with a chance to get real traction...

It is an incentive to pay off early. It allows lower income individuals to recoup tax breaks that the wealthy in this country get anyway. It would provide a pretty sizable stimulus to people most likely to spend extra money. In providing an incentive to pay off student loans it also could lower the default rate...particularly for higher income individuals like MD's. Since the US guarantees those returns (to private companies no less) then a lower default rate means some savings (no, not nearly offsetting, but some).

On the minus side, it would be pricey, and could encourage education expenses to accelerate (I would restrict to US backed/insured loans, which helps here). Better offsets, like by elimination or reduction of the mortgage interest tax deduction, are less likely than worse ones, like a increase in taxes on the wealthy, or simply none.

QE3 Student Loan Buy

I have been sending mental waves the way of Ben Bernanke regarding a QE3 program that would actually boost consumer demand by buying consumer debt rather than US debt. My "buy student loans" program would be a real boon to the economy in a way that giving banksters more money couldn't possibly be.

I do keep running into the same couple problems, however. The first is people like me, who would say "Thanks" and then put most of the extra into savings. It wouldn't all go there so it would still be a greater benefit than would be giving the money to banks, but not huge. This is largely solved by the somewhat complex scheme I outlined in the first post on this a while back. But I don't know if that would be a real possibility. Mostly that just isn't how the Fed does things. They just create money and buy stuff with it. They could probably buy all of Sallie Mae's outstanding student loans, but I doubt they could do the other part of the program that would ensure people like me do put extra into the economy.

I don't think that this is a terribly large problem, however. Student loans and payments on them have a larger effect on people just out of school. These are also generally people who could really use the extra money to buy things, and so for the most part this would still be a good deal, and would certainly a much, much better for the economy than would buying the equivalent of long term US bonds (and probably better than buying 10 times the amount of US bonds).

The other issue is how to argue against the "moral hazard" argument. The problem is that some student loan debt is accrued very badly. This could be someone picking up $100k in debt to get a fine arts degree that will lead to a $32k/year job. It could be someone taking on debt for 2-7 years of school, but who gets no degree to show for it. I think that the general argument against this is that 1. these are a very small fraction of the total student loans outstanding and 2. penalizing people for decades based on decisions made when they were 18-22 and really couldn't get the best information doesn't really send the best message. Also, I think that (state college) education should be free, so a one time forgive-all is still a good thing.

The other side of the "moral hazard" argument is that colleges and loan companies will use this as an excuse to step up costs and rates, and probably to be even looser with admission/approval. This is the harder side to deal with. If this really establishes some precedent then it could make the education situation worse. I'm not very concerned about this for a couple reasons. The main one is that this situation is not exactly normal and the Fed, if they were to do this, wouldn't be quick to repeat. The other reason is that there are so many problems currently--between high costs, predatory loan making and political gridlock--that I don't really see things getting much worse anyway.

Why Taxes? Science and Education.

For all the complaining I do about finance and taxes and government the reason boils down to science and education. I think that education in general and science in particular are the most important things that government doesn't seem to have trouble cutting. At the state level it makes some sense that they cut education heavily when bad times hit: education is frequently the largest thing in a state's budget. The problem is federal.

We have massive entitlement programs (which I support) and an enormous military (which I think is way too pricey). Everything else is small by comparison, and yet every time that spending cuts are brought down it falls on everything else (which is actually non-defense discretionary spending). The result is that everything else actually has very little in the way of waste compared to the big ones that never get touched, which means that any cutting there really hurts.

Wherefore College

I enjoyed college. More, I think that it is a rather important and quite powerful force in advancing societies. I seem to be hearing and reading quite a bit lately about whether college is necessary. Largely this has to do with whether it is financially worthwhile, but there have been some pieces that are a bit...unusual.

First: yes, it is certainly possible to achieve happiness and even great success without going to college or receiving a degree. It is far easier, however, for people who do go to college. There are many necessary jobs out there that do not require college degrees. There are also plenty of positions that do not really need a college educated person, but that often use that as a screen...there are arguably good reasons for this. There is also the world of entrepreneurship. This is a bit of a mixed bag in that anyone can do it, but very few can actually do it. It is only a few that have success as entrepreneurs, and an exceptional few that are actually going to be able to have success as an entrepreneur without college...this is particularly true when it comes to any scientific/engineering endeavor.

Second: college is way too expensive and students (and their parents) are accruing way too much debt, but it is still worth it when looking at overall statistics. So while picking up $120k in loans to get a fine arts degree probably won't pan out, rolling up $50k for a chemical engineering degree (most) certainly will. College grads can get better, higher paying jobs. College grads also have a broader knowledge base from which to strike out on their own.

How to fix? First no federally backed loans, only federal loans and public loans. If banks want to have student loans the fed shouldn't pick up the tab for defaulters. Second these federal student loans should be limited to the total cost for state universities in the state the students come from. So when I was living in Kansas, I should not have been eligible for federally backed loans (to anywhere) in excess of the ~$8k/year that it cost then to attend KU. Students who want to go to NYU need to cover the difference in cost with private, not federally backed student loans. Third, all federal repayment plans should be forced to end after 15 years, and should be pegged to never exceed some fraction of the student's income...say 20%. So for people who take full loans to attend state schools, but have trouble getting work, or getting work that pays well enough to cover the true cost of the loan will still be free and clear of student loan debt 15 years after starting repayment.

What Education Does and Doesn't Do

As an aside to this little post, and as someone who really supports education I would like to clarify what education does and doesn't do.

Education does provide us with a population that is capable today.
Education does provide us with a tool to prepare for tomorrow.
Education does ensure that we preserve our discoveries/culture/heritage.
Education does allow us to challenge our past.
Education does keep us discovering new things.

Education does not make for less inequality.
Education does not guarantee jobs or employment.
Education does not change who is in power today.
Education does not do anything fast.

Education is important for us (as Americans and as people) because it is our national investment in the future. No matter how good (or bad) a city, state, nation, or the world is today, going forward things will get better or worse based on whether the populous is sufficiently well educated to adapt, change and grow.

Education Pondering

We seem to have a real problem with education in this country. Specifically we seem to have a problem of lots of people saying that there is a problem, then coming up with some complex "solution" that fits in nicely with their point of view. Different methods of teaching, ways to evaluate teachers/schools, charter and/or private schools, vouchers, punishment, reward, ...

There are good and bad teachers. There are good and bad schools. There are good and bad parents. There are easier and harder students.

We can't fix parents. But people love trying to deal with the other three.

Personally, I think that one thing that has been happening over the past few decades is that women have had increasing opportunities outside of schoolhouses. There are still plenty of good teachers, but we tend, as a society, to see teaching as a career of last resort, and we further see teaching as being less...glamorous?...as the students get younger. I'm not sure that we can really offset that, largely because the knowledge/education necessary to teach college is much greater than it is to teach kindergarten.

This isn't to say that teaching college is harder. It requires more knowledge but less patience and less of other things. College instructors don't (need to) care if a student doesn't show up to class or fails a test, or even understands the material. Kindergarten teachers are instrumental in developing not so much knowledge, but behavior. But we tend to compensate people based on their level of education more than their level of skill or talent (pro athletes withstanding). And we tend to see prestige in a profession as parallel to how much people in that profession get paid.

I think my best solution would be to dramatically increase the pay of teachers, say 50% across the board, with special incentives for under-served communities. Yes, that would reward some current teachers that are not as good, but it would mean more coveted positions and more resulting candidate competition going forward.