The Cost of America's Education Failures

In this brief clip, NPR does a great job representing the economic costs of a broken education system for their series on America's Dropout Crisis (Editor's Note: The link on the NPR site for the clip I wanted to show displays a different video, so just follow the link and watch the clip at the top of the page. Sorry for the inconvenience). Later reports document the human toll it takes on individuals and its effect on our culture and national well-being. You don't need to look very far to see how Education has the power to transform economies and cultures, and something tells me that the United States does not want to go down as the case-study of what not to do in this essential field.

Are there problems with our education system? Absolutely, and our public school system is painfully outdated and burdened with limitations, creating an inefficient and ineffective system which lacks valuable accountability and competition. Part of this is due to fund cuts, some of it is do to restrictive legislation, and some of it is, yes, do to aggressive and powerful unions. By definition, union representatives are obligated to protect those who fund them, which includes the best and worst teachers. But that is also how our system of adversarial legalism works. Whether someone is on trial for a white collar crime, petty larcen, or child molestation, they are entitled to have a lawyer provide the best case. It is then up to the judge / jury to take both sides into consideration and come to a conclusion. Does that mean that a child molester will be freed because someone is presenting his case? No, but having a voice is an important part of our legal system. We may not like it, but the reason why the man responsible for the Tuscon shootings / Gabby Gifford situation cannot be put to trial is because he cannot assist in his defense and his voice cannot be heard. Many may disagree with that, and I'm not saying that our justice system is perfect, but its the closest thing we've got to an objective power.

Maybe instead of looking at why the bad teachers get represented, we should look at why they are teaching in the first place? How come it seems that only Teach for American can attract the best and brightest young people to get infront of a classroom? Do we need a more rigorous hiring process to weed out the teachers? Do they need better on the job training? How much of the fault on the administration? Do we need to improve metrics? Are we not attracting good teachers because they don't get paid a high salary but are instead compensated in the long term with a pension, or is it a cultural stigma that prevents people from being teachers, and if so how can we change this? How do we make sure that we help our teachers (and in turn our kids) reach their highest potential, and if they are unable to achieve satisfactory standards, fire them?

There are a lot of questions about our system, and I think its time we had some honest debate about an issue that every American cares about. This is an issue that can cut the partisan politics if our elected legislators were willing to frame the issue in a clear way for the American people. Instead of worrying about elections, it would be nice if Washington attempted to restore a little bit of trust after this disastrous self-inflicted debt ceiling debate by making real progress on an essential policy issue. Sure, providing funding for the FAA gave me a little confidence that Washington still had a pulse, but I'm not sold that Washington is reliable and willing to be held accountable for making tough decisions.

And if we can't fix these issues through Washington, its up to local and state municipalities to get involved. However, true change is only going to come if the people demand it. Let your representatives know that you care about our future, and whether its the environment or our education system, you want your voice to be heard.