This is my post on education in response to Jeff Jarvis’s call for input on the issues in his Issues 2004 series. If you’re looking for background information on the educational system in the United States, here are a few good places to start:
The public educational system in the United States is overwhelmingly locally financed just as it is locally administered and this is appropriate. Wage levels, the labor pool, the needs of the populace, and prevailing cultural standards vary from place to place in the country. The federal government should not be seen by states or local school systems as an alternative to local financing and, therefore, I don’t believe in increasing the level of federal funding for education except in certain specific areas.
But the federal government definitely has a role to play.
As I see it the role of the federal government in education should be to:
- Collect data on approaches that are working and approaches that aren’t working
- Publish performance standards for educational goals
- Encourage states that aren’t living up to their responsiblities to do so
- Fully fund mandates the federal government has placed on the states
Collect data on approaches that are working and approaches that aren’t working
Our federal system provides us with the ability to try a vast number of approaches for improving education. Collecting data, evaluating, and promulgating the results are an important role for the federal government and we should do more of it.
Publish performance standards for educational goals
We need to have much, much higher expectations for education at the elementary and high school levels. Since we have a national labor market, it’s appropriate to promulgate a national standard for performance and to publish how well school systems meet the performance levels. If the performance levels were set sufficiently high, “teaching the test” wouldn’t be a problem. If they’re set low it’s a disaster.
Encourage states that aren’t living up to their responsiblities to do so
No state should provide less than 40% of the total educational budget for the public school system. The adverse effects of low levels of state funding fall disproportionately on the children of the poor and minorities. Using a carrots and sticks approach the federal government should encourage states that provide low levels of funding particularly Illinois, Connecticut, Maryland, and Pennsylvania to meet their responsibilities.
Fully fund mandates the federal government has placed on the states
The federal government has placed several educational mandates on the states both explicitly and implicitly. The most significant explicit mandate is related to Title I Special Education. The federal government needs to increase the funding for Title I or abolish the mandate. The most significant implicit mandate is the education of the children of illegal immigrants and non-English speakers. Until such time as the federal government closes our borders to immigration, it should fully fund the education of these children.
There’s a huge number of educational reforms which should be made including reducing the size of administrative staffs, abandoning the age cohort system, focusing on basics rather than technological geegaws, etc.
We shouldn’t ignore adult education, either. The federal government should abandon the H1-B visa system and provide incentives for businesses to do a lot more skills training themselves.
That’s a start.
