Education

In the area of education, Americans need to ask themselves, "what do they want to do and where do they want to go"? Education is effected by the largest and most complex confluence of social and economic factors than any other social interaction in the country. At the intersection of this confluence lies not only the heart of the problem, but the solution to the problem. Providing a good education is the most important thing a society can do, but yet in terms of tax and private dollars it is the most expensive. As of 2010 classroom size at some schools is similar in size for those in 3rd world developing countries.

To have change in education, we need to first identify the components of the social and economic confluences that intersect in education. Here are the major ones that I see: Taxes collected, unions, families, ideologies, teachers, students, business, state & federal legislation and general social and cultural changes. The interactions that take place between all of these determine whether there are overall improvements or an overall decline in educational outcomes.

Families:  As a former teacher the most glaring problem that I observed as it relates to overall performance was the decline in the fabric of the family. 99.9% of the time if the child had a problem in the school, then there were serious parenting problems in the family. Students who performed better had various levels of improved family support systems and parents had better parenting skills. I would consider the health of the family as the main foundation of education and without serious improvements in the fabric of the family any "improvements" in education will be built on a house of cards.

Taxes Collected:  Looking at a state budget, education will be the largest expense that a state will have. And no one likes to pay more taxes. Especially when we have large government waste in other areas at the federal level, folks have become a little less tolerant of the imperfections that exist in education. Thus a natural resistance to improving education exists.

Unions:  I am a firm believer in unions and a supporter. If it were not for unions, we would not have had a middle class. However, there are un-qualified persons that have taken advantage of the system and are thus protected inside the school system by a union. They resist change because it affects their self interest. There are a huge number of excellent educators, but the relationship that the union has inside of education is flawed.

Teachers:  Typically the backbone of any community and an under valued professional. Internally there is disorganization for making positive changes in education because the best and the brightest have not risen to top management as well as absurd mandates that get placed on the teachers. Tenure also plays it role in this complex situation. And for several decades now teachers have been forced away from being a truly good teacher to teaching for state exams and addressing social problems that come from the decline in the fabric of the family. The eyes of a special education teacher sees even more glaring problems.

Students:  Humanity is fortunate that young people are very resilient, to a point. Kids today have a complex environment that places them at a disadvantage in the classroom. This comes from a variety of fronts. It could be family and economic problems, drugs, bad teachers, poor administration, discrimination, bad neighborhoods, large classroom sizes, etc. This is quite the gauntlet. The kids that I encountered are under a great deal of outside pressures that diminish the ability to learn.

State & Federal Legislation:  Unrealistic educational outcome strategies that have placed an emphasis on teaching for exams and English language and not on education. For some reason, they are out of touch with reality on how to solve the problem.

Ideologies:  The confluence of ideologies in education is as numerous as the complex confluence of social and economic factors that exist in education. Ideologies that range from how education should be delivered, to religion vs. science, to who should get an education - gender, race, socio-economic, etc.

Business:  The success of a business depends on good education. Business shapes education.

Social and Cultural Changes:  The changes in generational demographics present changes in beliefs about one generation to the other within and across gender and cultural lines. The differences in views exist within generations across both cultural and gender groups.

These basic components must be understood and managed well to be able to make effective improvements in all students' educational outcomes. This does not address educational challenges at the university, graduate and professional levels. The challenges at higher education are a subset of the same problems that effect K thru 12. However, higher education does not have nearly the same level of problems that exist in K thru 12. So there is something that can be learned from higher education.