A friend and I recently got into a discussion / argument recently over education reform. It all started when I scoffed at the fact that prospective grade school teachers who lacked a degree specifically in "education" needed to take an three extra semesters of education (get a Masters).

My argument was that if person A went to undergraduate school B, a respected, accredited American university and did reasonably well but majored in something than education, then that person should be not have to borrow more money just to attend another year and a half to two years of school to get the necessary qualifications to teach. The current requirements are in many ways, too burdensome. Not to rely on anecdotes, but, I have multiple friends who excelled in undergrad, got honors, wrote theses, etc. who wanted to become teachers but cannot (at least not immediately) because of the hoops and hurdles involved in entering the system. At least one will not become a teacher any time in the near future because of them. To be sure, I'm not in favor of a simple standardized test that tests nothing but your ability to take that test. But, I think that an alternative combination of a test and a shorter more affordable certificate program possibly coupled with an evaluation period or apprenticeship may be sufficient. (Teach For America aside)

Predictably, she countered with a legitimate point: we want to be producing "excellent" teachers and therefore we should make sure our teacher's are well-qualified. My counter-argument is the following: we should be producing average teachers. It is a classic pragmatism vs. idealism argument. The system, in my opinion (as most of this is), is right now contaminated with bad teachers. In an ideal world, I'd love to produce excellent teachers who care about their students, all the way from K to law school. But, needless to say, even at Columbia Law School, there are bad instructors/educators (to be differentiated from professor). Given that, and given that the problem is especially chronic and far more damaging to society in the grade school region, I think it is more important to loosen some hurdles to the profession, open the door a little more, and try to flood the system with more "average" teachers. Increase the competitiveness of the teacher profession by allowing more applicants. I'd rather have a large boat of students receiving their education from "average" teachers than a smaller group of students (inevitably, students who are privileged like y.t. in nicer school districts) receive their education from "excellent" teachers. Many perfectly average teachers are barred from the system for at least a year, often forever, by excessive hurdles.

Her response to my comment was that she agreed that we should increase demand for the profession--and that we shouldn't loosen standards but instead we should pay teachers more (what can I say, she is at the Teacher's College). She also said that we should pay teachers to teach in poorer school districts. It sounded like straight from the mouth of the democratic party, or something, because my reply was met with complete silence: Where is the ****ing money? We can't just throw money at a problem, like everything else, and expect it to go away. This is a theme that will be revisited.

The direction of the conversation then took a drastic turn when I made a controversial, shall I say, ballsy argument: Too many people are going to college.

"Keeping up with the Joneses," over-education, positional externality, whatever you want to call it, it is hardly an original argument and I haven't read nearly enough on it to make me any kind of authority. Nevertheless, I find the argument compelling and unconsidered in the debate on education reform (at all levels). The main economic argument behind this idea is that because too many people have BAs, many people need to get advanced degrees to be competitive for jobs that may not even require the skills and knowledge needed for any college degree. In economics, this is deemed inefficient--people are spending time in school getting an education which does not contribute to that person's ability to carry out their future job. And, that person could have spend some or all of the time spent in school working. But this "Keeping up with the Joneses" effect preserves and create a strong demand for a product (higher ed) that maybe should not be there.

Here is an essential article I refer to about many of the perversities in our education system: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/09/business/economy/09leonhardt.html

We talk about how many of the aspects of law school are broken, especially how it is prohibitively expensive. Many, if not all of the pressures of law school, the fears and anxieties, comes from debt incurred to attend school in the first place and debt left over from undergrad / life. But I'd argue that it all starts with a grade school / college system that is hopelessly broken in its financial structure, trapped in a cycle of rising access to credit to "illusory money" (anything that pays off tuition that doesn't exist in a bank account), increased demand, and rising tuition. ...

Some links: http://www.creditunions.com/article.aspx?articleid=3158 (comparative graph to housing / healthcare) http://www.wellsfargoadvantagefunds.com/wfweb/wf/college/costs/growing.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=no&sel=%2FDTF%College%2FCollege_Costs&BV_UseBVCookie=yes (2005-2023 projected) http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/press/cost06/trends_college_pricing_06.pdf

An important observation that will be discussed later: most of the "increased tuition" burden is from private schools, not public.

Like mortgages were in the first decade of this century, student-loan debt and the dramatic rise of college costs seems to be the elephant in the room that nobody seems to see. Or, continually turns a blind eye to. Or sees, ignores, and relies on current financial structures to sweep the problem under the rug. And, I think the problem starts because too many people are going to college. Let me first dispose of the notion that I don't think we should subsidize education for anyone. I think its absolutely important to make higher education accessible to people of all classes and I would favor a progressive pricing structure. But, there are two caveats to my belief that may come off the wrong way.

First, I'm truly undecided as to whether private schools should be subsidized. Private schools serve an important function but are more expensive and presumably, for most students there is a cheaper, less-expensive, public option that is beyond adequate. Much of the pricing problem of private education could be solved if we encouraged more enrollment in public schools, and I mean that for people of every class. If more people enrolled in public schools, the quality of the institution could increase. There are other benefits (and detriments) of incentivizing public enrollment that I won't get into any more. I do know that there are systems overseas that rely on public education more, are drastically cheaper, that have their own pros and cons.

Second, accessibility is important but many financial aid programs aren't fairly implemented. My undergrad school is a great example: many students who came from poor backgrounds had their education fully subsidized, but, one of my friends boyfriend had to drop out because his parents made in excess of $100,000 and thus could not qualify for financial aid and had to drop out. The structure of the rules that determine aid, in my opinion, are often simply unacceptable and don't actually make college more accessible except to the very poorest of the poor. In this situation, aid was overwhelmingly based on income and number of kids in college but was not as focused on other forms of debt incurred by the parents (mortgage). What compounded this problem was that this guy's parents lived in a metropolitan area where $100,000 wasn't worth that much. Parents who earn $75,000 could very well be better off. My issue, here, is that the bright line rules of financial aid don't often take into account these descrepancies and an individuals personal situation. Which is a significant problem for me, because, isn't the whole point of financial aid and increasing accessibility to consider one's personal situation (I realize a secondary goal is to increase socio-economic diversity of the incoming class). This is why I'm strongly opposed to “need blind” admissions. Why should a thing like personal circumstance not count in determining the price of school but count in determining access to the school? Is it too burdensome for financial aid offices to review applicants backgrounds as well? Frankly, I feel like offers of admission should be more like a market place, with, personalized offers to each candidate. In my opinion, a scholarship should be a synthesis of merit and need and should not be separate processes as they always are.

But, let me underscore the importance of some sort of financial subsidation program: As Dr. Moglen has said countless times in class, there are millions in the world who are smarter than us who will not get to sniff higher education. To sum, I have less of a problem with the idea of financial aid but more of a problem with the implementation of it, the how and where aspects of its distribution (which, I should mention, schools have a perverse incentive from US News to distribute).

The main problem I have with subsidation is that it doesn't do anything to solve the structural problem of higher ed. It is a temporary solution at best. Why are we are dealing with a structural issue by throwing more money at the problem. Sound familiar? In other words, subsidizing education and making education accessible for the poor is a good thing. And in the short term, it makes education more accessible. However, I believe that these policies make college less accessible for the lower 99%, strictly on a tuition basis. Which, in turn, exacerbates class differences that made college less accessible to begin with.

I think the perfect example example is law school. In 1980, tuition for UPenn was $6,000. By 1988, tuition broke $13,000. Today, its more than triple. I haven't done the research extensively and don't have numbers (which is somewhat irresponsible of me) but, I'd hypothesize that tuition and first year salaries run somewhat parallel. Because, lets be honest—people are only comfortable taking out a lot of debt if there is some promise of paying that debt off. And the prospective debt becomes more enticing and stomachable when salaries keep going up. I know, personally, if not for Columbia's employment stats and LRAP that I would not have taken on any debt whatsoever.

She did present a compelling counter-arguments to my rant. Education should not be strictly about economic needs and preparing people for jobs. There is a value in simply educating more people, for example, more educated voters.

First, the higher education system at many schools sucks. College professors are more focused on publishing their material. In around 50% of my classes not taught by TAs, my professors in college were worth the money and 25% of them had no business going near a classroom. I could write another post about how "good teachers" get weeded out of the academic system. Sometimes, I was better off reading a book. I also categorically reject that higher education creates more educated voters, or does so in any significan way.

Second, I agree, some people go to college and learn a ton. But, I think this argument is somewhat marred by the fact that we are the one's making it. By and large, we learn and were "enlightened." But for every one of us, there are countless others who went to an undergraduate school that doesn't have a lavish club in midtown New York and did not receive such enlightenment at all. Or, as the Leonhardt article points out, there are many undergraduate students who don't graduate half their students. A particularly on-point passage: "The United States does a good job enrolling teenagers in college, but only half of students who enroll end up with a bachelor’s degree. Among rich countries, only Italy is worse. That’s a big reason inequality has soared, and productivity growth has slowed."

Does this shock you? It shocked me, fairly predictably. Within my insulated place in the world, I reside in an insulated sliver of American education (both during undergrad, and now at a top law school). Neither I, nor most if any of the readers of this wiki go to these schools and its hard to fathom drop-out rates in excess of 50%. This fac formed the basis of one of my counter arguments to my friend. To put it rather brusquely: What good is it to incentivize college for people if people are not even finishing it? Not everyone is suited for college. Of course, there are other explanations for the drop-out rate which focus on the structure of higher education (the service) and not the individual attending it (consumer) that I think are not only correct but account for a substantial majority of the drop out rates. But given that the system is shown to be empirically broken, the question remains _Why should we, either through subsidization financially as taxpayers or full-tuition payers, or in other ways such as propaganda (e.g. high school guidance counselors forcing four year college down throats) relentlessly incentivize and encourage people to dive headfirst into a system that is broken when that person may not be prepared for the reality that awaits them?

People that drop-out of four year colleges (often to no fault of their own), are, in some ways analogous to people who walk away from their mortgages (and in many ways are radically different). And, these individuals form a substantial part of the problem: they create part of the "demand" for the product of higher education but never receive the final product. Thus, prospective drop-outs form a large contingent of the demand that creates the rise in tuition for 4-year college (re: because people "can" pay for it).

The article also presents one of the key aspects of the broken system: inadequate pre-college education. I cannot agree more. But its not just inadequate high school education, but an inadequate job of educating students with legitimate, non-college options (e.g. trade school) and a stigma carried by community colleges.

I think a large part of the solution is pushing community colleges, not for affordability reasons, but because for many it is the practical solution. For some, it is sufficient for their career goals. For others, it is simply more affordable. And for others, it is best suited for them and their capabilities. But to be honest, I'm at a loss. I do know that throwing money at the problem is not going to work and that we do not need to encourage students to leverage themselves more.

Should a 4-year degree be a prerequisite for law school? Could 2 years be sufficient?

I'm very interested in input, even if its slight. Please take apart and eviscerate my argument.

-- MatthewZorn - 07 Feb 2010

---

Hey Matt -- interesting discussion, here's my input:

I see no reason why getting a teacher's certification should be made easier for those people who've already attended a four-year college and presumably have had the chance to take the required education courses. If money is an issue, affordable state school programs are available. There is also the option of teaching at private schools, which have lower hiring standards. Ultimately, I don't think flooding the market with "average" teachers would make a marked difference, in that there are limited openings in the unionized field and I suspect that demand for employment in low-income school districts with higher turnover rates would remain low.

On the other hand, "throwing money" at schools, by allowing for better supplies, facilities, and lower student-to-teacher ratios would actually make a much bigger impact on the quality of public education. Furthermore, I don't think indicia of upper-level academic success is the true measure of teaching ability, particularly for young children. I would argue that one of the big problems with programs like Teach for America is that they tend to select high-achieving students over those students that are more dedicated to childhood education and teaching as a long-term profession. Furthermore, if a prospective teacher considers student-teaching, an important part of certification programs, a "hurdle," perhaps it's best that she doesn't teach.

On your other argument, I agree that too many people are attending college, given the number of students who are dropping out or who are merely floating through the system. This documentary provides an interesting snapshot of the problem (which is also on Netflix instant play if you're interested): http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/show-synopsis.html.

-- EricaSelig - 07 Feb 2010

---

I saw two major threads/points in the OP, 1) Reforming the elementary/secondary education system so that more kids are getting a quality education, 2) Reforming the post-secondary education system so that it is more efficient, in the sense that the money spent is going towards learning the skills necessary to get a monetary return on your investment. Obviously, these threads are intertwined, for example, if students come out of high school unable to do basic mathematics, they are going to be at a disadvantage when they try to get into an engineering program. I'll respond to the first section.

Teaching involves more than knowledge of the material. Classroom management, understanding of the child's psyche, diplomacy, the drive to help children (sometimes in the face of enormous resistance from the community/parents), and the ability to develop an engaging curriculum are, in my mind, much more important than a thorough understanding of the material, except for the most advanced classes in the later years of school or technical/trade classes. These are skills you cannot learn by just getting a history, English, math, or science bachelor's degree. When it comes to elementary/junior high education, I would much rather have a teacher with excellent classroom management skills who graduated middle of the class at a state school than a teacher with average management skills who received a 4.0 from Harvard. I am not familiar with UG/Graduate education programs but they should be teaching child/teen psychology, communications/public speaking (including non-verbal communication which young children respond to much more), political science (to understand how decisions about budgeting get made), sociology, history of education, etc. etc. Failing that, we would need a lengthy apprenticeship program, which would place more of the burden on schools and may not produce effective results in all cases. Would people want to spend two or three years figuring out if they had the skills to control a classroom of 30-40 children?

I had a math teacher in high school who was probably the most brilliant person on the faculty. He worked for years in the private sector and held a number of patents. He'd quit his job after he made enough money and took a teaching position so he could have summers off and travel around the country on his bike. He did crazy stuff like try and get on game shows, and was generally (I thought) an interesting person. The first class I had with him was Trig, and the class was a madhouse. The problem was that his classroom management was awful. He let the students walk all over him. Years in the private sector made him accustomed to a certain level of professionalism that just didn't exist at a large public high school. Additionally, he confided that he was frustrated at the constant politicking involved in every aspect of the school life (we had a school system that approved budgets based on an anachronistic city-wide popular vote). I took Stats with him the next year, and class was marginally better, however, his teaching style seemed better suited for a college level course for students majoring in the material than an intro course for HS students.

The problem is not to produce either excellent or average teachers but to figure out what the "excellent" teachers are doing right and design a program to get the average teachers to adopt those methods, or encourage more people with the skills and drive of the excellent teachers to go into teaching. We also need to remove political and bureaucratic barriers to successful innovations as the Jaime Escalante case illustrates.

In regards to teacher pay, this is something that needs to literally be evaluated on a district by district basis. Some districts have high pay but still poor results, including NYC. When you get out to the suburbs where property taxes determine the money available for the school system, you are going to find differences based on income. In my home state of MA, the public school systems with the highest average SAT scores are the Boston commuter suburbs with the wealthiest people. I've heard the argument that more accomplished people = smarter people = smarter kids, but that seems to me like wood-paneled smoking room rhetoric. It would be interesting to find a study that looked at the SAT scores of lower-income kids in wealthier communities to see if they are higher because of the improved facilities/better paid teachers.

-- JonathanWaisnor - 08 Feb 2010

---

Are too many people going to college? I think the answer is yes, given what "college" means in today's language. A large number of people - not all, but a large number (mostly liberal arts graduates that do not touch any math or science) - do not really do any work in college and even if they do, they learn almost nothing that is applicable to their post-graduation jobs. For these people, college is simply a very, very expensive four-year vacation.

One might argue that a liberal arts educations improves writing ability. True, but then let's append a year to the end of high school in which professors teach us university-level writing. Maybe that's not the best idea - but there has to be something out there that is more cost-effective than the current college system.

If a job does not require a college degree, then employers have no reason to require one. I have no idea how, but let's end the illusion that a "college graduate" is anything more than a 22-year-old with a piece of paper.

To go back to your original point regarding teachers, I myself was a teacher for two years, but I never got a teaching degree. Instead I worked abroad in schools that did not require teaching degrees. What I learned from this is that teaching, like many jobs, can be learned on-the-job from experience. I was not very effective when I began, but after two-years I basically knew what I was doing. I also learned that teaching is all about individual styles. I observed other teachers from time to time and every one was extremely different in what she chose to stress or in how she organized her activities. I am not sure how much better off I would have been with an education degree. I observed both teachers with and without education degrees, however, and I did not notice a huge difference in the effectiveness of the two groups or any real difference in classroom management skills between the two groups, on average. -- ChristopherCrismanCox - 08 Feb 2010

---

Yes, there are serious problems with colleges. Should they be more rigorous? Yes. Are they getting stagnant in their approach to education? Yes. But it seems like you’re attempting to use these facts as cover for a radical approach to higher education.

“Not everyone is suited for college.”

Fine – yeah, that’s tough to argue with. But what would the actual impact of taking such a stance be? You mention encouraging community colleges over 4 year degrees, since that will meet some people’s career goals. Sounds Great! Once we design a system with high schools that actually give students a well-rounded, solid education, that allows them to fully understand what their options are, and that gives them the capacity to make informed choices about where they want to end up in life, I say let’s go for it.

But until that happens, I have a feeling that the people who end up looking “suited” for college are going to be the ones whose parents went to college. The ones who end up looking “unsuited” for college are more likely going to be the ones whose parents didn’t. This is already largely the case, to the detriment of both the individuals and the community at large. Making it official policy seems pretty disturbing to me.

And what would have happened if we took that stance earlier in the 20th century when we decided to open the doors to education to veterans? We probably wouldn’t be looking at a recognizable America today. And I’m sure a lot of those folks didn’t look “suited” for college, and I’m sure it cost a lot of money, and I’m sure some went to some not-so-great institutions. But I think we’re better off in the long term.

Again, yes, there are some serious problems with the college education system. But I don’t see problems with some aspects of the system as grounds for making another broken area even worse.

-- PaulSmith - 09 Feb 2010