Educational attainment is a
core contributor to labor market success, economic and social mobility, and the
quality of life. At present, the K-12 school system is failing
too many young Americans while colleges and universities continue to deliver a
product of uneven quality at ever-higher prices. These two facts guarantee that
education reform is a focus of presidential candidates, right? Wrong. As noted
by Isabel Soto and Tom Lee, of the 659 minutes that made up the first five
Democratic presidential debates, only 18.5 of those minutes have been about
education – 2.8 percent! That might be a good economic growth rate, but it’s a
sad reflection on the focus of the candidates.
Moreover, most of those minutes have been devoted to schemes that simply involve
having the taxpayer foot ever-more on the
education bill. Too little has been focused on reducing the cost of
college, or having a K-12 system that better prepares the young for the labor
market and college. In their review
of the education proposals of the presidential candidates, however, Soto and
Lee identify proposed reforms in two key areas.
First, a number of candidates have proposals focused on apprenticeships, in
order to provide students with the skills they need to compete in the workforce.
Programs that provide students with job experience have been gaining attention
and support, including on the platforms of Senator Klobuchar, Vice President
Biden, Senator Warren, Senator Sanders, and Senator Bennet. Unfortunately,
rather than lowering barriers to innovation and providing greater options to
students, most plans focus simply on increasing federal spending.
Second, at the K-12 level, the most polarizing issue is school choice. At one
end of the spectrum, Senator Sanders has vowed to ban for-profit charter
schools and to halt federal dollars to charters until a national audit is
conducted. Senator Warren has vowed to end federal funding for the expansion of
charter schools as well
In the middle, Vice President Biden has reversed course and now states that he
does “not support any federal money for for-profit charter schools. Period.”
At the other end of the spectrum are Senator Booker, who has a history of
supporting charter schools, and newly minted candidate and former mayor of New
York City Michael Bloomberg, under whose tenure the number of charters in New
York City grew from 22 to 159.
It’s a start. But 2.8 percent is still too little.
No comments:
Post a Comment