Education

From a cursory overview, Education in the United States needs major reformation.

Note: I think it's important for an author to provide context. I am a well-educated white male who, through a combination of arbitrary luck (being born to parents who could provide amazing resources) and personality alignment, has established a career that places me in the top 5% of earners for my age bracket and geographic area. Also, my career puts me outside of the Education "sphere" so my insights are derived only from: a. Cursory Observation b. Objective Measurement and Analysis (studies from ED, for example)

Setting the Stage

• The United States spends more per-capita than most, if not all, major first-world developed countries: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/07/us-education-spending-finland-south-korea

• Despite the spending, our publicly educated students lag behind students from most other developed countries.

The Major Players

To say any one factor is the only thing contributing to this issue is likely incorrect and also arrogant on the part of the claimant. Major factors I've heard of:

• The 2010 film "Waiting for Superman" puts this into a question of motivation-alignment on the part of the teachers, and partly the administrators.

  • The film seems to demonstrate a narrative that if "only we could fire tenured teachers then the education system would be better."

    • The tenure system in general is a frustrating concept to me in any context. It seems to defy all basics economics and when you boil it down to its core concepts it seems Ponzi-like. Effectively you are enduring years of frustration and lack of economic or professional development on a fragile system that places all of its value on an end-all goal that isn't even guaranteed. To those in this system, I say look at the NYC Taxi Drivers who put all their "eggs" in one proverbial basket, and are now immensely regretting that choice because they are now utterly replaced by an unarguably superior system.

• I recall during my high school years utilizing KhanAcademy to play catch-up and study for Calculus primarily and thinking to myself "Sal Khan is an MIT/Harvard alum bringing world-class education to millions, for FREE." I found the quality and accessibility of his lessons of higher quality than those provided by several of my in-person teachers. It got me thinking, especially with advances in AI, why don't we make a system like this the primary methodology of education across the United States?

  • Cal Newport talks a little about this in his ideas about Deep Work that with the rise of Internet Connectivity (and, my addition of considerations of upcoming 5G) individuals who are able to produce the best content/service are able to service far more people, leaving the lower 95% behind. How this doesn't scare the hell out of people, I don't know.