Time to Address the Problems in Our Education System

Twenty years ago our nation was the world leader in science and technology. Now technical tasks such as computer software development are increasingly being developed by programmers in Israel, Russia, China, and India. The American workforce has been rapidly shifting to service oriented jobs away from jobs requiring technical skills. We are witnessing the dumbing down of the American workforce. Our education system is not producing workers technically qualified to compete in the global economy. Foreign students are overwhelmingly out numbering American students in graduate school programs for science, technology, engineering and math, (STEM) at many of our best colleges. I know of a particular example in which there were 650 applicants to a graduate school in Economics at a distinguished university. Of the 34 that were accepted, only 2 were Americans.

The reason for the transformation of our workforce may be found by comparing our education system to other developed countries. Last week the results of the International PISA Science Math test showed that the United States scored below the average score and ranked 20th overall. Asian countries, Finland, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and The Netherlands had the highest scores.

The importance of a good education has been borne out by statistics from Goldman Sachs that show the unemployment rate for persons without a high school diploma is 15.8%; with a high school diploma, 10.4%; with a Bachelor's degree 5.2%; and with a Master's degree, 3.9%. The national high school graduation rate is only 70 percent. Over a lifetime, dropouts earn $260,000 less than high school graduates after adjusting for inflation.

It will be years before this nation recovers from the housing collapse. Jobs associated with the housing industries will be a very long time coming back. The unemployed construction workers lack the skills to compete in the modern workforce. It will take a generation to correct this unbalance by training their children in the STEM courses so they can compete in the global economy, if we start today.

Therefore, education must be given a higher priority if we want to train the American worker to be competitive in the world job market. Parents need to be supportive and engaged in their children's education. Students should be encouraged to take STEM courses. We must stop the brain drain to the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia and India, and China). The country needs another Sputnik moment, which occurred in 1957 and spurred renewed interest in science and technology as we competed against Russia in the space age.

Placing a high priority on education like the Finns will improve our education system. Teaching should be a highly trained profession as in Finland, with salaries competitive with other professions. Being highly trained means teachers should be expected to take refresher courses periodically and not be burdened with education courses, but focused on the courses in the field in which they teach. Teachers should also be required to pass a qualified exam in their area of specialty.

With higher salaries, teaching should be guided by the rules of the market place just like other jobs. What other profession offers tenure - a life time contract? This means performance reviews, and yes, dismissal for poor performance. Obviously, the NEA will be opposed to these recommendations that allow termination based on performance. Tenure must be eliminated so as to weed out the laggards. The poorer performers should be let go rather than the last person hired. Our students must not be short changed by poor teachers.

Of course, higher teacher salaries mean higher cost to the school district. As cited in previous editorials, we need to cut back on non-educational extra-curricular activities, eliminate unnecessary staff positions and examine transportation and food preparation expenses for inefficiencies. According to the Heritage Foundation, between 1994 and 2004, average per-pupil expenditures in American public schools have increased by 23.5 percent (adjusted for inflation). In fact, after adjusting for inflation, the per pupil cost in 2006 ($9,266) was twice as much as 1970 ($4,060.) Yet the United State is losing ground to other countries in not just the PISA test but in other international educational test results as well. This implies that throwing more money at our schools is not the answer to improving our education. According to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, the United States had the third highest per pupil cost in the world in 1998. Except for Switzerland, all of the countries that scored above the United States in the PISA test had lower per pupil cost.

One reason cited by Dr. Robert Weissberg for a poor return on our money spent on students is due to schools filled with millions of youngsters, many of whom are Hispanic immigrants struggling with English plus millions of others of mediocre ability who disdain academic achievement. He suggests the underperforming students should be dropped when they had absorbed as much as they were going to learn and then concentrate on the higher achieving students.

Change in our education system has to start locally. An eight-member House Education Reform panel has been formed to give recommendations to the Illinois General Assembly on possible changes to the state's education laws when they return to session in January. The panel will be addressing the following issues:

*Make dismissal of teachers easier and less expensive for schools.
*Make teacher performance, rather than seniority, a criterion for layoffs.
*Allow principals to reject having poor performing teachers assigned to their schools.
*Tie teacher pay to classroom performance.
*Make it more difficult for teachers to obtain tenure.
*Impose additional steps before teachers can strike.

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