Cumulative Complexity
We have moved from the
Information Age to a new paradigm, which I would like to call the
Age of Cumulative Complexity, where only the very smart and well-educated successfully navigate the high-speed lanes of accelerating change, and where the gap between
competent and
incompetent is widening fast, resulting in long-term under- and unemployment at unacceptably high levels.
(Case in point: the Goldman-Sachs debacle: very smart financiers mastered the overwhelming complexity of unexpected changes in the financial markets, turning a common man's calamity into their corporate gain, but the very complexity of their high-speed adaptations so far eclipses the understanding of common man - and politician - that those successful strategies are now somwhat unfairly vilified as highway robbery.)
A
root cause of the problems facing us in this country is that
education in America in the 21st century is just not very good. Education in the U.S. has not kept up with other countries, or with the global economic changes. Public education needs an
overhaul much more significant than even the recent health care overhaul. The current system is ineffective, held hostage by resource-squandering bureaucrats, tenured professors, and education worker unions, subject to ignorant tweaks by politicians, who are mostly lawyers, not
qualified educators.
K-Through-12
At the K-12 level, most students do not learn even the most basic skills, like for example ten-finger typing, or how to write a simple essay in proper English (or Spanish), using word processing software.
Educational success measures do not reflect student competence. A large part of the problem is excessive reliance on questionable quantitative methods, instead of an appropriate mix of meaningful assessments that reflect the broad array of skills and competencies needed in society.
The ill-advised overemphasis on
math and science education at the expense of basic language skills exasperates the problems at the K-12 level. The accompanying social changes, where educators are disrespected, underpaid, and powerless to impose control in their own classrooms for fear of frivolous lawsuits by students or their parents further limit today what students will learn in their most formative years.
College- and University Level
Students enter
the college level, poorly prepared by their previous twelve years of schooling, forcing post-secondary education to first catch them up to a reasonable level of literacy, including computer literacy.
Even when this remedial effort succeeds and students progress to their chosen study programs, college and university education is often disconnected from
"the real world."
Cynics quip that
"Those who can, do, those who can't, teach!" and they have a valid point: many professors and college instructors have little or no
real-world experience, or at best dabble in non-educational activities through part-time consulting.
Full-time educators (professors) are measured by their publication record and are therefore often not qualified to educate students in the complexities of the world at large, often relying on outdated materials, textbooks and Powerpoint™ presentations written by their equally inexperienced peers, and simplifications that fail to prepare students for what they will face as soon as they graduate.
To save money in all the wrong places, many private and public post-secondary colleges and universities further reduce educational quality by relying on a growing army of poorly vetted and trained
adjuncts, road warriors, who may teach at two, three, or even four institutions concurrently, trying to make ends meet on incomes commensurate with that of a janitor. These adjunct teachers often present degrees from institutions with poor standards, but they are nevertheless hired as low-cost fill-ins for the growing classroom gaps left by education underfunding.
Neither kind of teacher - ivy tower professor or adjunct road warrior - is qualified to optimally prepare students for the
cumulative-complexity challenges of the volatile,
post-Great Recession, globally competitive economy.
Federal Role
Instead of improving education, the vast amounts of federal subsidies to states and federal student loan money spent indiscriminately and without the proper strings attached have led to the emergence of thousands of for-profit "colleges" that fail to meet even minimum educational standards, propped up by a gross diversity of poorly regulated "accreditation agencies. This results in the mass-production of "degreed graduates," many of whom lack even the most basic qualifications in their degree domain.
This largely unrecognized travesty, combined with the often substandard education provided by
public institutions (especially at the
community college level, where quality controls are non-existent or ineffective, severely hampered by the
incompetence-perpetuating tenure system), results in a disappointed populace, which finds that its investment in education too often fails to translate to better jobs, or a better life.
Finding Work in a Complex World
Many of the graduates from substandard education programs cannot find work in their degree program, because they graduate without the qualifications required by the complex world in which we now live. These graduates (or non-graduates, if they quit before graduating, as many do), are then left with student loans in the tens of thousands of dollars that they are unable to pay back, subject to eventual forgiveness by the government - on the backs of Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer, who then also pay for their unemployment or welfare checks ...
Strategic Overhaul
The U.S. Education System needs to undergo a genuine overhaul, based on the realities of 21st century economics. To justify the high wages required to sustain a reasonable life style (after taxes) in the U.S., the average citizen or resident needs
much better training, by
much better qualified (and paid) educators, at
much better-run educational institutions.
The states have proven their utter incompetence in making this happen, and so this will require that the Federal Government get much more actively and effectively involved with nationwide K-18 education, standardizing programs and success measures based on realistic expectations and requirements, and strictly regulating and policing both public and private educational institutions to redevelop educational excellence nationally.
Failure to act swiftly will continue to degrade the global competitiveness of the American workforce, with a parallel decline in American relevance on the world stage.
©2010 · Copyright by Dr. Georges Merx
