The State of Education in the U.S.–Excerpt from Chapter 8: The Power of Ten

In 2007, Americans stood second only to Canada in the percentage of thirty five- to sixty-four-year-olds holding at least two-year degrees. Among twenty five- to thirty-four-year-olds, the country stands tenth. The nation stands fifteen out of twenty-nine rated nations for college completion rates, slightly above Mexico and Turkey. The U.S. Department of Education’s 2003 statistics suggest that 14 percent of the population (or thirty-two million adults) have very low literacy skills. However, this is but one picture of education in America.

We cannot separate primary from secondary education. We cannot separate secondary from postsecondary. We cannot separate the education experiences in high school or college from the skills needed in workforce. While there may be many reasons to get an education, one of the realities of education is that it teaches skills and transfers knowledge from the current generation to the next in order to prepare them to enter into adult life as a productive member of American society. From this view, education is not a self-betterment proposition; it’s an economic proposition. When we lose those individuals before they’ve completed their high school graduation, it is a serious blow to the future of America.

“High dropout rates are a silent epidemic afflicting our nation’s high schools. The dropout epidemic in the United States disproportionately affects young people who are low-income, minority, urban, single-parent children attending large, public high schools in the inner city. But the problem is not unique to young people in such circumstances. Nationally, research puts the graduation rate between 68 and 71 percent which means that almost one-third of all public high school students in America fail to graduate.” In this same report, of those they interviewed, the top reason given for leaving schools was that classes were not interesting. Additionally, another reported statistic was that 81 percent of those dropouts interviewed said that what would’ve improved the chances of staying in school were opportunities for real-world learning to make classes more relevant. This report is telling because it illustrates that what is going on in the classroom is far removed from what is going on around students. That is, the classroom experience doesn’t reflect the real-world experience.

“Over a million of the students who enter ninth grade each fall fail to graduate with their peers four years later. In fact, about seven thousand students drop out every school day. Perhaps this statistic was acceptable fifty years ago, but the era in which a high school dropout could earn a living wage has ended in the United States. Dropouts significantly diminish their chances to secure a good job and a promising future. Moreover, not only do the individuals themselves suffer, but each class of dropouts is responsible for substantial financial and social costs to the communities, states, and country in which they live.”  The cost of dropouts to our nation is extremely high—a cost that we cannot afford over the next decade. How high? “Dropouts from the Class of 2008 alone will  cost the nation more than $319 billion in lost wages over the course of their lifetimes.”

Read Inert America to find out how this contributes to the “Inert America” condition.

Excerpt from Chapter 8: The Power of Ten

In the twenty-first century, education is as important to the information society as the assembly line was to the industrial society. The first Model Ts off the assembly line weren’t that appealing, but they got America moving and ushered in new era of prosperity. Education can do the same thing for America in the twenty-first century. It’s not the education of yesterday though. It’s the education of the twenty-first century. We need a totally new education model. This model has to fit with the social, political, economic, and philosophical structures of a twenty-first-century American society. It has to support and facilitate a new way of teaching, a new way of learning, a new classroom model, and a new school model. In sum, we have to have a new education model. This type of transition won’t be easy, but it’s necessary. Prosperity of future generations depends on its successful implementation.130 As I illustrate in this chapter, we can show how and why education needs to change by simply taking the demographic makeup of ten American citizens and then based on a simple projection of those demographic trends over the next decade, see the clear direction of America if we continue down this path. It is the power of ten.

Read Inert America to understand the Power of Ten and how it will create the future welfare state of America if we don’t stop it now.

Inert America–Excerpt from Chapter 7 on Political Economy

 

Our political and economic leaders seem perfectly willing to debate the problems facing America, especially middle-class America by standing firmly on their philosophical and political ideologies, so long as they and their families have food to eat. When the average American has nothing to eat, time seems to matter little. However, if our leaders had nothing to eat, they would find themselves in a position where they are a little more humble and a little more willing
to compromise their principles, since principles won’t fill a belly.

In the twenty-first century, individuals are the producers. In order to produce, they must also be free, that is, they must have liberty. Not some liberty, but absolute liberty because freedom of choice is what makes liberty possible. Choices are what drive a style of living or lifestyle, and a lifestyle is made possible by a standard of living.

Of course, this type of liberty is not unrestrained and anarchistic as some would portray it. To maintain a civil society, we must adhere to the rule of law and due process otherwise anarchy would rein. This would not result in a productive society. Liberty such as this would also mean the elimination of time and space management instilled by industrial production process and Charles Taylor. This was necessary in the industrial society, but it is a dead idea in the twenty-first-century information society. We can no longer manage based on
time and space, for they have no meaning. When you pick up a cell phone today and call someone on the other side of the planet tomorrow, then you know that something has changed. This is the final point: production processes have become decentralized. This is made possible by globalization.

With the decentralization of production processes, the nature of such an arrangement makes it impossible to manage people based on time and space. They must now be managed based on performance or outcomes. This also means that people must be held accountable for the outcome and their actions. Responsibility is the new word for this century. If society truly had an Age of Enlightenment, an Age of Reason, then now is the Age of Responsibility. While it seems few want to take responsibility for their actions, it must happen if twenty-first century America is to remain competitive in the world. Making this type of transformation in our style of living also has other advantages. This transformation of work literally makes it possible to produce twenty-four hours a day. This is what I term hyperproductivity, and this condition will take America into a new
age. Why is his necessary?

Read Inert America to find out why.

 

Gary W. Griffin, Ph.D.