Education Reform

Reaganomics: "refers to the economic policies promoted by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the 1980s. These policies are commonly associated with supply-side economics, often pejoratively referred to as trickle-down economics.

The four pillars of Reagan's economic policy were to reduce the growth of government spending, reduce the federal income tax and capital gains tax, reduce government regulation, and control the money supply in order to reduce inflation." (Wikipedia)

There is one area of the American society where this policy could show amazing results. Education.

Imagine if education was refitted to the theories of trickle-down economics...

First, let's reduce government spending in the areas of "welfare." Why should this country waste money via the policies of "no child left behind" when in reality I would wager that over half the kids in the education system will never benefit from more than an 8th grade education. They will just grow up to be clerks, or administrators, manual laborers, or some other occupation where only a basic level of literacy or mathematics is required and most certainly not a college education. This would relieve millions (if not billions) from both federally funded student loans (Sallie Mae's broke ass) as well as remove the need for so many of this nations funding crippled high schools. Seriously, how much education do athletes really receive and use anyway?  Privatize all sports beyond the middle school level and free up those education funds for providing education.

Second, one would have so much tax surplus if one were to only allow those who showed enough potential to gain anything from a high school education to progress into public high school. Basic rule of capitalism, if you create a competitive (and limited) market you almost ensure that only the most qualified would be allowed in. Sure there would be corruption, but I would rather have a wee bit of that as in terms of government spending, for it would pale in comparison to the amount of "waste" we currently have. 

And an added benefit of reducing the number of institutions that exist for the sake of needless "higher" education, is that there would be fewer teaching jobs, thus also making a competitive job market (with presumably higher pay) for educators leaving only enough room for those educators who have both the best minds and are the most highly motivated to teach... also the stress on teachers of having to coddle inadequate students and their bitchy parents would all but disappear, making for a much more rewarding work environment. 

In addition, there will always be private high schools for the average kids with rich parents...

And think of the boon to the industrial and service sectors if the bottom 50% were weeded out and sent either to some vo-tech institution or directly into the workforce? Not only would that reduce spending but the tax base would swell as well...

 ... This would clearly aide in keeping income tax low, as well as the CGT. Neither would have to budge as they would be offset by the larger tax base created by all the new workers who would enter the workforce so much earlier by way of not wasting time in college. And a more highly trained workforce via vo-tech in lieu of high school, as well as the privatization of athletics would add to that tax base, as well... bam! Rolling in the dough!  

With that in mind, we can now address the third pillar of Reagan's plan... Reducing government regulation. With the bulk of students fully entering the private sector at 14-16 instead of 20-somethings, the amount of regulations on managing so many fewer students in public education as well as relieving the need for so many schools, and loans, and government funding for higher education... in addition, only the best and brightest of our youth would have to navigate these complicated waters, and one can assume that due to the higher average ability as well as fewer participants would decrease both the need for regulations as well as regulators...

Finally, reducing the money supply is a little tough for me to apply to this argument as it is a concept I admittedly don't really understand enough to talk coherently about. So, moving on... 

Overall, the concept of aiding in the possibility of the top/ most able to succeed and that success "trickling down" to the lower echelons actually could work with education...

Don't waste time and money on those that are least likely to make a real use of being dragged, kicking and screaming through the process of becoming learned...

Don't hold the top back on the chance that a few from the bottom might just even make it through the system... only to wind up working in Fast Food or a Foot Locker anyway.

Have you looked at where college grads are finding work these days anyway? Yup, the bottom rungs of the service sector and manual labor... but they are entering it at 22-26 with $50,000 of debt instead of at 16 with a blank slate.

Think of it this way, in a more Rand-ian sense...


Have you ever had the experience where your class, as a whole, is graded based on the change in individual achievement as opposed to the independent quality of work? By that I mean is that two people received the same "B' grade despite a clear difference in the quality of the work, in that the "B" was assigned because each's performance was graded against each's own previously measured ability as opposed to the whole... 

To use a sports analogy... If person 1 ran the mile, the first time, in 7 minutes whereas person 2 ran the same mile the first time in 11 minutes. If on the second run person 1 improved the time to 6 minutes, and person 2 down to 9.5 minutes... both would receive a "B" grade as the change relative to each's initial performance is the same... That doesn't make much sense, to me... In a true evaluation, person 2 would have received a "-C" and a "+C" respectively whereas person 1 would have earned a "+B" and an "-A" for each time... 

Real ability isn't relative to the individual, it is relative to the whole population... To reward those of lessor ability equally for a comparably lackluster performance does not raise the lessor, it lowers the higher. What is the point of a better performance, compared to the whole, if it will be accepted just as equally as one of clearly lower quality. Why try at all if, in the end, effort and ability essentially don't count for anything. 

If one can make an report or product - drunk and high - just as well as another trying his damnedest - using all his sober capacities - and at the end of the day the one trying harder gets the pat on the back for effort, where is the incentive to the one who could do much better achieve more? 

This is the state of education in this nation; lift the bottom up, while holding the top down. Shouldn't it be the other way round?

All men are not created equal. Should there not be an effort to separate the average from the above as well as from the below? And I don't mean a slight possibility for the intellectually "above" to maybe not be lumped in with those who are clearly intellectually inferior? 

Can we realize that it is everyone's best interest to nurture the "above" and save them from being publicly ridiculed by the masses as nerds or geeks...

...in comparison to the those that will go on to major in Kinestheology and who will get all the encouragement, excuses (like carte blanche when is comes to criminality - say rape, thanks Ohio), public admiration and opportunities for social success...

...wouldn't it make more sense to encourage those who now seem to toil in obscurity towards, say, the solutions to real issues like sustainable energy, cultural conflict resolution, ethical population management, etc.?


Happy Head Hunting... now that that MBA doesn't guarantee any level of knowledge or competency.