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Education Rules!
It begins to look as if President Bush's first major proposals on education are going to make it through Congress and into law in some form or another. There does seem to be some fairly broad support for many of the President's proposals as Washington begins to realize the urgency of education. As stated in last week's column, it must be remembered that education is still a local issue. The Federal government only supplies about 10% of the overall school money in our country, so, as it's always been, it's up to you and me to force our schools to pursue greater levels of excellence.
The census bureau recently came out with some fairly encouraging figures regarding high school graduation. More and more children are, in fact, graduating. The percentage of Americans now aged 25 or older who have High School degrees is 84.1%. It may surprise you that it isn't closer to 100%, but it isn't. Still, the 84.1% represents a substantial improvement from the 55.2% of Americans who had High School degrees in 1970, and believe it or not, the only 24.5% who were High School graduates in our country back in 1940.
I think it's fair to assume that most high school graduates can read. If you can't read in our current society you are done before you've even gotten started. You'd like also to believe that High School graduates have a certain amount of proficiency in mathematics and spelling, as well as simple communication skills. I've always said that if I could wish for my children-and now grandchildren-one skill it would be the so-called "gift of gab." The truth is, you could be the brightest person on Earth and if you can't communicate your ideas to others, then you really aren't going to go very far. But good communication skills along with, yes, reading, writing and arithmetic, are certainly a prerequisite today.
Armed with that, even a High School graduate can make some pretty outstanding progress in our society today. Currently, especially, with the tight labor markets that still exist, even given our slowing economy, employers everywhere are looking for talented people. The best thing about the American free enterprise system has always been that it is mostly based on personal talent. Unlike Europe and parts of Asia, our system doesn't much care who your parents are or even what your religion is. Unfortunately, race and gender still play a part in hiring, but they are clearly diminishing with each passing year, as most employers realize they should be focusing on how an employee can help the company get ahead, as opposed to the aforementioned criteria. To paraphrase a line from the 1992 election, 'It's about education, stupid.' If you have it, you can be in control of your personal destiny. If you don't have it, you better hope you win the lottery and after all, what are the odds of that?
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In a related item, if education is the key to personal success, the nation's overall educational level is certainly an important ingredient in our continuing domination of the economic and commercial world. To that end, I was sad to see a new report from the Third International Math and Science Study which recently concluded that the nation's eighth-grader's still lagged behind those of other developed countries in science and math. The report says this raises new questions about whether our school systems are delivering the kind of students who will be able to compete in an increasingly technological world. Former Education Secretary Richard Riley said the study shows that, "American students continue to learn, but their peers in other countries seem to be learning faster." The study was based on science and math testing in 38 countries around the world last year. In science, students in 17 countries outperformed our eighth-graders. In math, students in 18 other countries fared better than our students.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the report also shows that our eighth-graders are far less likely than others in many countries to have a math teacher with an actual mathematics degree. In fact, just 41% of our students have math teachers with mathematics qualifications. Internationally the average is 71%.
Also not surprisingly, teachers' groups say the answer is better pay for teachers and better training. However, educational reformers say that changes overall must occur in the system if American students, who are, after all, our leaders for the future, are to maintain our current advantage in a world that requires more and more technical know-how.
(Tom Butenhoff is a First Vice President with J. E. Liss and Company, Inc.
in Milwaukee. The views are his, and not necessarily those of Liss
Financial Services or the Job Connection/Hiring
Network.)