Poor Public School Education Not Wall St. to Blame for American Inequality

I don't have a pony in this race, but the biggest reason for the decline of public education is the absolute and complete dysfunction of the American family and the instability it provides for our young.

While I totally agree that globalization exposed our unskilled workers, but the reason we have unskilled workers is NOT due to our education system, the problem lies in the values of our society these days. Every HS in all 50 states will produce some nerds who will excel in life, while others languish, yet they all went through the same education program - so there's nothing wrong with the schools. The problem is that our society place a much higher value on being cool, being a sports star, and being some famous face on TV, then being a scientific minded nerd that is required to compete in the real world. The solution is to turn off all the TV's and boycott all the crap coming out of Hollywood. We need less American Idol wannabes and more math majors.

What a crock! I have 5 grand kids and all went to public schools. Four are in college and one in nursing school. Two have already lined up jobs for next summer.
Their parents deserve the credit for making rules and making them do homework before playing games, etc. Everyone of them had jobs this summer but then they don't have tattoos or body piercings. They are not over weight and are responsible, clean and neat looking! They are hard working and have goals!
Blame the parents or lack of parents but not the schools. They attended schools in 4 different states!

The problem is education and how we fail to teach children to think - it's teaching to a test. The Nerds as you so all them excelled in spite of the school they were in. Throw in those of us who were not exceptionally smart but hard workers - quite possibly we are now in the 1% despite the hurdles we overcame in life.

American School system need to teach kids morality- How to become a good citizen and a reasonable human being!

If it costs Approx. 21% more to mfg anything in the USA Vs China, excluding the cost of labor. Isn't the answer right before our eyes. not all this goobly nonsense.

Such a pile of bunk, no on-shore skilled labor. Then tell me why I am training off-shore Indians to do my job, they are getting more training than I ever got or needed. Also tell me why US companies are doing less and less training of American workers and more and more training of off-shore resources. It's not the lack of skilled US workers it a matter of corporate greed and profits. US companies want us as customers but not as worker. We need to send these companies a message that if they don't want us as workers we don't want to be their customers. The next time I get an Indian when I call customer service I will immediately cease to do business with that company. It's not that the wealthy are so much smarter than us it's because they are such crooks that lack the honesty and integrity that many not so wealthy people have. And that is one reason why there is such a disparity in wealth. What we need to be better educated in is how to better organize and empower ourselves to make change in the way our country is being run. Politicians paid off with campaign contributions by companies to pass laws that funnel tax payer dollars into their back pockets. The education we need is to smarten up to what is going on.

Good range of comments below. The blowup of the two parent family, lack of parent discipline at home and getting involved in your children's lives. Holding children accountable for paying attention in class and valuing an education. A public school system that is run purely for the benefits of the union and who cares about the kids. Really just little accountability on both sides. All this must change, or US is in trouble. Globalization is here to stay and one can't close pandora's box at this point. Like it or not, we are competing with people from Mexico to Taiwan, from Brazil to Vietnam.

You can also add an undisciplined, hedonistic, split or no family upbringing and a general decline in morality. That is a might potion for failure. Oh throw in our stupendously ignorant media that feeds us their garbage. Present company excluded, of course.

Why do we always tend to blame the schools and the teachers? A student can learn a LOT from just an average school, IF the parents hold the student's feet to the fire. Man up. Be responsible.

Good teachers and good schools can make a difference, but they can only do so much to overcome the deficits created by dysfunctional families. That's the foundational issue plain and simple.

I am amazed that so many here actually understand the real problem. It is a societal thing, not a money issue or bad teachers. The good sign.......if this many understand, maybe enough care to try and fix it long term.

I took the liberty of copying what Rob said a short while ago because he's exactly right. I'd like to add that our elected officials have been paid off by legions of lobbyists who then give tax breaks to companies that send jobs abroad. US government officials have never been more corrupt in this country's history.

It's not public education. As a product of public education, I have the same skill set my overseas counterparts do. I went to public schools, public universities #$%$ and MS in engineering) and hold a fairly technical position at a major corporation. What I don't have is the ability to earn 10% of my current salary and compete economically. When major corporations can outsource high-tech work to India and China for a fraction of what wages are here in the US, it has nothing to do with education. First it was unskilled manufacturing, then call centers, now it's computer aided design, software programming and other highly skilled tasks. The only thing never outsourced is the CEO and upper management ranks. That would impact the 1%. Funny how the upper management jobs stay here. While the big banks and investment houses are paying huge bonuses, peoples savings are earning nothing, their investment returns are nothing to brag about, and it's impossible to talk to a live person to get service. It amazes me that people don't see why the 99% are frustrated.

To improve education:
- quit assuming everyone is going to college and return vocational training for those who are not college material
- standardize the cirricula using scientifically demonstrated best practices, and group kids into classes based on learning style and capability
- get rid of the department of education. It's role primarily increases the strength of teacher's unions, which then undermines quality education by making it difficult for schools to fire bad teachers or to incentivize teachers with pay
- quit emphasizing self esteem in students and emphasize performance. Kids need their sense of worth to be more closely tied to their efforts. Kids who are not trying need to feel ashamed, and those who do need to receive public accolades
- get rid of school sponsored sports programs other than plain vanilla physical fitness. They are a major distraction, and the idolizing of athletes causes kids to focus on that rather than education

I was a mechanical engineer for 17, and I've been teaching high school math for 12. Yes, many students get inflated high school grades and take remedial math in college. My "pre-calculus students" (advanced algebra) come to my class without skills they were supposed to have mastered one or two years earlier and get "remedial math" in my classroom, before I can teach them pre-calculus.
It's easy to say that high schools should hold students to higher standards. But every step of the way, the pressure is on teachers from the State, administrators, and parents to teach to state and federal "standards" and "standardized tests". This works against teaching mathematical understanding and reasoning, because teachers will teach rote procedures so students can get answers to standardized test questions. After a few years of this, very few students have any mathematical understanding or reasoning ability at all. I'm sure this kind of teaching occurs outside of mathematics as well.
Students don't see a hard working professional middle class lifestyle as very enticing, because our society worships money, power, and fame instead of hard work and service . Students' attention is on media stars in sports, TV, film, music, etc, and until recently, hot shots on Wall Street. They see corruption all around them, in politics, in finance, etc. It takes a very hard working, dedicated teacher to motivate students who have little or no intrinsic interest in math, or science, or business, or whatever, when all they see is a few stars making it, plus a bunch of crooked politicians and bankers making out like bandits.
Another factor, very basic, also affects public schools. They are government-run. As such, they are very bureaucratic, inefficient, and unresponsive to public criticism. Each parent individually has little or no impact on how a public school is run. It is sad, but true. Parents don't decide get to decide which teacher their child will have, and they don't decide how much each school will get paid. So, schools are responsive to the state or local government, but not to parents, not directly anyway. This is entirely aside from union issues.
So, as several other people have already commented, the success or failure of public education falls mainly on parents to emphasize the importance of it to their children. I've yet to figure a way around the grade inflation thing. I tell parents that their students will get lower grades in my class, at least until they start learning some mathematical reasoning and their real math skills (not rote memorization) improves. A few are understanding, but I get flak from parents and school principals every year if my "class average grade" isn't high enough. Why should anyone believe the ex-professional engineer when he says his students have no real grasp of the math?
I don't see any way past all of these serial difficulties until some kind of accountability is restored to education. By that, I mean parents and students must have more say in how public schools are run. And, teachers should have more say in how classes are taught and students are evaluated. When all that power is vested in the State, well, we get what we are getting now.

Kids and their parents get out of the school system what effort they put into it. How else can you get kids that are Valedictorians with GPA's of 4.0-4.5. And then there are the kids in the same school who get GPA's of 1.0 or 2.0. Same school. Effort, parents, kids, teachers, etc. all contribute. There are just losers who don't want to learn, can't blame anyone else but them.

A good education helps, but when a Ford factory welder in China makes $9 per DAY while a Ford factory assembly line worker in Michigan makes $15 to $30 per HOUR, we've lost.

A college graduate in India or China makes $400 per MONTH. You do the math. Read on in Minority Survival com

Haven't heard such a !#@?* in a long time! Education and qualification are NOT the way out of this. Take tech jobs for example: A huge number of engineering positions have been and still are off-shored to Asia.

Consider this: If you move manufacturing to Asia, the low wages there are offset by shipping costs and customs duties. But if you operate a team of programmers in India, their output can be instantly sent here over the web at zero additional cost.

I've got a PhD from an ivy league tech university and my pay hardly exceeds that of a well-trained craftsman nowadays. And it's not only happening in the US: Some colleagues of mine in Germany, all brilliant automotive engineers, ended up working blue collar jobs at the assembly line of BMW. Why? Because pay is 40% more than what they were offered for an engineering position at the same company...

Try your luck with education, but pick a major that is not easily available elsewhere. Good choices are US specific law (especially tax-related) or accounting. I recommend staying away from anything based on mathematics or the law of nature, or else you'll be facing far east competition that asks for no more than US$ 10-20k a year...

I disagree with this article on many fronts. First of all it isn't our education system at all, our forefathers did what they did (which is more than we do now) with an education that was less than what ours is today. Secondly, people are not truly and actively engaged in their childrens lives from the standpoint of preparing them for life on their own. The current, as well as the last generation of youth entering the work place have horrible work ethics. Not all of them obviously, but most of them. We are seeing the results of at least 3 generations that have raised their kids to know nothing, and have treated them like they are special, and deserving of only the best without having to work for anything. Now we have these kids that have grown up with no skills, an entitled attitude, and no ambition at all. Say what you want, but thats the way it is.

Did you ever think that it is NOT the schools or teachers, maybe---just maybe it is the home life and all that it entails . If there is "NO" home life, why would you think the teachers or the school system can change the entire unbringing of the children. Take a good hard look at the home environment where these students come from. If there is little or no parental involvement ,then I dare say--let's put the majority of the responsibility on the parents~~the people who are responsible for the welfare of the children. Of course the schools and teachers have a responsibility, but the major responsibility starts with the HOME. Look at the students who are successful, then look at their home life .