Education and America

As I read my colleagues most recent blog entries “The Crisis of Education in America” stood out as an interesting topic to me. Nothing grabs my attention more that true hard numbers and those were provided in this blog entry. Anyone can write conjecture on a topic but when backed up by numbers there is truth and fact. As I finish up my degree I am on the tail end of my educational journey but as a father of two children just starting school this is an extremely important topic to me.

As pointed out in the blog, “a college degree is necessary, and translates into greater success and higher pay over a person’s lifetime.” Nothing could be truer in today’s world. Not only is it necessary but if you follow the trends of the business world it is going to be even more important for our children. For example, 20 years ago you would find far more individuals with high paying jobs that do not have a degree. Today those same individuals will now not even get the opportunity to get in the door for an interview. Without a degree they will have the door shut on them regardless of their expertise and experience.

Backing up just a bit before attempting to complete a college degree we start at Kindergarten and Elementary school. As mentioned in the blog, “We must begin to bring greater focus on how to better prepare the next generation for success. We must increase k-12 education spending and hold educators accountable for where their students should be.” This is also a great point because I truly believe that when your education starts with great teachers you develop better skills early on, are more educated early on, and therefore more apt to succeed and excel throughout the years in school and of course afterward. Also, notice the mention of holding educators accountable. As a nation, let’s invest in education, make sure we are employing good teachers and keep them educating America’s youth. Having employees that are unvalued or unqualified and possibly just moving children through the system is a terrible scenario.

The bigger picture aspect of this argument is the future of our children in America’s workplace. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog’s, “What is happening to our Middle Class?”, due to an exceptionally efficient global marketplace, people holding Middle Class jobs are already paying the price. Without a college degree you will be staring right at a Middle Class job. When our children are old enough for employment these jobs will be even sparser and low paying. What this tells me is that the value of a higher education continues to trend as even more important moving forward. Improving education is vital to the future of an individual but also will be vital to our society as a whole.