No, they are not related to college fees or fees one pays to a private school to educate someone. If you are in India, the context in which the word "tuition" is used is probably much different. It usually refers to private tutoring. And it is big business in India, just like the juukuu in Japan. And Indian parents are just as obsessed with keeping their kids busy with their studies as their Japanese counterparts. The difference is that there are a lot more of them in India than in Japan. These nations are not alone - there are similar concepts in almost every developed or developing nation in Asia.
So, why is this phenomenon so prevalent in India (and Asia in general)? I think it has to do with the university admissions system. You see, in most Asian countries, universities were built at enormous cost with government help, but they can only educate a small percentage of the population. Although this is changing rapidly with new public and private universities coming on line, the best ones still have limited enrollment. And admission into the best schools almost guarantees that the student has a good career and a good life. So, parents try to get their kids into the best elementary and secondary schools, and supplement with "tuitions" on top of that. That brings me to Mr. Vagh Prakash Shenoy, the owner and principal of a small tutoring school in Karnataka, India.
Mr. Shenoy is a unique individual, to say the least. Thirty years ago, he graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from a prestigious engineering college. If he had followed the traditional path, he probably would be holding a high position in a multinational company by now. But he had a different idea. He figured that if so many students are trying to get into so few slots in universities, then there must always be a demand for tutoring to help them succeed, especially in the "difficult" subjects such as Math, Physics and Chemistry. His idea was dead on. His school started small, grew quickly to 200 students in 1975. Then he decided to focus on only the "serious" students. Today his school has about 60 students, all 11th and 12th graders (they call them "junior college" students), and all of them getting tutored in Math, Physics and Chemistry. They pay the equivalent of about $200 per year, a tidy sum for a middle class family. They come in like clockwork, after their regular school hours. They spend two hours per day minimum in his school. Mr. Shenoy employs four part time lecturers from a nearby college - all highly qualified to teach their subjects (which means at least a masters' degree). Mr. Shenoy himself teaches only mathematics - "that is my passion" he said with a smile.
Just down the road is another school, called Expert Pre-University College. It is a new generation of college prep schools, which will probably be the shape of things to come. I did not get a chance to visit, but I could get enough information from a relative who is a student. Their method is even more radical than the tuitions offered by Mr. Shenoy. They offer a 2 year syllabus that contains not only the regular state mandated 11th and 12th grade curricula, but also includes coaching for one or more of the university entrance exams. The school is year round - the kids get only three holidays. As is the fashion these days, they only offer science tracks - don't bother with business, or liberal arts, thank you. Classes start at 7 am and end at 7 pm, with few "breaks" in between, complete with yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation. Sounds pretty tough, and one may wonder if there are any takers for such a demanding regimen. I learned that just the opposite is true. They have a waiting list, and they now have their own exams for entrance.
More info at: http://www.expertclasses.org/pucollege/index.php?content_option=COMPONENT&ref_id=1
When one goes back 60 years, when the British left India with just enough educated people to manage their bureaucracy, one often wonders what vision the leaders had at that time for their nation 60 years ahead. I don't know if they could have imagined the strides made by their future generations, but they had the right idea about how to get there. It was to set high expectations for their young ones, and help them achieve those expectations. The results don't have to be luck or chance, or "written" as in Slumdog Millionaire. For every slum kid, there are scores of middle class kids who are competing fiercely to meet their destiny, and in turn shaping the destiny of their nation.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Educating Middle India
"So, what do you think of Mr. Obama?" said the middle aged frail lady with a visibly tan skin dressed in a green sari. "I watched his entire inaugural ceremony. He is a very impressive fellow. We have high hopes that he will bring peace to the world". She was Mrs. Damayanti, the Headmistress(Principal) of the Canara High School, Urwa Branch in Mangalore, India (yes, there is a place called Mangalore - or more recently, Mangaluru). "By the way" she continued with the curiosity of a little child "what is that tall building that looks like a needle in Washington? I asked a few people, and they could not tell me." When, I said it was called the Washington monument, she thanked me and said she will tell that to everyone in her 10th grade social studies class.
I mentioned I was there to learn more about how the Indian education system is working these days. Her school is more typical than most. It is neither a public nor a private school, but somewhere in between. It falls under the category of a "government aided" school, where part of the funding comes from the state government, and the rest comes from a private foundation. "The state funding has been going down, so we have had to raise our fees", she said. "We used to charge less than Rs.1000 (about $20) a year a couple of years ago, but now we have to charge Rs.4000 (about $80) a year tuition. With activity fees, it comes to about Rs.4200 (about $84)". This school is typical of where middle class India gets educated. Probably a good third of Indian students (about 70 million of them, larger than the entire US K-12 student population) gets educated in such schools.
Other points to note in such schools:
1. Curricula are controlled by a state or national "board", consisting of scientists and education leaders. There is no free for all when it comes to choosing materials for math, for example. Nor is there any argument over what content should be taught, and how it should be taught. Text books are purchased by students, not the school. Anyone is free to write a text book, as long as it has the minimum content set by the board. (I bought the K-5 and 9-12 math text books at a local bookstore. Total bill came to less than $12).
2. No social promotions. Semester final exams are routine, and if someone flunks two semesters, then they repeat the year. At the end of 10th grade, everyone takes an exit exam, which also doubles as a placement tool for college prep school, which are separate from K-10 schools. Our school had an 85% pass rate, better than the state average of just under 80%.
3. Teachers' job descriptions, just as curricula, are controlled by the state board of education. After 6th grade, it is mandatory that a teacher have a degree in the field they teach. In addition, they are required to have a 1 year teaching certificate. However, there appears to be an oversupply of graduates willing to teach, so it is common to see specialized math and science teachers at grade 3.
4. Most students are taught all their subjects in English in this school. This has been a growing trend, opposite of what was in vogue about 10 years ago. This school had about 60% of the students being taught all their subjects in English. The rest must take English as a second language, starting in grade 2. The 10th grade exit exam has three languages (two native languages and English), and the students must pass all three to exit 10th grade. All 10th grade graduates are expected to by trilingual.
5. More and more students opt for Science tracks once they pass 10th grade. In our case, well over 50% of the graduates went on to take two years of Physics, Chemistry, Math, and a science elective (Electronics, Computer Languages or Biology), plus two languages (English and a native language). These courses are not offered "cafeteria" style, but somewhat like a "combo meal" style. The main choices are science, business (commerce), and arts. Depending on the staff and the size of the school, they may offer two or three varieties of science combos, one or two commerce combos, and one arts combo. Science:Business:Arts enrollments are currently running at the ratio of 4:2:1.
Mrs. Damayanti was especially proud of her computer lab, where she says most kids are "smart enough to teach the teachers". They learn basic programming, in addition to the usual applications such as Microsoft office.
After the visit, I was impressed how much the school could accomplish with so little. The fact that it is a typical school (not a high end private school), makes it all the more significant.
In the next blog, I will write about "tuitions" - the Indian version of cram schools.
I mentioned I was there to learn more about how the Indian education system is working these days. Her school is more typical than most. It is neither a public nor a private school, but somewhere in between. It falls under the category of a "government aided" school, where part of the funding comes from the state government, and the rest comes from a private foundation. "The state funding has been going down, so we have had to raise our fees", she said. "We used to charge less than Rs.1000 (about $20) a year a couple of years ago, but now we have to charge Rs.4000 (about $80) a year tuition. With activity fees, it comes to about Rs.4200 (about $84)". This school is typical of where middle class India gets educated. Probably a good third of Indian students (about 70 million of them, larger than the entire US K-12 student population) gets educated in such schools.
Other points to note in such schools:
1. Curricula are controlled by a state or national "board", consisting of scientists and education leaders. There is no free for all when it comes to choosing materials for math, for example. Nor is there any argument over what content should be taught, and how it should be taught. Text books are purchased by students, not the school. Anyone is free to write a text book, as long as it has the minimum content set by the board. (I bought the K-5 and 9-12 math text books at a local bookstore. Total bill came to less than $12).
2. No social promotions. Semester final exams are routine, and if someone flunks two semesters, then they repeat the year. At the end of 10th grade, everyone takes an exit exam, which also doubles as a placement tool for college prep school, which are separate from K-10 schools. Our school had an 85% pass rate, better than the state average of just under 80%.
3. Teachers' job descriptions, just as curricula, are controlled by the state board of education. After 6th grade, it is mandatory that a teacher have a degree in the field they teach. In addition, they are required to have a 1 year teaching certificate. However, there appears to be an oversupply of graduates willing to teach, so it is common to see specialized math and science teachers at grade 3.
4. Most students are taught all their subjects in English in this school. This has been a growing trend, opposite of what was in vogue about 10 years ago. This school had about 60% of the students being taught all their subjects in English. The rest must take English as a second language, starting in grade 2. The 10th grade exit exam has three languages (two native languages and English), and the students must pass all three to exit 10th grade. All 10th grade graduates are expected to by trilingual.
5. More and more students opt for Science tracks once they pass 10th grade. In our case, well over 50% of the graduates went on to take two years of Physics, Chemistry, Math, and a science elective (Electronics, Computer Languages or Biology), plus two languages (English and a native language). These courses are not offered "cafeteria" style, but somewhat like a "combo meal" style. The main choices are science, business (commerce), and arts. Depending on the staff and the size of the school, they may offer two or three varieties of science combos, one or two commerce combos, and one arts combo. Science:Business:Arts enrollments are currently running at the ratio of 4:2:1.
Mrs. Damayanti was especially proud of her computer lab, where she says most kids are "smart enough to teach the teachers". They learn basic programming, in addition to the usual applications such as Microsoft office.
After the visit, I was impressed how much the school could accomplish with so little. The fact that it is a typical school (not a high end private school), makes it all the more significant.
In the next blog, I will write about "tuitions" - the Indian version of cram schools.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Documentary Review: 2 Million Minutes in India and China
I do not write documentary reviews very often, but I decided to make an exception for these two DVDs that were released in December. The two DVDs, as their titles mention, are in-depth reviews on the educational systems of India and China, the two countries that have been absent in the traditional international comparisons of educational achievement, such as TIMSS and PISA. However, these countries are becoming hard to ignore, since they have taken much larger global share of the manufacturing and intellectual capital in the last decade. The conventional wisdom in the US is that the labor costs are the sole drivers for this shift. The documentary sheds a totally different light on the issue. It suggests that the quality of graduates coming out of schools and colleges is fundamentally better suited for the 21st century knowledge economy. Putting two and two together, the shift in manufacturing and software may have initially happened because of cost (which continues to be an advantage for both nations), but the growth in those countries is happening because of the fundamental difference in the quality of human resources. Putting it bluntly, “those jobs ain’t comin’ back”. Another hard-to-ignore fact is that put together, these countries have roughly eight times the number of students in their K-12 system as the US. Historically speaking, this is unprecedented. The US high school graduate now has to compete in a tremendously larger pool of qualified job seekers or college applicants.
For those who are just getting introduced to 2 Million Minutes, it was a DVD released earlier in 2008. The producer of the DVD, Bob Compton, is a venture capitalist and an angel investor in several technology companies worldwide. His venture funding includes several companies in India and China. Bob mentions that when he visited these companies and met their employees, their “well roundedness” and the depth of general knowledge impressed him. He then proceeded to look into the K-12 education system, and was impressed even more. His passion for the topic of education led to the first documentary “2 Million Minutes”, which depicted the time a typical high school student spends in the four years (which add up to roughly 2 million minutes) in the US, China and India. Although a bit light on the statistical aspects, the videos highlight the important difference between the US and the emerging nations – amount of time spent in gaining knowledge and skills. The DVD puts the Chinese students first, Indian students next, and the US students last, in the rough proportions of 3:2:1. The first DVD was screened at several high power conferences, to education leaders and governors of several states, and even to Barak Obama. This was one powerful documentary in its own right.
In the new DVDs, probably produced in response to questions raised after the first one, Bob Compton delves deeper into the time spent on each subject, the high level curriculum in the last four years, and interviews with the principals of two schools, one in Shanghai, China, and another in Bangalore, India. Again, the focus here is on main differences between the US system and the systems in the other two. I particularly liked the interviews with the principals. The Chinese gentleman was particularly impressive, with his vast knowledge of the school system, curricula, and the command of English language. (I cannot imagine a typical principal in the US doing an interview for a Chinese documentary in Mandarin, unless he/she is of Chinese descent). The lady who was the principal of the Indian school was equally impressive because she had a master’s degree in Physics, and other than a slight accent, her command of the English language was comparable. This boiled down to their students as well. They felt comfortable enough with English to crack jokes, use slang, and debate their American counterparts. There is enough meat in the hour or longer in each video to whet the appetites of people wanting to get an introduction to high school education in both countries, and I recommend them highly.
But that is not what I want to spend my time on in this blog. Having been born and educated in India, and raised three kids in the US education system, I can highlight a few important differences between the two based on my personal experience. A few comments I will make on the Chinese system are based on research, not first hand experience. For example, China hardly has any private schools, and segregates their top performers early so that they can get advanced education, and go on to college. The US has about 12% of the students attending private schools, the rest attend public schools. A small but growing number of students are home schooled. India has roughly a third attending for-profit private schools, another third attending schools built with public-private partnerships, and the last third attending government run schools. I have categorized my comments in “myth busters” format. Please read on.
1. Myth - Kids educated in India and China are not “well rounded”. Reality – “Well roundedness” has different definition in different countries, and it is very subjective. In the US, someone who is active in athletics, and maintains a decent GPA may be considered “well rounded”. The emphasis tends to be decidedly tilted towards sports in the US, and towards academics in both India and China. It does not mean the kids grow up with no exposure to the arts or athletics. The kids from both countries in the videos play sports, musical instruments, and engage in social activities with their friends. I think this is fairly typical of India, from my personal observation.
2. Myth – Kids in 3rd world countries have poor English language skills – Reality - While this may be true for immigrants from some nations, India has had a long tradition of dealing with the British, and continues to mandate English as a second language in all schools. China has started doing that as well. The top one third of the students (more than twice the total number of students in the US) get top notch English education – including penmanship, spelling, grammar, essay writing, modern literature, and the classics. Recently, more and more schools have started offering English as the only language of instruction for all classes. Ironic, because they end up taking their native language as a second language! And because of large populations, both China and India, by some accounts, each have more English speakers than the US.
3. Myth – Countries like India and China do not educate their entire population – Reality: Both China and India have mandatory primary education, and will soon have mandatory secondary education. Coverage is poor in the rural areas of India, which is comparable to the high school dropout rate in the US. What gets lost in these claims is that both India and China have been able to produce enormous growth rates with what they have already accomplished in education. When they eventually get to 100% secondary schooling, it will only serve to increase the contrast between themselves and the US.
4. Myth – Students are stressed out in the Asian countries. Reality - Stress can come from various sources. In Asian countries, the sources of stress are few and are academically oriented. In the US, the stress sources include divorce, relocation, drugs, sports, peer pressure, jobs, and physical relationships, on top of academics. Those who ignore academics in school get a double whammy in college – high cost of education, and high failure rates. The suicide rate for college students in the US is much higher compared to Asian countries that maintain similar data.
5. Myth – Schools in India and China only teach to the tests. Reality - Testing, or more accurately assessment, is the only measurement tool that systems have for making sure students have retained the skills and knowledge they are expected to have. Without ascertaining a minimum competency at each grade, the students are not allowed to proceed (no social promotions). Over time, this system ensures more students graduate from the system well prepared for college or life. Actually, I contend the vilification of “teaching to the test” is more an indictment of poorly designed tests, than the concept of testing itself. Once a student goes on to college, or gets a typical private sector job, there are tests and assessments galore. Having a competency based promotion system just reinforces this reality much sooner in life.
6. Myth – Our top students can beat their top students. Reality – Maybe a decade or two ago, but no longer. The sheer numbers of students from China getting awards in ISEF (Intel Science and Engineering Fair), an international competition for high school students, is staggering. One study estimates the number of students in the gifted programs in China outnumbers the total number of students in the US. Even when American kids do well, a large proportion of our top students who compete in math, science, chess, spelling bees, geography bees, science fairs and so on, are children of first generation immigrants from China, India and other countries. Apparently, these students do well in spite of our public education system, and not because of it.
All in all, the whole 2 MM trilogy has a lot going for it in terms of raising the awareness of the emphasis placed on education in the two emerging giants. Kudos to Bob Compton for taking time out of his busy schedule to champion this cause.
Copies of the videos may be ordered from the 2 Million Minutes website, www.2mminutes.com
For those who are just getting introduced to 2 Million Minutes, it was a DVD released earlier in 2008. The producer of the DVD, Bob Compton, is a venture capitalist and an angel investor in several technology companies worldwide. His venture funding includes several companies in India and China. Bob mentions that when he visited these companies and met their employees, their “well roundedness” and the depth of general knowledge impressed him. He then proceeded to look into the K-12 education system, and was impressed even more. His passion for the topic of education led to the first documentary “2 Million Minutes”, which depicted the time a typical high school student spends in the four years (which add up to roughly 2 million minutes) in the US, China and India. Although a bit light on the statistical aspects, the videos highlight the important difference between the US and the emerging nations – amount of time spent in gaining knowledge and skills. The DVD puts the Chinese students first, Indian students next, and the US students last, in the rough proportions of 3:2:1. The first DVD was screened at several high power conferences, to education leaders and governors of several states, and even to Barak Obama. This was one powerful documentary in its own right.
In the new DVDs, probably produced in response to questions raised after the first one, Bob Compton delves deeper into the time spent on each subject, the high level curriculum in the last four years, and interviews with the principals of two schools, one in Shanghai, China, and another in Bangalore, India. Again, the focus here is on main differences between the US system and the systems in the other two. I particularly liked the interviews with the principals. The Chinese gentleman was particularly impressive, with his vast knowledge of the school system, curricula, and the command of English language. (I cannot imagine a typical principal in the US doing an interview for a Chinese documentary in Mandarin, unless he/she is of Chinese descent). The lady who was the principal of the Indian school was equally impressive because she had a master’s degree in Physics, and other than a slight accent, her command of the English language was comparable. This boiled down to their students as well. They felt comfortable enough with English to crack jokes, use slang, and debate their American counterparts. There is enough meat in the hour or longer in each video to whet the appetites of people wanting to get an introduction to high school education in both countries, and I recommend them highly.
But that is not what I want to spend my time on in this blog. Having been born and educated in India, and raised three kids in the US education system, I can highlight a few important differences between the two based on my personal experience. A few comments I will make on the Chinese system are based on research, not first hand experience. For example, China hardly has any private schools, and segregates their top performers early so that they can get advanced education, and go on to college. The US has about 12% of the students attending private schools, the rest attend public schools. A small but growing number of students are home schooled. India has roughly a third attending for-profit private schools, another third attending schools built with public-private partnerships, and the last third attending government run schools. I have categorized my comments in “myth busters” format. Please read on.
1. Myth - Kids educated in India and China are not “well rounded”. Reality – “Well roundedness” has different definition in different countries, and it is very subjective. In the US, someone who is active in athletics, and maintains a decent GPA may be considered “well rounded”. The emphasis tends to be decidedly tilted towards sports in the US, and towards academics in both India and China. It does not mean the kids grow up with no exposure to the arts or athletics. The kids from both countries in the videos play sports, musical instruments, and engage in social activities with their friends. I think this is fairly typical of India, from my personal observation.
2. Myth – Kids in 3rd world countries have poor English language skills – Reality - While this may be true for immigrants from some nations, India has had a long tradition of dealing with the British, and continues to mandate English as a second language in all schools. China has started doing that as well. The top one third of the students (more than twice the total number of students in the US) get top notch English education – including penmanship, spelling, grammar, essay writing, modern literature, and the classics. Recently, more and more schools have started offering English as the only language of instruction for all classes. Ironic, because they end up taking their native language as a second language! And because of large populations, both China and India, by some accounts, each have more English speakers than the US.
3. Myth – Countries like India and China do not educate their entire population – Reality: Both China and India have mandatory primary education, and will soon have mandatory secondary education. Coverage is poor in the rural areas of India, which is comparable to the high school dropout rate in the US. What gets lost in these claims is that both India and China have been able to produce enormous growth rates with what they have already accomplished in education. When they eventually get to 100% secondary schooling, it will only serve to increase the contrast between themselves and the US.
4. Myth – Students are stressed out in the Asian countries. Reality - Stress can come from various sources. In Asian countries, the sources of stress are few and are academically oriented. In the US, the stress sources include divorce, relocation, drugs, sports, peer pressure, jobs, and physical relationships, on top of academics. Those who ignore academics in school get a double whammy in college – high cost of education, and high failure rates. The suicide rate for college students in the US is much higher compared to Asian countries that maintain similar data.
5. Myth – Schools in India and China only teach to the tests. Reality - Testing, or more accurately assessment, is the only measurement tool that systems have for making sure students have retained the skills and knowledge they are expected to have. Without ascertaining a minimum competency at each grade, the students are not allowed to proceed (no social promotions). Over time, this system ensures more students graduate from the system well prepared for college or life. Actually, I contend the vilification of “teaching to the test” is more an indictment of poorly designed tests, than the concept of testing itself. Once a student goes on to college, or gets a typical private sector job, there are tests and assessments galore. Having a competency based promotion system just reinforces this reality much sooner in life.
6. Myth – Our top students can beat their top students. Reality – Maybe a decade or two ago, but no longer. The sheer numbers of students from China getting awards in ISEF (Intel Science and Engineering Fair), an international competition for high school students, is staggering. One study estimates the number of students in the gifted programs in China outnumbers the total number of students in the US. Even when American kids do well, a large proportion of our top students who compete in math, science, chess, spelling bees, geography bees, science fairs and so on, are children of first generation immigrants from China, India and other countries. Apparently, these students do well in spite of our public education system, and not because of it.
All in all, the whole 2 MM trilogy has a lot going for it in terms of raising the awareness of the emphasis placed on education in the two emerging giants. Kudos to Bob Compton for taking time out of his busy schedule to champion this cause.
Copies of the videos may be ordered from the 2 Million Minutes website, www.2mminutes.com
Sunday, December 7, 2008
The Recession - What's Different This Time?
OK, so President-elect Obama lowered our expectations by declaring that the recession we are in will be worse before it gets better. Now it is official.
So, we tighten our belts for the next twelve months or so, and then everything will be better, like in the previous recessions in the past 50 years, right? Not so fast. This downturn already has swallowed entire industries, with more lining up for government bailout so they won't disappear. Half million jobs disappeared in a month, the most in modern history. Did this happen overnight? Hardly. This witch's brew has been brewing for a couple of decades, and it has several other firsts to its credit, some that are not so obvious.
1. Highest total debt/GDP ratio in history. During the great depression, the total debt/GDP hit 260%. Now it stands at 350%. A healthy ratio is 150% or lower. Which means we have 200% of GDP's worth of debt to pay off (that is about $29 trillions, with a "T". Boils down to about $100,000 per capita, or $400,000 per family of 4).
2. Hollowed out industrial base: Almost every consumer item besides food, drugs and shelter is made somewhere else. Even in rare occasions something is made here, it is designed and engineered somewhere else. During the last depression, the US industrial base was one of the tops in the world.
3. Not enough brainpower left to build the 21st century economy: Jobs of the future need more college graduates, and yet we are going to graduate fewer students out of college. College is out of reach for many middle class families, and is only getting more unaffordable. More striking is the number of engineers coming out of our universities, which has steadily dwindled in the last three decades. The social scientists have defined what "math" and "science" our kids should learn (or not) in our K-12 system. So, many come out of high school unprepared for a technical career.
4. Global competition: The US was pretty much isolated with few other global competitors during the last depression. Trade was a fraction of what it is today, given the lack of jet, container, and surface transportation infrastructure. But since the internet took hold, competition in services became reality, adding salt to the wound, since competition in manufacturing has been lost already.
What about the solutions being talked about? I have heard the new administration proposing a massive public works program like the New Deal of the FDR days. I think the building of highways worked in the 1930s because it was one of the big bottleneck to internal trade. But today's infrastructure, especially in the area of communications, has figuratively flattened the world. That is why I think the traditional '30s style rebuilding won't work this time. Yes, we need to fix our roads, bridges and school buildings. Will it help the rest of the nation to be competitive when the recession ends? I think not. What is sorely needed is focus on unique value added technologies like clean, renewable energy, cleaner transportation technologies, and better wireless communication infrastructure. This will give us something of value that we can trade with the rest of the world in exchange for consumer goods, instead of piling up trade deficits.
But to do this, we need more unique technologies we can all our own, and which have a ready global market. Which means we need more patents. Which means we need more PhDs in Science and Technology, who can invent these technologies and file for those patents. Which means we need more K-12 student candidates who want to be PhD Scientists and Technologists. That will be the house that Jack built. We are missing the bricks for this house that are needed for the first layer of this house, so any talk about building the superstructure is likely to provide only superficial results.
I have not heard talk yet from the administration as to how we will accomplish this.
So, we tighten our belts for the next twelve months or so, and then everything will be better, like in the previous recessions in the past 50 years, right? Not so fast. This downturn already has swallowed entire industries, with more lining up for government bailout so they won't disappear. Half million jobs disappeared in a month, the most in modern history. Did this happen overnight? Hardly. This witch's brew has been brewing for a couple of decades, and it has several other firsts to its credit, some that are not so obvious.
1. Highest total debt/GDP ratio in history. During the great depression, the total debt/GDP hit 260%. Now it stands at 350%. A healthy ratio is 150% or lower. Which means we have 200% of GDP's worth of debt to pay off (that is about $29 trillions, with a "T". Boils down to about $100,000 per capita, or $400,000 per family of 4).
2. Hollowed out industrial base: Almost every consumer item besides food, drugs and shelter is made somewhere else. Even in rare occasions something is made here, it is designed and engineered somewhere else. During the last depression, the US industrial base was one of the tops in the world.
3. Not enough brainpower left to build the 21st century economy: Jobs of the future need more college graduates, and yet we are going to graduate fewer students out of college. College is out of reach for many middle class families, and is only getting more unaffordable. More striking is the number of engineers coming out of our universities, which has steadily dwindled in the last three decades. The social scientists have defined what "math" and "science" our kids should learn (or not) in our K-12 system. So, many come out of high school unprepared for a technical career.
4. Global competition: The US was pretty much isolated with few other global competitors during the last depression. Trade was a fraction of what it is today, given the lack of jet, container, and surface transportation infrastructure. But since the internet took hold, competition in services became reality, adding salt to the wound, since competition in manufacturing has been lost already.
What about the solutions being talked about? I have heard the new administration proposing a massive public works program like the New Deal of the FDR days. I think the building of highways worked in the 1930s because it was one of the big bottleneck to internal trade. But today's infrastructure, especially in the area of communications, has figuratively flattened the world. That is why I think the traditional '30s style rebuilding won't work this time. Yes, we need to fix our roads, bridges and school buildings. Will it help the rest of the nation to be competitive when the recession ends? I think not. What is sorely needed is focus on unique value added technologies like clean, renewable energy, cleaner transportation technologies, and better wireless communication infrastructure. This will give us something of value that we can trade with the rest of the world in exchange for consumer goods, instead of piling up trade deficits.
But to do this, we need more unique technologies we can all our own, and which have a ready global market. Which means we need more patents. Which means we need more PhDs in Science and Technology, who can invent these technologies and file for those patents. Which means we need more K-12 student candidates who want to be PhD Scientists and Technologists. That will be the house that Jack built. We are missing the bricks for this house that are needed for the first layer of this house, so any talk about building the superstructure is likely to provide only superficial results.
I have not heard talk yet from the administration as to how we will accomplish this.
Monday, December 1, 2008
On 21st Century Jobs
In K-12 education circles, has been fashionable in the past few years to talk about 21st century jobs. Every school district official I met had something to say about how his/her district was preparing students for “21st century jobs”. When I probe a little deeper, however, I get the feeling that the depth of understanding as to the nature of these jobs is very superficial. When asked, I get what sounds like a canned response “jobs involving creativity, critical thinking skills, learning how to learn”, and so on. That got me thinking about how our education system can deliver on the promise of true 21st century jobs.
Let me set the context. Our universities seem to be doing a great job of creating graduates that can compete globally. Others are catching up, but we seem to be still on top. Never mind that we have mostly foreign born science and engineering professors teaching in these universities, to mostly foreign born graduate students. For the moment, we can bask in the glory that we are #1. So, the problem of turning out college graduates for 21st century jobs does not appear to be with our institutes of higher education.
Now let us go a little deeper into the rabbit hole. What about our high school graduates? I have already written a piece about “How To Turn Out World Class High School Graduates” from the perspective of a customer. Clearly, there is a broken link between our K-12 system and its view of 21st century jobs, and our university system and its view of 21st century jobs. I will continue to assert that this is one broken link that we cannot afford to have. If it is not obvious now, it will be obvious a few more years into the greatest economic downturn since the last great depression. To peel this onion, we have to start with what we have been historically good at, and what we have left to chance.
Let us start with all the great ideas that we came up with. In no particular order, I can rattle off at least a dozen history-altering 20th century inventions credited to the US: the transistor, atomic power (for energy generation), a dozen or more computer languages, statistical process control, genetically engineered drugs, wireless technologies, the photocopy machine, the SLR camera, the TV, the VCR, ,the integrated circuit, the computer and the list goes on and on. One funny thing I noticed is that each one of these inventions is keeping hundreds of millions of people gainfully employed in well paying jobs IN OTHER COUNTRIES – in the 21st century. Let me elaborate some that I have listed:
The Transistor: Invented by William Shockley and Pearson in AT&T Bell Labs, (later confirmed by Brattain and Bardeen from the same labs) one of the premier private research labs, in the 1940s, for which they won a Nobel Prize. Attempts to commercialize the transistor in the US were unsuccessful, until Sony of Japan licensed it and perfected large-scale manufacture. Other Japanese companies followed suit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, there is no large-scale consumer electronics industry in the US to speak of. AT&T Bell Lab itself is no more, having been broken up into parts and sold off to foreign companies.
Nuclear Power for Energy: Peaceful uses of nuclear energy have been a good byproduct of the technology that literally started with a bang. But after 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl, the perception of this as a source of energy has declined. In the meantime, France, Japan, and developing countries like India have accelerated deployment to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The cure for bad technology, according to them, was better technology. Our answer: no technology. Now new nuclear plants have been built here in the last 30 years.
Computer Languages & the Internet Browser: This has been the single largest generator of high paying jobs worldwide. Universities and corporate research labs in the US led the development of almost all the ideas behind the connected world we have today. And yet the job growth in this field has fled this country. Most of the programmers are in other countries. No country has benefited from this than India, where one private university, the National Institute of Information Technology, turns out more programmers per year than the entire nation of the United States. Back in this country, I have not seen any recent math text books with Basic algorithms to solve problems. Instead, there are screen shots of calculators where students just punch buttons. Nor have I met many math teachers who can teach true programming. I wonder whatever happened to critical thinking we talk so much about? If the K-12 system does not create excitement in this field, who will supply the graduates to our university system?
Statistical Process Control: This is a concept that was lost on the US industry for a long time. Championed by US thinkers like Deming and Juran, these ideas never caught on, until Japan Inc. decided to use these techniques to improve their cheap, and shoddy product image. And improve they did. And the Koreans followed suit. Based on a deep understanding of mathematics and statistics, these techniques propelled Japanese car brands to the top of the quality charts. The US auto industry has always trailed in this aspect, and had to rely on laws and truck subsidies to survive. Part of why the “Big Three” are at the verge of bankruptcy is the failure to follow these concepts in the early stages. Waiting in the wings is Tata motors of India, with a car that sells in India for $2500, and gets 50 miles per gallon. They promise plenty of 21st century high paying jobs – in India.
Genetically Engineered Drugs: One other field that was pioneered in the US, and treated with suspicion by the public. While companies like Genentech seem to be doing quite well, the growth has come from other countries. Ranbaxy labs in India grew tremendously in the last few years, and is on the verge of passing global giants in this field. Recently, a Japanese company acquired a large stake in this company, probably since Japan’s aging population will needs a reliable supply of quality drugs.
Wireless Technologies: Spearheaded by the meteoric rise of the cell phone, this field is just getting started. Once the undisputed territory of US companies like Motorola, this industry is now dominated by Finnish and Korean companies. This is one industry that is forecasted to grow, in double digit percentages, well into the 21st century, providing high paying, high tech jobs for their employees. Meanwhile Motorola just announced that they were exiting the cell phone business. The only other US company that makes cell phones, Apple Computer, has only a few percent global market share. Interestingly, Korean and Finnish high school students routinely come in first or second in math and science in worldwide comparisons. Coincidence? I do not think so.
Do we see a trend here? Can we connect the dots? Needless to say the remaining industries such as cameras, the TV, the VCR (or DVD player), computers, and so on, are creating high paying 21st century jobs elsewhere in the world, while our domestic industries are turning into hollow sales and marketing organizations. One common thread in the places where such industries flourish is a razor sharp focus on creating the best mathematical and scientific talent in the world. I will assert that if our focus, especially in the K-12 education system, changes to match or better theirs, we will also create the same high pay, high growth environment in this country. The downside of not doing so will be an economy that we have today. Other than food and shelter, we are forced to buy what other countries make, with money borrowed from them. There will be jobs here too, but with subsistence wages and no benefits to speak of. Our system has been turning out high school graduates, 50% of who cannot pass an 8th grade math test. I will assert that it is a big part of what led to the mess we are in. The time to act was in 1983, when the “Nation at Risk” study came out. We failed to produce results then. The result I think has led to economic bondage of sorts, for our kids and grandkids, and no amount of apologizing is going to make their lives any better. I will maintain that only if we act like our lives depend on rectifying the current sorry state of math and science education can we redeem ourselves. One thing that we appear to be good at, is to come together at a time of crisis and commit to a solution that leads to common good. My hope is that most people who read this can make this connection, and drive changes in their schools and communities.
Let me set the context. Our universities seem to be doing a great job of creating graduates that can compete globally. Others are catching up, but we seem to be still on top. Never mind that we have mostly foreign born science and engineering professors teaching in these universities, to mostly foreign born graduate students. For the moment, we can bask in the glory that we are #1. So, the problem of turning out college graduates for 21st century jobs does not appear to be with our institutes of higher education.
Now let us go a little deeper into the rabbit hole. What about our high school graduates? I have already written a piece about “How To Turn Out World Class High School Graduates” from the perspective of a customer. Clearly, there is a broken link between our K-12 system and its view of 21st century jobs, and our university system and its view of 21st century jobs. I will continue to assert that this is one broken link that we cannot afford to have. If it is not obvious now, it will be obvious a few more years into the greatest economic downturn since the last great depression. To peel this onion, we have to start with what we have been historically good at, and what we have left to chance.
Let us start with all the great ideas that we came up with. In no particular order, I can rattle off at least a dozen history-altering 20th century inventions credited to the US: the transistor, atomic power (for energy generation), a dozen or more computer languages, statistical process control, genetically engineered drugs, wireless technologies, the photocopy machine, the SLR camera, the TV, the VCR, ,the integrated circuit, the computer and the list goes on and on. One funny thing I noticed is that each one of these inventions is keeping hundreds of millions of people gainfully employed in well paying jobs IN OTHER COUNTRIES – in the 21st century. Let me elaborate some that I have listed:
The Transistor: Invented by William Shockley and Pearson in AT&T Bell Labs, (later confirmed by Brattain and Bardeen from the same labs) one of the premier private research labs, in the 1940s, for which they won a Nobel Prize. Attempts to commercialize the transistor in the US were unsuccessful, until Sony of Japan licensed it and perfected large-scale manufacture. Other Japanese companies followed suit, and the rest, as they say, is history. Today, there is no large-scale consumer electronics industry in the US to speak of. AT&T Bell Lab itself is no more, having been broken up into parts and sold off to foreign companies.
Nuclear Power for Energy: Peaceful uses of nuclear energy have been a good byproduct of the technology that literally started with a bang. But after 3-Mile Island and Chernobyl, the perception of this as a source of energy has declined. In the meantime, France, Japan, and developing countries like India have accelerated deployment to reduce dependence on foreign oil. The cure for bad technology, according to them, was better technology. Our answer: no technology. Now new nuclear plants have been built here in the last 30 years.
Computer Languages & the Internet Browser: This has been the single largest generator of high paying jobs worldwide. Universities and corporate research labs in the US led the development of almost all the ideas behind the connected world we have today. And yet the job growth in this field has fled this country. Most of the programmers are in other countries. No country has benefited from this than India, where one private university, the National Institute of Information Technology, turns out more programmers per year than the entire nation of the United States. Back in this country, I have not seen any recent math text books with Basic algorithms to solve problems. Instead, there are screen shots of calculators where students just punch buttons. Nor have I met many math teachers who can teach true programming. I wonder whatever happened to critical thinking we talk so much about? If the K-12 system does not create excitement in this field, who will supply the graduates to our university system?
Statistical Process Control: This is a concept that was lost on the US industry for a long time. Championed by US thinkers like Deming and Juran, these ideas never caught on, until Japan Inc. decided to use these techniques to improve their cheap, and shoddy product image. And improve they did. And the Koreans followed suit. Based on a deep understanding of mathematics and statistics, these techniques propelled Japanese car brands to the top of the quality charts. The US auto industry has always trailed in this aspect, and had to rely on laws and truck subsidies to survive. Part of why the “Big Three” are at the verge of bankruptcy is the failure to follow these concepts in the early stages. Waiting in the wings is Tata motors of India, with a car that sells in India for $2500, and gets 50 miles per gallon. They promise plenty of 21st century high paying jobs – in India.
Genetically Engineered Drugs: One other field that was pioneered in the US, and treated with suspicion by the public. While companies like Genentech seem to be doing quite well, the growth has come from other countries. Ranbaxy labs in India grew tremendously in the last few years, and is on the verge of passing global giants in this field. Recently, a Japanese company acquired a large stake in this company, probably since Japan’s aging population will needs a reliable supply of quality drugs.
Wireless Technologies: Spearheaded by the meteoric rise of the cell phone, this field is just getting started. Once the undisputed territory of US companies like Motorola, this industry is now dominated by Finnish and Korean companies. This is one industry that is forecasted to grow, in double digit percentages, well into the 21st century, providing high paying, high tech jobs for their employees. Meanwhile Motorola just announced that they were exiting the cell phone business. The only other US company that makes cell phones, Apple Computer, has only a few percent global market share. Interestingly, Korean and Finnish high school students routinely come in first or second in math and science in worldwide comparisons. Coincidence? I do not think so.
Do we see a trend here? Can we connect the dots? Needless to say the remaining industries such as cameras, the TV, the VCR (or DVD player), computers, and so on, are creating high paying 21st century jobs elsewhere in the world, while our domestic industries are turning into hollow sales and marketing organizations. One common thread in the places where such industries flourish is a razor sharp focus on creating the best mathematical and scientific talent in the world. I will assert that if our focus, especially in the K-12 education system, changes to match or better theirs, we will also create the same high pay, high growth environment in this country. The downside of not doing so will be an economy that we have today. Other than food and shelter, we are forced to buy what other countries make, with money borrowed from them. There will be jobs here too, but with subsistence wages and no benefits to speak of. Our system has been turning out high school graduates, 50% of who cannot pass an 8th grade math test. I will assert that it is a big part of what led to the mess we are in. The time to act was in 1983, when the “Nation at Risk” study came out. We failed to produce results then. The result I think has led to economic bondage of sorts, for our kids and grandkids, and no amount of apologizing is going to make their lives any better. I will maintain that only if we act like our lives depend on rectifying the current sorry state of math and science education can we redeem ourselves. One thing that we appear to be good at, is to come together at a time of crisis and commit to a solution that leads to common good. My hope is that most people who read this can make this connection, and drive changes in their schools and communities.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
How to Turn Out World Class High School Graduates - A Customer's Perspective
As I ponder the big question of how to improve the sorry state of education in the State of Washington, my mind conjures up images of the familiar ancient story about five blind men and an elephant. Every person has an opinion about what the problems are, and how to solve them. If you are an educator, you get one version of the problem and proposed solutions. Administrators have their own view, so do the superintendents and the school board members. But all the people above are part of the system. Their view often reflects the immediate problems they see in connection with their jobs. What about the “customer”? We rarely read or hear about the people who are paying for the education that their kids are getting, namely, the taxpayer. In most cases, this person also doubles as the parent of a public school kid. I am a long standing tax payer with hundreds of hours of volunteer hours in public schools, and I have a few views of my own. As a customer of a system that spends $7500 per child on K-12 education (which, by the way, is higher than the per capita GDP of about 65% of this world’s nations), in this election year, I want my voice to be heard too. So, here goes.
As a customer, I want the schools to turn out quality graduates. What I mean by quality is that the graduates meet all the skill and knowledge requirements expected out of a world class graduate. One measure of the quality of graduates, at least in case of those who go on to college, is remediation rates. The goal, of course, is zero remediation rates. Another measure of quality is for graduates to enter a trade or occupation of their choice with very little on-the-job training. Unfortunately, this is not the case today. Remediation rates in our community colleges, especially in the gatekeeper skills like math, are running over 50%. Even our most selective college, University of Washington, has over 10% remediation rate, and the math, science and engineering faculty have come out with an open letter saying they have seen a decline in core math skills. The WASL scores bear out an even sadder fact – 65% of our graduates cannot pass an 8th grade level science test either. This is not what I expect out of a quality organization that charges the taxpayer $7500 per student.
Quality of graduates is a direct measure of how well a school system does. There are some indirect measures, ones that lead up to the final goal of turning out quality graduates. These are by no means new - they have been talked about for decades. But I feel, as a customer, it is my job to keep repeating the message until action is taken to remedy the defects in the system. After researching what works worldwide, I have discounted the familiar arguments about more money and smaller class sizes. There are many more zero cost (or, sometimes, cost saving) alternatives we can explore before we blow more money on something that is not working well. But good teachers DO make a difference, so do well designed curricula. So I have decided to focus on these three problem areas – Quality graduates, Good Teachers, Good Curricula. Below each, I have listed several possible solutions, with my take on what the cost would be – both monetary and political.
Problem #1: How to increase the quality of our K-12 graduates
o Solution: Increase the content and rigor of state standards for every subject matter at every grade level, starting with math and science. Today's standards for math, even the revised ones, trail the world class by a year or two. Since math is the language of science, the science standards and performance suffer accordingly. The standards should be made devoid of pedagogical methods, and focused on performance expected out of students. This is the job of OSPI, and they have failed miserably in their primary mission. The legislature must drive OSPI to make Washington standards the unquestioned leader in the world. The opponents of this have been, and will be, the entire establishment, because they are afraid they won't be able to deliver. This is nonsense, because setting standards should not have anything to do with whether we can deliver, and everything to do with setting world class expectations of our graduates. This is a low investment, high return area. The legislature has already done some expectation setting to OSPI on this, but OSPI has been an unwilling participant so far.
o Solution: Measure our graduates with the same ruler as the rest of the nation. WASL test is a custom made test that only OSPI loves and understands. It has wasted over a billion dollars, while providing little information to teachers on how to improve their instruction, and students on how to improve their learning. Lower grade WASL must be replaced with a nationally normed and standardized test such as SAT10 (Stanford Achievement Test, v.10) and the high school exit exams replaced with ACT. The overall cost may be a wash, compared to the cost of administering the WASL. But the students and teachers will gain immensely because of the feedback.
o Solution: Hold schools accountable for competency by raising the bar at every grade level, and do away with social promotions. Social promotions are a product of the self esteem movement which has permeated all aspects of our teaching establishment. But it has taken all accountability away from students, parents, and teachers. If students do not meet minimum grade level performance requirements, they should spend time in summer school until they do. If not, they should repeat the grade, since they were probably not prepared to take it anyway. This will take some investment, and political will to implement, but will pay off handsomely in high school and college, when students actually come in prepared to take higher level classes.
o Solution: Fund full day kindergarten and head start. This will make sure that both low income and high income kids have the same baseline when they enter first grade. Study after study has shown that head start funding and prison funding are inversely correlated. With the US having the highest incarceration rate, at over $25,000 per annum per inmate, we can spend a fraction of that on headstart and avoid most of it. The return justifies the investment.
o Solution: Cut back on big sports expenditures, and fund intellectual curricular and co-curricular activities in math, science, geography, spelling, chess, and lego robotics. Our schools, especially at the high school level, have become like sports camps. Curricular achievement often takes a back seat to sports achievement. There is nothing wrong with pursuing sports, as many of us were involved in them ourselves. But having the two funded from the same bucket of money tends to confound the funding issues. I propose dividing educational districts into two categories - academic districts and athletic districts. This allows the funding to be distributed according to availability, and have the schools focus on what they should - academics. This could actually be a money saver, since it will make obvious the eye popping amount of money we spend on athletics in the name of academics.
Problem #2 - How to get good teachers into classrooms:
o Solution: Pass an emergency teacher certification bill that grants full teaching certificates to retired and unemployed engineers and technicians. This is very low cost, high return area, but you will have to fight the teacher's unions to get it through. But it takes advantage of a large number of retired professionals or those being laid off, and are eager to teach.
o Solution: Mandate that the schools of education raise their admissions standards to at least those earning a basic arts/science degree, increase credit hours required to graduate, increase the credit hours and rigor of advanced math courses for teachers, and tighten the graduation criteria. In the short term, it will decrease the number of graduating teachers, but if you act on the previous solution first, it should compensate for the shortfall. Again, this is a low cost, high return proposal, but you will have to fight the bureaucracy in colleges.
o Solution: Mandate that every teacher get evaluated on the increase in standardized test scores in their classes, and on a 360 degree evaluation by students/parents, peers, and the principal. The good ones should get higher raises, the really bad ones put on probation. If no improvement is seen after probationary period, they need to be let go. Tenure has blurred the difference between stellar performers and poor performers, and has provided a reason for good teachers to leave the profession. Without a periodic review system of review, over time, the entire system degenerates into mediocrity. As we speak, Michelle Rhee is overhauling the Washington DC school system, partly by challenging the teachers to step up or leave. I think this change is one of the most significant we can implement. This is a medium cost area (takes yearly testing to track progress), but can be automated with technology. This is how all professionals get evaluated in most of the world. I expect strong resistance from the unions, but they will be fighting a losing battle in the face of increasing job losses in the economy. This is also a low dollar item, since you are giving the total money you would have normally given for salary increases, and distributing it by performance.
Problem #3 - How to get good curricula into schools
o Solution: Seek out what works worldwide, and implement it in schools. The public schools in the US in general, and in the state of Washington in particular, have been victims of faddish trends in education. Without going into gory details, my research has uncovered that a large portion of poor student performance can be traced to poor curricular choice based on faddish philosophies promoted by the schools of education. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of math education. The K-8 public school math curricula based on these philosophies has dumbed down an entire generation of school kids. Increasing expectations is only part of the story. Without rigorous teaching materials, the goal of turning out world class graduates will still be a dream. My recommendation is to follow the list published by What Works Clearinghouse, and implement only those that have proven to produce results (as in higher test scores). Math keeps coming up as a subject that needs particular attention. Saxon Math and Singapore Math have been proven to work in the K-8 curricula, and I feel they are a great choice for any school district as primary math curricula.
As a customer, I want the schools to turn out quality graduates. What I mean by quality is that the graduates meet all the skill and knowledge requirements expected out of a world class graduate. One measure of the quality of graduates, at least in case of those who go on to college, is remediation rates. The goal, of course, is zero remediation rates. Another measure of quality is for graduates to enter a trade or occupation of their choice with very little on-the-job training. Unfortunately, this is not the case today. Remediation rates in our community colleges, especially in the gatekeeper skills like math, are running over 50%. Even our most selective college, University of Washington, has over 10% remediation rate, and the math, science and engineering faculty have come out with an open letter saying they have seen a decline in core math skills. The WASL scores bear out an even sadder fact – 65% of our graduates cannot pass an 8th grade level science test either. This is not what I expect out of a quality organization that charges the taxpayer $7500 per student.
Quality of graduates is a direct measure of how well a school system does. There are some indirect measures, ones that lead up to the final goal of turning out quality graduates. These are by no means new - they have been talked about for decades. But I feel, as a customer, it is my job to keep repeating the message until action is taken to remedy the defects in the system. After researching what works worldwide, I have discounted the familiar arguments about more money and smaller class sizes. There are many more zero cost (or, sometimes, cost saving) alternatives we can explore before we blow more money on something that is not working well. But good teachers DO make a difference, so do well designed curricula. So I have decided to focus on these three problem areas – Quality graduates, Good Teachers, Good Curricula. Below each, I have listed several possible solutions, with my take on what the cost would be – both monetary and political.
Problem #1: How to increase the quality of our K-12 graduates
o Solution: Increase the content and rigor of state standards for every subject matter at every grade level, starting with math and science. Today's standards for math, even the revised ones, trail the world class by a year or two. Since math is the language of science, the science standards and performance suffer accordingly. The standards should be made devoid of pedagogical methods, and focused on performance expected out of students. This is the job of OSPI, and they have failed miserably in their primary mission. The legislature must drive OSPI to make Washington standards the unquestioned leader in the world. The opponents of this have been, and will be, the entire establishment, because they are afraid they won't be able to deliver. This is nonsense, because setting standards should not have anything to do with whether we can deliver, and everything to do with setting world class expectations of our graduates. This is a low investment, high return area. The legislature has already done some expectation setting to OSPI on this, but OSPI has been an unwilling participant so far.
o Solution: Measure our graduates with the same ruler as the rest of the nation. WASL test is a custom made test that only OSPI loves and understands. It has wasted over a billion dollars, while providing little information to teachers on how to improve their instruction, and students on how to improve their learning. Lower grade WASL must be replaced with a nationally normed and standardized test such as SAT10 (Stanford Achievement Test, v.10) and the high school exit exams replaced with ACT. The overall cost may be a wash, compared to the cost of administering the WASL. But the students and teachers will gain immensely because of the feedback.
o Solution: Hold schools accountable for competency by raising the bar at every grade level, and do away with social promotions. Social promotions are a product of the self esteem movement which has permeated all aspects of our teaching establishment. But it has taken all accountability away from students, parents, and teachers. If students do not meet minimum grade level performance requirements, they should spend time in summer school until they do. If not, they should repeat the grade, since they were probably not prepared to take it anyway. This will take some investment, and political will to implement, but will pay off handsomely in high school and college, when students actually come in prepared to take higher level classes.
o Solution: Fund full day kindergarten and head start. This will make sure that both low income and high income kids have the same baseline when they enter first grade. Study after study has shown that head start funding and prison funding are inversely correlated. With the US having the highest incarceration rate, at over $25,000 per annum per inmate, we can spend a fraction of that on headstart and avoid most of it. The return justifies the investment.
o Solution: Cut back on big sports expenditures, and fund intellectual curricular and co-curricular activities in math, science, geography, spelling, chess, and lego robotics. Our schools, especially at the high school level, have become like sports camps. Curricular achievement often takes a back seat to sports achievement. There is nothing wrong with pursuing sports, as many of us were involved in them ourselves. But having the two funded from the same bucket of money tends to confound the funding issues. I propose dividing educational districts into two categories - academic districts and athletic districts. This allows the funding to be distributed according to availability, and have the schools focus on what they should - academics. This could actually be a money saver, since it will make obvious the eye popping amount of money we spend on athletics in the name of academics.
Problem #2 - How to get good teachers into classrooms:
o Solution: Pass an emergency teacher certification bill that grants full teaching certificates to retired and unemployed engineers and technicians. This is very low cost, high return area, but you will have to fight the teacher's unions to get it through. But it takes advantage of a large number of retired professionals or those being laid off, and are eager to teach.
o Solution: Mandate that the schools of education raise their admissions standards to at least those earning a basic arts/science degree, increase credit hours required to graduate, increase the credit hours and rigor of advanced math courses for teachers, and tighten the graduation criteria. In the short term, it will decrease the number of graduating teachers, but if you act on the previous solution first, it should compensate for the shortfall. Again, this is a low cost, high return proposal, but you will have to fight the bureaucracy in colleges.
o Solution: Mandate that every teacher get evaluated on the increase in standardized test scores in their classes, and on a 360 degree evaluation by students/parents, peers, and the principal. The good ones should get higher raises, the really bad ones put on probation. If no improvement is seen after probationary period, they need to be let go. Tenure has blurred the difference between stellar performers and poor performers, and has provided a reason for good teachers to leave the profession. Without a periodic review system of review, over time, the entire system degenerates into mediocrity. As we speak, Michelle Rhee is overhauling the Washington DC school system, partly by challenging the teachers to step up or leave. I think this change is one of the most significant we can implement. This is a medium cost area (takes yearly testing to track progress), but can be automated with technology. This is how all professionals get evaluated in most of the world. I expect strong resistance from the unions, but they will be fighting a losing battle in the face of increasing job losses in the economy. This is also a low dollar item, since you are giving the total money you would have normally given for salary increases, and distributing it by performance.
Problem #3 - How to get good curricula into schools
o Solution: Seek out what works worldwide, and implement it in schools. The public schools in the US in general, and in the state of Washington in particular, have been victims of faddish trends in education. Without going into gory details, my research has uncovered that a large portion of poor student performance can be traced to poor curricular choice based on faddish philosophies promoted by the schools of education. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the area of math education. The K-8 public school math curricula based on these philosophies has dumbed down an entire generation of school kids. Increasing expectations is only part of the story. Without rigorous teaching materials, the goal of turning out world class graduates will still be a dream. My recommendation is to follow the list published by What Works Clearinghouse, and implement only those that have proven to produce results (as in higher test scores). Math keeps coming up as a subject that needs particular attention. Saxon Math and Singapore Math have been proven to work in the K-8 curricula, and I feel they are a great choice for any school district as primary math curricula.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
The Trouble With Ideology And The Dawn Of The Age Of Reason
There have been countless articles in the papers and op-ed pieces on radio and TV recently on why the country got into such an economic mess almost overnight. Some of them have been suggesting that the free market ideology, or the lax regulation policies on banks and mortgage lenders got us into this mess. Some other articles on educational ideologies that believe in constructivist learning suggest that they could be part of the reason why our schools turn out such poor performers. Then there is the all consuming presidential race which keeps bringing racial and religious ideologies into the forefront, whether they are relevant or not. That got me to think about the fundamental concept of ideology. If a certain ideologies got us into this mess that we are in, then is the solution an opposing ideology? What is the guarantee that an opposing ideology will not get us into another mess sometime later? Could the problem be the fact that we cling to various ideologies to save us at different situations, without really questioning the validity of believing in any ideology at all?
I am of the opinion that all ideologies were conceived to simplify life. Ideologies provide simple explanations and prescribe relatively easy to understand prescriptions in certain situations. Religious ideologies belonging to various religions lay down how life should be led, and the consequences of good or bad deeds in this world or an afterlife. Various political ideologies favor control of the society by a certain class of people, assuming that what is good for the ruling class is good for humanity. But to believe in an ideology, an individual must see value in what it has to offer. It could be positive value in terms of direct rewards for following its prescribed practices, or lack of punishment for doing so. The net result is that if the ideology fails to show value, it fails to appeal to the individual. So, what are the characteristics of a successful ideology which shows value? I have come up with some ideas below:
1. First and foremost, a successful ideology must be simple to understand. Even a flawed ideology sometimes succeeds because it appears to be easy to understand. For example, when Communism was first introduced in Europe, it seemed so simple that it appealed to almost half the population of this planet, and caused the masses to take up arms and overthrow their governments. The flaw in the ideology is painfully obvious now. At best, it took away all the incentives for one to excel, and at worst, it spawned party dictatorships or individual dictatorships because the one party system made it too easy to do so. Even though the success of communism was fleeting, in historical terms, its impact, good or bad, has been so powerful that it will be hard to ignore.
2. Second, a successful ideology provides some reasonable and immediate solutions to a pressing problem . For example, when Buddhism was first introduced in India in 6th century BC, it provided a way out for millions of masses who found the existing religion and the social structure it created to be too oppressive.
3. Third, a successful ideology is self-reinforcing. Its followers create a system that rewards the believers and punishes the non-believers, therefore perpetuating its existence. This can be said about any religion currently in existence, but it can also be extended to social and political beliefs. Ideology, by definition, creates exclusive cliques or groups. The followers of an ideology may think this is great, because of the rewards they receive for being part of a larger group.
So, what then is the trouble with the concept of ideology? Other than some obvious ones that failed, we should be fine with the remaining ones, right?
I beg to disagree. Let me attempt to explain:
The greatest strength of ideologies, their simplicity, is also their greatest weakness. Let us take the example of Communism. The earliest treatise, written by Carl Marx, was during the early stages of the industrial revolution. Big money built huge industrial infrastructure with one sole end in mind – maximum output. Working conditions were abysmal, and the wages were just enough for subsistence living in slums. All the profits went to the capitalists, who hired and fired employees at will , at a time when there was no safety net. What the laborer saw was that the bosses hardly broke a sweat and lived a plush life, while they had to constantly toil without even the guarantee of being able to make the same subsistence wages the next day. The workers were not literate, and were not capable of understanding a deep treatise on economic theory of supply and demand. Communism was just the tonic for many of them. Revolution provided a vent for their pent up rage, and the idea of everyone being equal appealed to them. Heck, everyone they knew was in the same boat. It was not hard to imagine life being a little better for everyone.
But it turned out everything was not hunky dory after the first revolution. Russia quickly industrialized after its bloody revolution, only to find Stalin rise to power and establish a long and painful dictatorship until his demise. China followed suit with Mao Zedong. Other Asian and Latin American countries quickly followed. But then, a funny thing happened. The same ideology that led the rise of these nations also threatened their very solvency. Since there was no incentive to work hard and excel, the entire economy eventually became filled with workers who got by with the bare minimum effort. “Everyone being equal” turned into “everyone being equally mediocre”. This, combined with the zeal of the leaders to build big militaries, drained their already weak economies. When the only choice left was to face bankruptcy, the leadership of Russia invented “glasnost” , a thinly veiled attempt at allowing freedom of expression. This was quickly followed by the collapse of the Soviet empire itself. China was on a different path, but came to the same conclusion after the demise of Mao. Still ruling with an iron fist, the leadership allowed private enterprises, and opened its markets. So, the ideology where “everyone was created equal” did not quite hold water. The conditions that made it a sensible ideology did not exist any more. The ideology had helped create an entirely new condition, wherein a completely opposite ideology started making more sense.
So, in short, the simplicity that successful ideologies deliver also is their greatest liability. The simplicity is analogous to that of a stopped clock. It is exactly right twice in a 24 hour period. But it keeps deviating until it is exactly opposite of the correct time. I assert that every ideology suffers from the same limitation. Why? Because simplicity lulls people to believe in certain simple axioms, regardless of the situation. The world has become a lot more complex and intertwined in the 21st century for any ideology to be correct for everyone 100% of the time. Believers of ideologies make their own lives simpler by shutting down the brain circuits that would have otherwise be open to examining new situations in their own light. I have seen the quip “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts”, which is probably a jab at such mentality. And yet, the world needs more and more people who can look at each situation intelligently, and draw their own conclusions. Ideologies create extreme conditions that a counter ideology will destroy, thereby starting the whole cycle all over. The fact that ideologies help create extreme conditions are illustrated even more clearly by the economic chaos in the US today. We have had the opposite ideology to communism operating in this country since its inception, at least in the private sector. It has been forty years since we landed a man on the moon, which was a symbolic pinnacle of capitalist achievement. And yet, today the wealth disparity in the US is the highest in 40 years, so is poverty rate, illiteracy rate, high school dropout rate, unemployment rate, foreclosure rate, bankruptcy rate…the list goes on and on. Does this mean the citizens of the US need a counter ideology, something of the likes of Socialism?
Hardly. I assert that every society deserves to be freed from the endless cycles of ideologies and counter ideologies butting heads every so many decades. The only way to do that is to wean the public from the idea that there is a simple ideological solution to everything. Problems today are complex. To be solved, they need all the knowledge, and processing ability that every individual can bring to the table. Reason must replace blind belief. Every problem must be identified early in its cycle, and must deserve the best people we can throw at it. But it has to start with creating minds that are predisposed to reason, rather than belief in an ideology. Hence my oxymoronic statement – believe that one should not believe.
The 21st century will create many new winners and losers. My hope is that more enlightened societies will see the wisdom behind not following an ideology blindly. Instead, they will focus on creating more objective thinkers. They will have mastered all the relevant facts and skills that humankind has learned so far, and use that knowledge to build a better tomorrow. That will be the dawn of the age of reason.
I am of the opinion that all ideologies were conceived to simplify life. Ideologies provide simple explanations and prescribe relatively easy to understand prescriptions in certain situations. Religious ideologies belonging to various religions lay down how life should be led, and the consequences of good or bad deeds in this world or an afterlife. Various political ideologies favor control of the society by a certain class of people, assuming that what is good for the ruling class is good for humanity. But to believe in an ideology, an individual must see value in what it has to offer. It could be positive value in terms of direct rewards for following its prescribed practices, or lack of punishment for doing so. The net result is that if the ideology fails to show value, it fails to appeal to the individual. So, what are the characteristics of a successful ideology which shows value? I have come up with some ideas below:
1. First and foremost, a successful ideology must be simple to understand. Even a flawed ideology sometimes succeeds because it appears to be easy to understand. For example, when Communism was first introduced in Europe, it seemed so simple that it appealed to almost half the population of this planet, and caused the masses to take up arms and overthrow their governments. The flaw in the ideology is painfully obvious now. At best, it took away all the incentives for one to excel, and at worst, it spawned party dictatorships or individual dictatorships because the one party system made it too easy to do so. Even though the success of communism was fleeting, in historical terms, its impact, good or bad, has been so powerful that it will be hard to ignore.
2. Second, a successful ideology provides some reasonable and immediate solutions to a pressing problem . For example, when Buddhism was first introduced in India in 6th century BC, it provided a way out for millions of masses who found the existing religion and the social structure it created to be too oppressive.
3. Third, a successful ideology is self-reinforcing. Its followers create a system that rewards the believers and punishes the non-believers, therefore perpetuating its existence. This can be said about any religion currently in existence, but it can also be extended to social and political beliefs. Ideology, by definition, creates exclusive cliques or groups. The followers of an ideology may think this is great, because of the rewards they receive for being part of a larger group.
So, what then is the trouble with the concept of ideology? Other than some obvious ones that failed, we should be fine with the remaining ones, right?
I beg to disagree. Let me attempt to explain:
The greatest strength of ideologies, their simplicity, is also their greatest weakness. Let us take the example of Communism. The earliest treatise, written by Carl Marx, was during the early stages of the industrial revolution. Big money built huge industrial infrastructure with one sole end in mind – maximum output. Working conditions were abysmal, and the wages were just enough for subsistence living in slums. All the profits went to the capitalists, who hired and fired employees at will , at a time when there was no safety net. What the laborer saw was that the bosses hardly broke a sweat and lived a plush life, while they had to constantly toil without even the guarantee of being able to make the same subsistence wages the next day. The workers were not literate, and were not capable of understanding a deep treatise on economic theory of supply and demand. Communism was just the tonic for many of them. Revolution provided a vent for their pent up rage, and the idea of everyone being equal appealed to them. Heck, everyone they knew was in the same boat. It was not hard to imagine life being a little better for everyone.
But it turned out everything was not hunky dory after the first revolution. Russia quickly industrialized after its bloody revolution, only to find Stalin rise to power and establish a long and painful dictatorship until his demise. China followed suit with Mao Zedong. Other Asian and Latin American countries quickly followed. But then, a funny thing happened. The same ideology that led the rise of these nations also threatened their very solvency. Since there was no incentive to work hard and excel, the entire economy eventually became filled with workers who got by with the bare minimum effort. “Everyone being equal” turned into “everyone being equally mediocre”. This, combined with the zeal of the leaders to build big militaries, drained their already weak economies. When the only choice left was to face bankruptcy, the leadership of Russia invented “glasnost” , a thinly veiled attempt at allowing freedom of expression. This was quickly followed by the collapse of the Soviet empire itself. China was on a different path, but came to the same conclusion after the demise of Mao. Still ruling with an iron fist, the leadership allowed private enterprises, and opened its markets. So, the ideology where “everyone was created equal” did not quite hold water. The conditions that made it a sensible ideology did not exist any more. The ideology had helped create an entirely new condition, wherein a completely opposite ideology started making more sense.
So, in short, the simplicity that successful ideologies deliver also is their greatest liability. The simplicity is analogous to that of a stopped clock. It is exactly right twice in a 24 hour period. But it keeps deviating until it is exactly opposite of the correct time. I assert that every ideology suffers from the same limitation. Why? Because simplicity lulls people to believe in certain simple axioms, regardless of the situation. The world has become a lot more complex and intertwined in the 21st century for any ideology to be correct for everyone 100% of the time. Believers of ideologies make their own lives simpler by shutting down the brain circuits that would have otherwise be open to examining new situations in their own light. I have seen the quip “my mind is made up, don’t confuse me with facts”, which is probably a jab at such mentality. And yet, the world needs more and more people who can look at each situation intelligently, and draw their own conclusions. Ideologies create extreme conditions that a counter ideology will destroy, thereby starting the whole cycle all over. The fact that ideologies help create extreme conditions are illustrated even more clearly by the economic chaos in the US today. We have had the opposite ideology to communism operating in this country since its inception, at least in the private sector. It has been forty years since we landed a man on the moon, which was a symbolic pinnacle of capitalist achievement. And yet, today the wealth disparity in the US is the highest in 40 years, so is poverty rate, illiteracy rate, high school dropout rate, unemployment rate, foreclosure rate, bankruptcy rate…the list goes on and on. Does this mean the citizens of the US need a counter ideology, something of the likes of Socialism?
Hardly. I assert that every society deserves to be freed from the endless cycles of ideologies and counter ideologies butting heads every so many decades. The only way to do that is to wean the public from the idea that there is a simple ideological solution to everything. Problems today are complex. To be solved, they need all the knowledge, and processing ability that every individual can bring to the table. Reason must replace blind belief. Every problem must be identified early in its cycle, and must deserve the best people we can throw at it. But it has to start with creating minds that are predisposed to reason, rather than belief in an ideology. Hence my oxymoronic statement – believe that one should not believe.
The 21st century will create many new winners and losers. My hope is that more enlightened societies will see the wisdom behind not following an ideology blindly. Instead, they will focus on creating more objective thinkers. They will have mastered all the relevant facts and skills that humankind has learned so far, and use that knowledge to build a better tomorrow. That will be the dawn of the age of reason.
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