Does everyone need a four year degree?
The answer to the title’s question is of course not. But that fact shouldn’t change the design of k-12 education away from the goal of every child graduating high school with the ability to pursue a college degree without remediation. I do not believe that everyone needs a four year degree. Far from it. Don […]
Education for an old economy
What worries me the most about the direction education policy is taking is that it seems increasingly disconnected from the economy of today and tomorrow. That we are trying to align education to an economy of stable jobs and occupations in an economy where both are increasingly unstable because of globalization and technology. And even […]
Wrong track on education policy
Readers of these posts know that we believe education attainment is what matters most to future economic success of both individuals and communities. That our system of preparing human capital –– teaching and learning –– is economic growth priority #1. Unfortunately Michigan seems to be headed in the wrong direction on both k-12 and higher […]
Machinists and welders
Machinists and welders have become public exhibit #1 of why we need to reemphasize vocational training in high school and beyond. The claim is these are high demand/high wage occupations that are now suffering labor shortages because the culture and policy is insisting that everyone get a four year degree. Lets look at the data: […]
Preparing for a career not a job
Terrific blog on Spartans Helping Spartans by Eileen Lonergan. Its about how MSU prepared her for a career in an occupation that she didn’t know existed when she was in college. The post is titled: “How I Used What I Learned To Build Something I Didn’t Even Know Would Exist” Lonergan writes: When I graduated […]
Productivity up, not wages II
The evidence keeps growing that economic growth is increasingly going to capital not labor. And that unless that changes most Americans are facing a declining standard of living. David Brooks is right when he writes in a column: “For example, we are now at the end of the era in which a rising tide lifts […]
What is quality education? II
As we explored in my last post a quality education is about far more than preparing our kids and grandkids for a job or career. Adult life is about far more than earning a living. In this post I want to focus on the component of a quality education that is about preparing students for […]
What is quality education?
We are increasingly inundated with rankings of k-12 schools. The question I always ask is “would the report’s authors send their kids or grandkids to the top ranked schools?” And in most of the rankings that I have seen the answer is almost certainly not. That, of course, raises the question “why should anyone else rely […]
DEPSA Early College of Excellence
Our Michigan Future Schools initiative is designed to launch new high schools serving students from the City of Detroit that not only will graduate nearly all students, have them enroll in college, but most importantly earn a two or four year degree. Across the country, and in Detroit, we have high schools that are meeting […]
Productivity up, not wages
The Atlantic increasingly is one of the places I go to learn what is happening in the economy. Worth checking out. They just published an insightful article on “The End of Middle Class Growth”. The article explores “disruptions in long-established connections between productivity and earnings, between labor and capital, between top earners and everyone else, […]