The Free Market for Education is Adapting

I had the good fortune to send my kids to college using the Florida Pre-paid Tuition Program.  Before 529 plans, Florida’s program allowed you to make monthly payments while your kids were growing up.  When they matriculated, the program paid for 120 credit hours plus room and board for 4 years.  College was an imperative for those who wished to succeed and the program saved me a healthy 5-figure sum of money.

Recently, the Wall St. Journal published an article about a High School dropout with a clear vision of his future and how to succeed.  That may sound like an oxymoron; but it’s not.  We all know that the cost of a college degree is unaffordable for many and that many well-educated 20-somethings find themselves underemployed.  That business degree from no-name university doesn’t get us the dream job we thought it would.  The young man featured in the article had decided to be a welder.

Welding may sound fairly simple, if a bit dangerous.  However, in the modern age, knowledge of metallurgy and physics is required.  A welder needs to be able to read and interpret blueprints and creatively solve problems. 

A welder doesn’t need a college degree.  He or she needs specific training.

The mainstream press has finally caught up.

In a post to this blog last year (Don’t Send Your Kids toCollege), I described programs developed by local governments, employers and community colleges that are designed to train students to work in modern, automated factories and oil fields (where welders are much in demand).  Earlier I had written about the apprenticeship model and programs to make it work in this country (Is the Education We Want, the Education We Need?).

These nascent models are challenging the existing paradigm.  Four-year college may not be the best course for all; and, the free market is providing an alternative.  It’s creative destruction at its best.

Colleges have begun to adapt.  Non-profit corporations like Coursera, Udacity and edX have created Massive On-line Open Courses (MOOC’s) that deliver the course content of leading academics to thousands of students.  In a world where college students often attend classes on-line while lying in their dorm room beds, do we really need to fund all the overhead of maintaining a college campus?

We take for granted that universities will change their programs to offer the best value for their prospective students.  It’s a free market model to which we have become accustomed.

Now, the effort to create great high schools has begun.  In study after study, we read how American students are falling behind those in other industrialized countries.  Here in Rochester, NY, our inner city schools are ranked among the lowest in the nation in graduation rates and demonstrated proficiency upon graduation. 

Can the free market provide a solution?

This fall, inner city families will have a choice of 18 charter schools to which they can send their children.   Non-profit corporations, like e3 Rochester, have responded to the need to develop a highly qualified workforce to work in 21^st Century workplaces by creating competition to the public school system.

Charter schools are very controversial.  Free public education is embedded in American life.  And, we have become accustomed to having it provided by the government.  It was promoted in the Virginia Commonwealth by James Madison before the American Revolution and by George Washington in his farewell address in 1796.  And, it’s fair to say that not all charter schools live up their billing.

But, the system is failing us – particularly in the inner cities.  New York’s state government sends the Rochester school district over $19,000 per student per year. The school district allocates about $13,000 to charter schools for those who opt for that choice.  As for the balance – well the taxpayers are covering overhead and salaries for the public school system despite their inability to provide a quality education. 

Charter schools are not a panacea.  They represent a choice. 

Parents who wish to send their children to college have choices.  Those who want a college education and who have done well in school can choose among universities -- public and private, large and small.  Why shouldn’t they also have a choice of high schools?

WHO WILL LEAD?

Strange bedfellows: conservative politics and the religious right

Cliché alert:  “politics make for strange bedfellows”. The phrase is attributed to Charles Dudley Warner, a 19^th Century American essayist, and survives as a cliché because its truth reveals itself so often. 

The Reagan Revolution, the conservative movement that started in 1980, was enabled by the empowerment of three elements:  business interests, proponents of a strong military defense and the Christian right.  Over the last 30 years or so, the former two have had their way with government.  The latter has earned few victories for its agenda.  Until now, that is.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself. 

Conservatives rely on the principles of our nation’s founders to guide them. 

Capitalism and freedom are at the heart of those principles. 

The capitalist revolution started in late 18^th Century Great Britain.  Scottish thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith defined its philosophy.  The capitalist system ended feudalism and dictatorship, where the fruits of one’s labor were the property of the crown.  Its basis was the radical idea that God granted rights to individuals not to monarchs; and, central to that idea, was the right to pursue one’s own happiness.  Capitalism was (and is) the expression of that pursuit.

Separation of church and state is at the core of this philosophy.  We are so accustomed to taking this freedom for granted that we don’t think about the connection.  However, we have seen how the connection of church and state historically has resulted in the denial of freedom. 

We have recently seen the effect of the Taliban on a society that can only be called medieval.  It’s also easy to find examples in western society – the Spanish Inquisition and the Salem witch trials come to mind.  And, there are examples that precede Christianity.  Indeed, Socrates was executed because he refused to accept the polytheistic religion of ancient Greece.

So, the connection between the religious right and conservatives in the US seems more than a bit odd to me.

The recent Supreme Court decision, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, serves as an example of this anomaly.  The court granted the right for closely held private companies to be exempt from the provisions of the Affordable Care Act that require healthcare plans to cover the expense of certain contraceptives.

But, I’m getting ahead of myself again. 

Two years ago, the Court decided that the government has the right to impose its healthcare law (the Affordable Care Act or ACA) on the American public under its right to levy taxes. 

Really? 

I’m not a constitutional lawyer; however, I have read the Constitution.  The Court’s decision blew me away when it was handed down.

In Hobby Lobby, the Court created an exception.  If the ACA requires you, as an employer, to provide coverage that violates your religious freedom, you have the right to carve out that particular requirement. 

Wait a minute!  It’s either right or it’s wrong.  It’s either constitutional or it’s not.  Why are we making exceptions?

This may seem like a minor matter.  However, the decision is the result of a larger campaign to deny reproductive rights to women.  Lest you think I have come loose from my moorings, I’ll pass on a quote from Judie Brown, president of the American LifeLeague:  “we see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion”.

If you dig a little, you can find evidence of an insidious campaign to undermine free choice not only of contraception but also of sexual activity.  During FDA meetings in 2005 concerning the morning after pill known as Plan B, Dr. Janet Woodcock, deputy commissioner for operations at the F.D.A., expressed a fear that making the drug available over the counter could lead to "extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an 'urban legend' status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B."

Lest you think that the movement stops short of invading your marital bedroom, here’s Kimberly Zenarolla of the National Pro-Life ActionCenter:  “We are opposed to sex before marriage and contraception within marriage…. [T]he sexual act is meant to be a complete giving of self….  [I]ts purpose is procreation… By using contraception, they [a married couple] are not allowing the fullness of their expression of love. To frustrate the procreative potential ends up harming the relationship."

Forty years after women were granted the right to reproductive freedom, those who oppose it, are chipping away at its foundation by any means possible.

Conservatives who espouse freedom – from free markets to free speech to freedom of religion – should see the religious right and their abhorrent influence as a scourge on the principles of our founders and rid themselves of it once and for all.

WHO WILL LEAD?