As we meander through the pros and cons of the proposed solutions to America’s educational problems, we easily become lost. There are no simple solutions to our problems, despite what is written across cyberspace and into newspaper columns daily. The problems are too complex for any fast fix.

We discuss longer school years, longer school days, early enrichment programs, and smaller class sizes. We talk about more intensive teacher training. We write articles about raising the bar and creating tougher standards. In a gingerly fashion, we sometimes even address the issue of educational funding, although one problem with attacking the funding problem is that the current system tends to work very well for our legislators. They don’t live in our poorest school districts and when they do, like the President, they send their children to private schools.

I believe part of the problem can be found in the steadily increasing centralization of education. We are standardizing education at a time when our population is diversifying. We are taking control away from local officials and local school boards by  creating national requirements, many of which take away/reallocate scarce  local resources. All across America, academically healthy districts are devoting time and money to preparing for the common core curriculum even though their students are/were doing great under the old standards. Academically-challenged districts are also preparing for the new curriculum, even though preparing for a harder test when you can’t yet pass the first test seems absurd. Can’t pass the test? We’ll make it harder!

(The people who came up with that solution ought to demand their college tuition back. They’ve learned so little about how the world works that I think they are entitled to the refund.)
 

Eduhonesty: Discussing plans we can never put into action cannot help us. Discussing plans we SHOULD NOT put into action helps us even less.

When we read these articles about new graduates struggling with loan debt, or see these students on TV, it’s worth paying attention to the fact that the graduates in question are hardly ever engineers or computer programming students. Liberal arts majors need to recognize the greater risk in their loans. If you want to study art history, fine, but don’t delude yourself into thinking you will find a high-paying job in the field. You will be extraordinarily lucky to find any job at all.

Super low or even low loan rates can sound like a deal.

My daughter: “Mom, I saved $200 on these boots. They were only $150 dollars.”

It’s her money and she’s a sharp girl, if a little too fond of flashy boots. But many people respond to deals this way. I can easily hear a similar young woman saying, “And the interest rate is only 3.8%. I saved so much money!”

Then year by year, this same girl will “save” money as she tacks another ten or fifteen thousand onto her debt.

Kids take loans out without thinking. Parents obligate themselves without thinking. They don’t necessarily run the numbers to find out what will be coming at them in a few years.

Students and their parents need to run those numbers and ask themselves a few pertinent questions: What is the job market for dance majors? How much are loan payments likely to be? How much money will I have to make to pay that loan back? Higher loan rates are likely to stimulate thinking that does not happen nearly often enough.

Eduhonesty: The U.S. government is selling college to America’s students. They want to keep the loan rates down to encourage college enrollment. But legislators and members of the Department of Education don’t pay the loan debts they facilitate. They don’t forgive them either.