Education

SOCIAL INDICATORS 2006

Education

Education is critical for societies with complex modern economic systems. However, measuring the quality of education over time is difficult. As the economy and society become more complex, so do the educational needs. As the rate of technology change increases, some jobs disappear, and others are created. Workers have to be more adaptable than ever before and must be continually learning if they are to keep up with a rapidly changing job market.

Here is some of what we know about education in America:

Only 48% of adults age 25 and older had a high school education in 1964. By 2005, the number rose to 85%. The population completing college tripled from 9% to 28.7% over the same timeframe. So how do the most recent graduates compare to students in previous years?

College Board has adjusted the above statistics to compensate for changes made to the SAT in the 1990s. These statistics show the highest composite score (mean of the verbal and math scores) was 529.5 in 1967 and 1968. The composite score declined significantly over the next decade and bottomed out in 1980 and 1981 at 497. That score has risen steadily to 514 in 2005, the highest rate since 1974.

The math score has increased from an all-time low of 492 in 1981 to 520 in 2005. For the last three years, the math score has been higher than the previous high of 517 in 1969. However, after an initial rise, the verbal score declined to an all-time low of 499 in 1991 and 1994. It improved over the next decade to 508. Some speculate that the verbal score was depressed by an increasing number of people taking the test who did not have English as their first language, namely immigrants and non-USA students.

These statistics suggest a significant increase in the proportion of people receiving a diploma and that the quality of education for college-bound students is improving. Still, the quality of education is a relative standard. Forty years ago, more than sixty percent of jobs were considered unskilled labor. That percentage has dropped by more than half since that time. More and more jobs require greater technical skills. The economy increasingly demands that workers be involved in continual education throughout their careers. There is also an increasing demand for people with aptitudes for science and technology. Yet nearly a third of high school graduates can not read at a level beyond the most basic level needed to function in society. Are we effectively equipping students with the skills they will need?

Of the four major areas measured in NEAP tests, only mathematics showed improvement for the oldest children over the past two or three decades. Reading has remained at the same level while writing and science have actually declined. For the youngest children, there is an improvement in mathematics and science scores but no change in the reading and writing scores. It remains to be seen if these improvements will continue with younger children in their academic lives, but it is a good start.

Conclusions:

There is room for improvement within our educational institutions. The rate of people earning high school, college, and advanced diplomas is the highest it has ever been. SAT scores suggest improvement in the preparation of college-bound high school students over the past twenty years. However, the NEAP scores suggest little improvement in the quality of education across the whole spectrum of high school students. These indicators seem to suggest a quality of life that is modestly improving.

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Comments

[Virgil]

I don't know how to feel about government education. As a homeschooling dad I cannot even begin to compare quality home school education with government-run facilities where borderline ignorant teachers teach my kids the fundamentals of life.

Also, the question of "education as a basic human right" comes to mind, and for the life of me I cannot justify the massive and astronomically expensive educational system that is in place today in this country. As the trends of education continue, market economics will dictate that as HS and College education become more available they will also become less important - if in theory it hits 100% then in essence will become impossible to quantify the returns. Really we are talking about diminishing returns here: as more people become more "educated" the marginal benefits will go down dramatically.

[Michael W. Kruse]

Interesting observations, Virgil. I think through most of the 20th Century, the factory model of education was in vogue. Line the kids up in rows and columns and pour knowledge in their heads. Education now requires much greater customization and variation to really educate well. Bureaucracies, which schools usually are, don't often do customization and variation very well. I am not all opposed to public schools but I do think our culture is struggling to find a new model.

Also, with regard to college, I read an article some time back that talked about how college can actually hurt your life chances. People have this idea that if you generically go to college it will benefit you economically. However, if your real call and passion is to something that doesn’t require a college degree, then the years spent in college is an opportunity cost (lost time) and can stack you up with thousands of dollars of debt.

I have a friend who has never been to college. He went to tech school to do computer programming. He loves it. He has worked in it for almost two decades. College would have added nothing economically to his situation and actually would have set him back financially. We need to think more strategically sometimes, I think.

[Kristiaan J. Hardin]

the shock of jobs going from unskilled to technical labor within a generation(forty years) has led to higher drop-out rates, more lower-class citizens, and will lead to, within the next fifty years, higher poverty levels and government-assisted family households.