By: Neda Ghomeshi / Opinion Editor
Neda Ghomeshi / Opinion Editor
The education system in the United States is not where it needs to be to address the needs of our society.
The labor force of the future is being educated in other countries to a degree that leaves the U.S. workforce far behind. The status quo in how we educate our children has run its course and has proven to be ineffective.
A solution for the U.S., commonly encouraged by President Barack Obama, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and Microsoft founder Bill Gates, is to allocate more funds, time, energy and resources to education. One means to get to all of those objectives is through the Department of Education.
The original Department of Education was created in 1867, however, Congress re-established the current U.S. Department of Education in 1980. The department’s official mission is to “promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.”
In Oct. 2010, I wrote a column for FIU Student Media addressing global competitiveness by explaining the differences between the lagging education system in the U.S. and the progressive education systems of China, Finland and India.
A year has passed, and yet, no concrete steps have been taken at the legislative level. Worse yet, some members of Congress and GOP candidates for the 2012 presidential elections have proposed the elimination of the Department of Education.
Last week, Zakaria dedicated his show, “Global Public Square,” and his tweets to fixing the education system in the U.S. One of his tweets explained a fundamental difference between the U.S. and South Korea.
He said, “There are 205 school days in South Korea’s calendar – 25 more than in the U.S.” Basically, over an academic career, South Korean students spend two more years in school than U.S. students. As a result of rigorous education, Seoul, the capital of South Korea, is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.
The U.S. must catch up to its counterparts, and do it fast in order to remain as the dominant economic power in the world. Aggressive steps are needed to reverse the course we have been on for so long. The time for marginal improvements has expired.
Instead of supporting additional spending on education, some members of Congress are vehemently against allocating funds and adamantly search cutting funds to all departments, including the Department of Education. Republican Representative John Kline claims that supporting the Department of Education is a waste of time and resources.
He said, “Throwing more money at our nation’s broken education system ignores reality and does a disservice to students.”
Blatantly ignorant statements, such as those given by Rep. Kline, are part of the reason why America is economically struggling.
We need to increase the hours our students attend class, increase the work load, improve teacher qualification and so forth. These things can only happen with more funding.
Rep. Michelle Bachmann, Minnesota representative and a GOP candidate for the 2012 elections, is notorious for her blatantly ignorant comments. According to the Associated Press, Bachmann “wants to abolish the Department of Education, which she calls unconstitutional.”
At least Mitt Romney, also a GOP candidate for the 2012 elections, now understands the importance of the Department of Education; he said he was “wrong earlier in his career when he wanted the Education Department shut down.”
Words alone won’t fix the problem we face. It is time to rededicate our efforts to revamp our educational system to prepare our workforce for the global challenge we face.
“Econ with Neda” is an economics op-ed column that runs every other Monday.
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