Toxic Trends in American Education

Genaro, here are two findings, or trends, in your articles that caught my attention. Let me explain.

1. Education as commodity – such as the quality of educational programs being offered in these rapidly changing times.

This statement sums up a mindset that is destroying education, especially higher education. It goes like this. Students pay tuition. They purchase an education; because they are purchasing a service, they expect to consume it on their terms. The customer is always right; the provider dare not expect the students to measure up to any standards.

We have reduced higher education to a transaction of no greater value or signifance than purchasing a car or haircut. The customer, student, is in the driver's seat; as a result, if the customer does not want to work hard to meet standards, there is no way to compel this, as long as we accept the notion the student as customer is king or queen.

2. Businesses are expressing dissatisfaction with the skills of those who do graduate.

The statement above rebuts the notion that we can treat education as a commodity and cater to student demands. I came to this conclusion over the weekend. It is this. The marketplace, not the student, is the customer of higher education. Business, not students, will make or break higher education, because it will reject the graduates and move production and operations to workforces with hard skills because of high educational standards and strong work ethics. We more and more lack standards and a work ethic. The result is outsourcing overseas.

Over the weekend, I attended a conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One of the panels was on the future of the economy here. One of the panelists was VP of Johnson Controls. He stated his company locates production because of the workforce, not taxes, real estate costs, sports stadiums, etc. He noted his company can no longer find qualified technicians, and the ones they find lack a compelling work ethic.

Our public K-12 system has led our people to believe that they have a right to waste time, resources, and get something for nothing in school and beyond school. This rot is finding its way into higher education. Why should a student study hard to become an electrician when we can become an investment "bankster" and get something for nothing on a grand scale. We tolerate these vampires on Wall Street and in Washington, and they send a powerful message: You are stupid if you work for a living. This is killing us; it is a cultural (values) issue.

At some point, if America wants to survive, it must make some basic choices. It must reverse these trends. It can expect people to measure up, or we can continue to measure down until the country totally collapses into chaos.