Education USA: A Broken System

The education system in this country is essentially broken. Indeed, it is almost nonfunctional since the national high school graduation rate has been estimated to only be around 74 percent. Worse yet, the same study estimates that 45 percent of African-American and Latino students fail to graduate from high school. [High School Graduation Rates in the United States, Jay P. Greene, Ph. D., Senior Fellow, The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm]

Given these statistics, then the anecdotal evidence that Ms. Scarborough cites in the “Stop throwing tax dollars at well-funded colleges”
is certainly not surprising. Even more alarming however is the apparent absence of any discussion of this country’s broken educational system in today’s political discourse. In fact, I cannot recall a single instance where any of the presidential candidates of either party made mention of this national problem.

Finally, I cannot help but believe that this broken educational system is a self-perpetuating, enervating cycle. Specifically:
· Employers keep raising the educational requirements for jobs that don’t really require a college degree,
· Government responds by increasing funding to education, and
· Colleges continue to grow and provide more remedial education.


Dennis