Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Documenting the Value of Education The 20th century is often called “The American Century”, are qualified to attend college, inability to pay for higher educareflecting the broad influence of the United States of America on tion. They argue that many failing schools are failing particular world affairs during the past 100 years. Claudia Goldin and Lawclasses of students: poor, inner-city, often minority children. rence F. Katz, authors of The Race between Education and TechnolThis is likely a consequence of what in the past was a strength ogy, argue that a major factor in America’s becoming the richest of the American system: independent school districts that and most influential nation in the world was the egalitarianism could choose how much to spend and how to spend it. Freedom and quality of our educational system of parents to move to (1). Rapid technological change a district that provided education [is] an investment in human capital— pervaded the 20th century, and that better education led to technological change could best be competition among such an investment that has paid off handsomely … assimilated and used to advantage districts that encouraged by well educated people. Goldin and most of them to improve for our entire society. Katz see education as an investment quality. Unfortunately, in human capital—an investment that such freedom to choose has paid off handsomely for many years for individuals and for better education is not available to those who cannot afford our entire society. higher housing costs. Moreover, the advantages of education in Goldin and Katz document in detail the positive influence terms of economic returns to the better educated are not obviof a strong educational system on higher levels of technology, ous to those with few or no role models who have succeeded productivity, and economic growth. They point out that educathrough educational achievement. Similarly, reduced resources tion of all citizens also contributes to broader, more equitable for higher education are felt most keenly by those least able to distribution of wealth. Only educated workers can make efafford anything beyond necessities. fective, efficient use of improved technologies. If education is Goldin and Katz argue strongly that changes in policies not broadly distributed, then those who can afford to educate are needed if the American educational system is to catch up themselves and their progeny reap most of the benefits and the with technological change and again make major contributions gap between haves and have-nots widens. The better the match to our economic future. They support better access to quality between education and technology is the stronger economic pre-school and K–12 education for children from disadvangrowth is and the more equitably that growth is distributed. taged families. At the post-secondary level they prescribe more Education is in a race with technological innovation: for best generous financial aid that is easy for students to find and use. results the two need to keep pace with each other. Their 350-page book cites study after study whose findings According to Goldin and Katz, the United States educashow the entire nation would benefit from greater investment tional system has fallen behind in that race during the last three in educational infrastructure, but of course the benefits would decades: “The supply of educated Americans increased greatly be long-term, not immediate. and almost unceasingly from 1900 to around 1980. … But With the current economic downturn there has been a lot after around 1980 the supply of educated Americans slowed of talk about stimulating the economy with funding for infraconsiderably.” For example, the fraction of the U.S. population structure projects and almost as much talk about choosing only that graduated from high school was highest in the world in the projects where there are immediate returns. Stimulating our 1970s but only seventh in the world in 2000. Norway, Japan, educational infrastructure seems to me at least as important and Canada, Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland had passed us. A even more likely to benefit our society, and I think that money graph of fraction of the population completing high school in could be spent on this right away. I hope that President-elect the U.S. is linear with a slope of about 0.1 per decade from 1910 Obama will consider Goldin and Katz’s proposals, which could to 1970, but the graph levels off and even declines somewhat begin immediately and would have major long-term benefits. I after 1980. In 2004 the U.S. four-year college completion rate hope that you will read this book and, if you agree with them, lagged behind the rate for 12 other nations. press for adoption of the educational changes it espouses. Goldin and Katz argue further that not only the quantity but the quality of U.S. education is falling behind. They cite the Literature Cited fact that in the 1995 TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) 14 of the 20 countries exceeded 1. Goldin, Claudia; Katz, Lawrence F. The Race between Education the U.S. scores in general mathematics and in the 2003 PISA and Technology; Belknap Press of Harvard University Press: (Program for International Student Assessment) U.S. 15 year Cambridge, 2008. olds ranked 24th out of 29 countries in mathematics literacy and problem solving. Clearly there are problems, but what are the Supporting JCE Online Material problems and what should we be doing about them? http://www.jce.divched.org/Journal/Issues/2009/Feb/abs139.html Goldin and Katz identify two main problems: lack of readiFull text (HTML and PDF) ness to handle college work on the part of high-school dropouts Blogged at http://expertvoices.nsdl.org/chemeddl/ and some high-school graduates; and, for many students who © Division of Chemical Education • www.JCE.DivCHED.org • Vol. 86 No. 2 February 2009 • Journal of Chemical Education
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