High School Beats College

I'm starting to believe the nation's better high schools top many universities. Seniors studying physics at my high school were taught by instructors with PhDs. Their first year at college, Physics 101 was usually taught by people working on their master's. One advantage highs schools have over universities is their sole purpose is education. Universities split their focus between education and research. High schools are also top-down institutions. At universities, the inmates (students) are running the institution. Many people advocate for shortening the years spent in high school. I want it increased.

Learn Your ABCs

When Martin Price ran for Springfield Elementary School's class presidency, he promised to bing students the ABCs "Asimov, Bester, Clarke." Prince is a character on the Simpsons, of course. He's the fourth-grade brain, Bart's nemesis and Lisa's rival. And like most nerds, he loves science fiction. Many brilliant people are fans of the genre, such as Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman, yet it gets short shrift among literary teachers. They insist on kids reading works based on ancient superstitions or somebody's feelings rather than facts. Science fiction breeds scientific thinking. Maybe we'd be better off with kids reading Asimov, Bester, Clarke and Ray Bradbury, with whom Martin is familiar.

It's How You Start, Not How You Finish

Here's just one example of how education policy affects other economic areas of our lives. A solution offered by many to solve our oncoming Social Security crisis is to have people work longer. The logic goes that medical science means people today live longer, healthier lives, and they can therefore continue adding to rather than drawing from our national pension plan.
Nice idea, but it's flawed. Yes, old age no longer guarantees decrepitude. But that's uncertain. Your body does still start breaking down more quickly in your 60s. Your mind, too. The older workforce is unstable.
The younger workforce, however, is not. That's why I suggest that if we want to add working years for people, we should front-load them, rather than tack them on at the end. That's done by getting more people earning money earlier. Today, we're moving the other way. The answer is not sending more people to college to make them better educated. The answer is making sure people are better educated so they don't have to go to college.

Goals

I've been an avid blog reader for years and I even blogs for work. I've considered blogging for fun for a while now, but what pushed me into the final decision was an entry about education on Craig Newmark's blog. I'm a business journalist and a parent of three. My main interests are education and economics and felt a good blog could cover both. Plus, I came up with the catchy title. I can't promise I'll always stay on topic, but I'll try to try.