Reinventing America's schools (Part 2) - interview with David Osborne | VIEWPOINT

[@Darkon47]

While improving the quality of our public primary and secondary schools is a serious concern, we really do need to look at colleges as well, because the work environment considers a bachelors to be the bare minimum for any position now, which is really sad, as it means that colleges are devaluing the bachelors degree to get people jobs, and it feels like a master's now is equivalent to a bachelor's of 30 years ago. Furthermore, with the cost of college rising endlessly, and being up front on the student, this creates the increasing inequality you speak of in this video. I always have advocated that colleges should make a significant portion (5-50%) of your disposable income after graduating for the next 10-20 years, so long as the position is relevant to the classes you took. Doing so encourages colleges to help their students connect to better positions out of more than just altruism and reputation, while also generally increasing the income of more successful colleges, and weeding out degree mills that don't actually benefit their students. The biggest flaw in such a system is staying afloat for those first few years, as the college would be operating with no tuition revenue for that time.

[@adamnathan860]

I love the way you're thinking! I think that the relationship between schools and colleges are ineffably important. As a private high school junior in Memphis, Tennessee, I am currently faced with the decision of where I want to go to college. I feel as though a bachelor degree seems necessary because of American culture and the lack of low skill jobs. I cannot imagine, as a high schooler, a reality where I, and everyone I know at school, did not go to college. It is simply unheard of in our society. Furthermore, outsourcing plays a huge role in the lack of low skill jobs. I believe outsourcing is a much bigger problem than automation. What's your take on how American culture and oursourcing affect the need for a bachelors degree? Do you think that we are able to change that need through local, state, or even federal policy?

[@Darkon47]

I think a large part of the problem is the idea that a degree implies competence, and a lack of a degree implies incompetence. Outsourcing I don't think is as much of a problem, yes a lot of jobs are lost to it, but those jobs would probably all be automated if it wasn't cheaper to outsource them. the biggest concern I find with the job market is employers want people to already be trained in their specialized field, or view having a related degree as the necessity for training someone. What I find truly reprehensible about the school system is that the reputation of a school matters far more than the quality, or what you actually learn there. I tutored a Yale student in computer science, and it shocked me to discover that what she was learning in class by the time spring break started was already covered within the first two weeks in the intro course at my college. Sure, the material was dressed up nicely, and the program was fairly complex and did something nice, but all the student had to do for it was the basic reading of a text file, and not crashing if there was an error was extra credit! I am going into teaching now, and Yale was teaching that at the same time in the semester as a high school would. Yet, despite these flaws, you can get a job in the field far more easily just by saying you went to Yale. To me part of the issue I see with the culture and some of the policies is the notion that the unemployed are worthless. We are progressing towards a post-scarcity society, but the culture is lagging so far behind the tech that even though we will be able to automate the basic needs of everyone, and do so sustainably, we will not, because we care more about having people working, than we do about having people able to work.