Education and Entrepreneurship: More Differentiation

Arnold Kling:

The incumbent policy is more of the same. Both parties in Washington champion more government involvement in primary education and more subsidies for existing colleges and universities.

The innovative policy is to support any alternative to our current education system. Ultimately, we would trust consumers to keep the best alternatives and discard the rest.

.......

While politicians champion more homogeneity in education (national standards; send everyone to college), my guess is that what we need is more differentiation. Students are heterogeneous in terms of their abilities, learning styles, and rates of maturation. Putting every student on the same track is sub-optimal for large numbers of young people.

Some students -- probably more than we realize -- are autodidacts, meaning that they teach themselves at their own pace. One of the brightest students in my high school statistics class simply cannot handle the structure of a school day. He is motivated to learn on his own (he was curious to read my book on health care and asked me for a copy), but he is demotivated by most of his classes.

Some students are not suited for academic study. We speak of the proverbial auto mechanic, but in fact the best career path for many of these students in today's economy would be in the allied health fields. Unfortunately, this career path is blocked by occupational licensing requirements, which prevent many otherwise capable students from pursuing careers in dental hygiene, physical therapy, or similar professions. If we had the equivalent credentialism at work in auto repair, you would need four years of college plus two or three years of post-graduate education just to work on a car.

Kling website and blog.

Interesting timing. I spoke recently with a Madison parent (pre-K child) who agrees with this sentiment (balancing education power with parents via greater local choice).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at December 1, 2006 6:28 AM
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