The media powerfully pounced on Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos when she championed school choice as part of her agenda. “School choice” in the principle that students should be able to receive monetary vouchers from the government if they choose not to be educated by the public-school system. Parents can use this money to send their students to a charter school or a private school, or homeschool their children. DeVos has not been able to push this agenda through Congress because the Democrats are united against her and Republicans are only scattered in their support, however, I believe the merits of school choice should be properly investigated.

The greatest argument for school choice is that it gives parents the right to choose how their children are educated. Theoretically, under this system the schools with the best performance ratings would receive the most students, and subsequently the most money. Other schools would have to compete with these schools to improve their ratings and therefore receive greater funds (“School Vouchers: Pros and Cons” ).

Those who support school choice argue that many times private schools provide a better education than public schools. A recent study by GallUp reported that those who were privately educated oftentimes have better long-term outcomes than those that were educated by the public-school system (Torres). It is important to note, however, that children who go to private schools are mostly from higher-income families and therefore are predestined to have more opportunities than their lower-income counterparts at birth.

Another argument for school choice is that public schools are very inefficient at spending government funds. Former President George W. Bush passed the No Child Left Behind Act to reward schools with productive educational outcomes and punish those that were underperforming. The program itself is a strong source of evidence that the bureaucracies that control public education are not spending tax-payer money as wisely as they should be (the Atlantic). In contrast, many private schools are fairly efficient at spending student funds. In a study conducted by the Cato Institute, it was found that the Washington D.C. public school system spent an average of $28,000 per public school student, while prestigious private schools such as Lowell School charge tuitions of $25,120 (“School Vouchers: Pros and Cons” ). This is largely because private schools have more discretionary power over their spending. In the public-school system, teachers are paid based on seniority and number of advanced degrees rather than performance. So, maybe the problem isn’t how much money public schools receive. Rather, it’s the lack of freedom they have when it comes to distributing their funds. It is also important to note, however, that private schools do not need to pay for student transportation or lunch programs.

Despite these arguments, however, we need to closely examine the repercussions if school choice was implemented. Firstly, school choice could invade the separation between church and state. Many private schools have a religious component. Theoretically, there are methods that could be implemented to ensure that all of the funds from government-issued voucher would only be used to fund secular school activities, however, this process would be very complicated and would only serve to spread the inefficiencies of the bureaucratic system to private schools.

Additionally, a theoretical voucher system would not necessarily provide students with full tuition. Therefore, lower class students would end up having to attend public school anyway, but the public school would now have even less resources. This system would only be benefitting students that could already afford to attend these schools. For example, Indiana has a voucher program “that now costs the state approximately $50 million more in state money going to education costs than originally budgeted. One third of Indiana voucher students were not considered low-income, and, increasingly, the voucher students are from suburban, middle class families who already have access to good public schools. Only 1% of Indiana voucher students were leaving failing schools” (“School Vouchers – Top 4 Pros and Cons” ). This example shows that vouchers aren’t really benefitting lower-income students, they are just helping middle- and upper-class students that already had the resources to attend private schools.

In contrast, however, Milwaukee has a student voucher program that has proven quite successful.  The students in the voucher program are given the opportunity to attend prestigious educational institutions and have therefore been performing academically quiet well according to standardized tests. These institutions have to limit the number of voucher students they allow in, however, because the Milwaukee voucher does not cover the total cost of tuition, leaving the private schools to cover the rest of the cost (Hobbs). Therefore, even in a successful voucher program, the scope of the program’s success is limited.

The idea of a tuition voucher is nice in theory, because it gives parents more choice in how their children are educated, helps middle class families save money, and gives lower class students academic opportunities they otherwise would not have. In execution, however, “school choice” actually hurts lower-income students the most, as it funnels money out of the public-school system and into the pockets on middle- and upper-class students.

Sources

Hobbs, Tawnell. “Do School Vouchers Work? Milwaukee’s Experiment Suggests an Answer.” The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones & Company, 28 Jan. 2018, www.wsj.com/articles/do-school-vouchers-work-milwaukees-experiment-suggests-an-answer-1517162799.

Quinton, Sophie. “The Lessons of No Child Left Behind.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 24 Apr. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-lessons-of-no-child-left-behind/431970/.

“School Vouchers: Pros and Cons.” Penn Wharton Public Policy Initative, publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/live/news/1076-school-vouchers-pros-and-cons.

“School Vouchers – Top 4 Pros and Cons.” ProConorg Headlines, www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005354.

Torres, Amanda. “New NAIS-Gallup Report on Student Outcomes.” NAIS – Brainology, 2018, www.nais.org/magazine/independent-school/winter-2018/life-lessons/.

“What Is School Choice?” EdChoice, www.edchoice.org/school-choice/what-is-school-choice/.

 

 

For several students, attending college was not a decision, it was an inevitability. For the past several decades, the general opinion has been if one can get into a university, they should attend. As the cost of higher education continues to rise, however, people are starting to call into question whether college is truly a worthy investment. Should we encourage students that struggle in high school to try to get a college degree, or would they simply be wasting their money? But if we don’t encourage these students, would we be systematically preventing people from moving up the socio-economic ladder?

In most cases, a college degree will pay for itself over one’s lifetime. According to the New York Times “Americans with four-year college degrees made 98 percent more an hour on average in 2013 than people without a degree.”  According to the Brooking’s Hamilton project, “the average bachelor’s degree holder makes $570,000 more over a lifetime than the average high school graduate.”

Recently, however, a significant portion of college graduates have not been able to attain employment, or are “underemployed:”working in jobs that don’t require a college degree. We no longer live in a world where a college education guarantees a high-paying job. Unfortunately, while any degree teaches you something, it might not teach you skills applicable in the job market. The job demand for an artist, for example, is much lower than for an engineer. Our American economy and society is driven by supply-and-demand, and while art is a luxury for many, we all need engineers to build the roads we drive on.

The question of whether a college degree is a necessity wouldn’t be as pressing, however, if higher education wasn’t so expensive. On average, it costs a student at least $100,000 to achieve a bachelor’s degree (“What’s the Price Tag”).Many students take out loans to cover this expense.“In 2012, 71 percent of students graduating from four-year colleges had student loan debt” (“A Look at the Shocking Student Loan Debt”). As of 2018, the student loan delinquency rate is 11.8%. Perhaps the statistics that report that a college degree will eventually pay for itself are from previous times, where graduates made more than their parents and college wasn’t nearly as expensive.

The high college drop-out rate shows that trying to achieve an college education may not be the best use of every young person’s times. “the Institute of Education Statistics estimates that 40% of attendees at a four-year college drop out before completing their degree” (Hamm). Many times, students are not truly prepared for the rigor of college classes and simply attended college because that was what society told them they needed to do. Oftentimes, these students walk away from college with student loans and nothing to show for it.

Many students are turning to trade schools instead of four-year universities. “Trade school is hands-on, technical education” (“Trade School vs Traditional College”). It does not require “general education” courses that many four year universities require. Rather, students only learn skills that are directly applicable to their given trade. Trade school costs much less than a four year college ($33000), and in most instances only takes 2 years (“Trade School vs Traditional College”).

What detours students from attending trade schools is mostly likely stigma; trade school is perceived as less difficult and less prestigious than attending college. Those that attend trade school are oftentimes painted as “dumb” and not as hardworking as university students. This perception is entirely false. Those that have attended trade school are highly skilled in their fields. Additionally, they are paid quiet well, in some instances they make more money than those with a college education. According to PayScale, the annual wage for an experienced welder can range from $31,079 to $72,159, and the annual wage for a master electrician can range from $42,578 to $94,984. In contrast, the average salary for those that receive History degrees is $61,000. Job demand for skilled vocational workers is also on the rise. Because Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age, by 2020 there will be 31M vacant trade worker positions. Already, 62% of firms are “struggling to fill important trade positions” (“Skilled Trades in Demand”).

Institutions such as Brookings are investigating whether the K-12 schools system should encourage trade school over college for students that are struggling in school. Many argue that this sort of encouragement would concisely keep lower performing students in the lower economic class. In actuality, however, getting trade certification can be more valuable than a four year degree.

There are many illegitimate arguments, however, that try to convince students they do not need higher education. Most names the “famous person X didn’t need a college degree, so why do I?” For example, Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to create his multi-billion company, Microsoft. Gates, however, came from a very wealthy family, and would have been able to return to his studies if his company had failed. Gates even says to this day that students should stay in school and receive a degree, because this is a more stable path to success (CNN). Unfortunately, most people will not have the same genius combined with correct timing as Gates had to achieve success. Therefore, the argument that a college degree isn’t necessary to achieve success based on incredibly small pool of extremely gifted people should not be used.

I do not wish to discourage young students from trying to pursue college, even if they struggle in high school, if that is truly what they want to do. But society shouldn’t pressure young people into thinking that a college education is the default path to success, because it certainly is not. A college education is only worth the effort you put into it. High schools should not make students feel dumb if they do not want to go to college. Rather, they should connect students to training programs where they can learn skills they truly enjoy. One doesn’t need a college diploma to be a productive member of society. Rather, they should learn a skill that helps support and grow the American economy.

 

Sources

“Average Experienced Welder Hourly Pay.” Ecologist Salary, www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Welder/Hourly_Rate/a034d8ed/Experienced.

“Average Master Electrician Hourly Pay.” Ecologist Salary, www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Master_Electrician/Hourly_Rate.

“Bachelor of Arts (BA), History Degree.” Ecologist Salary, www.payscale.com/research/US/Degree=Bachelor_of_Arts_(BA),_History/Salary/Page-2.

Bershidsky, Leonid. “Underemployment Is the New Unemployment.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 2018, www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-09-26/unemployment-numbers-hide-the-effects-of-underemployment.

Fox, Emily Jane. “Bill Gates, World’s Richest College Dropout, Says Stay in School.” CNNMoney, Cable News Network, money.cnn.com/2015/06/03/pf/college/bill-gates-college-dropout/.

Hamm, Trent. “Why You Should Consider Trade School Instead of College.” The Simple Dollar, TheSimpleDollar.com, 19 Oct. 2017, www.thesimpledollar.com/why-you-should-consider-trade-school-instead-of-college/.

Leonhardt, David. “Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say.” New York Times, New York Times, 27 May 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/upshot/is-college-worth-it-clearly-new-data-say.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1.

“Skilled Trades in Demand (Infographic).” Adecco Staffing, USA, www.adeccousa.com/employers/resources/skilled-trades-in-demand/.

“Trade School vs Traditional College.” Trade School vs College | What You Want (and Don’t Want) to Hear, careerschoolnow.org/careers/trade-school-vs-traditional-college.

“U.S. Student Loan Debt Statistics for 2018.” Student Loan Hero, Student Loan Hero, studentloanhero.com/student-loan-debt-statistics/.

“What Is a Trade School? Should You Go To One?” CollegeVine, CollegeVine, 29 Nov. 2018, blog.collegevine.com/what-is-a-trade-school-should-you-go-to-one/.

“What’s the Price Tag for a College Education?” COLLEGEdata, www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10064.

“Why We Still Think College Isn’t for Everyone.” Brookings.edu, The Brookings Institution, 28 July 2016, www.brookings.edu/opinions/why-we-still-think-college-isnt-for-everyone/.

I remember the first time I walked into a DEVPSU meeting, a ten-week course designed to help Penn State students strengthen their programming abilities. I was shocked. All I saw were rows and rows of male students. I found the nearest seat and tried to make myself seem as obscure as possible. At my high school, there were actually more female students in my STEM classes than male students, so I was unaccustomed to being a minority. However, by the middle of my first semester I found myself barely noticing the lack of women in my classroom unless I explicitly thought about it.

Everyone knows that there is a lack of women in STEM, and virtually every university has a program to encourage female participation in STEM. Penn State has a plethora of resources for female engineers, including the Women in Engineering Program, Society of Women Engineers, and Women in Computing. Despite these efforts, however, the amount of women studying engineering remains low. In the 2017-2018 school year, only 19.4% of those that received engineering degrees at University Park were female (“Undergraduate Degrees Awarded”).

Many studies try to answer the question of why female participation in STEM remains low despite recent efforts to encourage women to study such fields. While these studies oftentimes produce differing results, overall the data consistently reports that women are just as capable of studying such fields as men. A recent meta-analysis found that girls actually performed better than boys in math in primary schools, and there was no difference in performance in secondary school. Biologically, women are just as qualified to study STEM subjects as men.

Another study conducted by The International Student Assessment found, however, that high-achieving male students score on average nineteen points higher than high-achieving female students on a given math exam. After analyzing the findings it was determined that the females who took this test experience much higher anxiety than the males (Gjersoe). It seems as if women are less confident in their abilities in STEM, affecting their performance and therefore limiting their participation in STEM subjects.

One of the largest factors that leads to this lack of confidence is stereotypes. In more gender-neutral countries, such as Sweden and Norway, there is no math gender gap, whereas in countries such as Turkey the math gender gap remains (Gjersoe). A study by Lin Bian, Sarah-Jane Leslie and Andrei Cimpian found that starting at age six, girls are more likely to play a game they can win by “working really hard” rather than a game where the player must be “really smart.” Many girls have the innate sense that they are capable of working hard, however, they believe they are not as qualified as boys.

The female tendency for perfectionism also leads to this lack of confidence. Just one look at an airbrushed model is enough to see that women are told they need to be “perfect.” Studying STEM, especially computer science, however, requires failing. Learning to code involves the discomfort of not knowing the answer right away. Girls need to be taught that this that discomfort is natural, and that it brings awareness to the girl that she is being challenged and is learning (Choney).

Another factor that results in the few women studying certain STEM fields is a lack of exposure to the field. There is much greater gender equality in the number of men and women receiving degrees in subjects taught in high school, such as biology and math. The National Science Foundation found 40% of bachelor degrees in math and statistics awarded in 2014 were given to women. Very few high schools offer classes in subjects such as engineering or computer science, however. In 2014, less than 20% of those who received computer science degrees in the United States were women. This percentage is actually less than what it was in 1995 (28.5%)! By exposing more girls to fields such as computer science and engineering at a young age, participation in these fields can increase.

In addition the lack of female role models prevents female students from envisioning themselves in a STEM field. From a young age, all young students are taught about prominent male scientists such as Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, and Isaac Newton. Female scientists, such as Marie Curie and Ada Lovelace, are hardly discussed. By teaching more about female scientists, girls can have more role models to look up to as they study STEM. The amount of female STEM teachers should also be increased. A study conducted by the University of North Carolina found “a positive and significant association between the proportion of female math and science teachers in high school and young women’s probability of declaring a STEM major. There was no link between teachers’ gender and the probability of picking a STEM major for young men” (Loewus).

In the classroom, students, male and female, should be given more opportunities to be exposed to a variety of career fields to learn what they are actually like, so they do not have to rely on incorrect stereotypes. The ability to fail and experiment should be emphasized in the classroom, as failing and learning from those failures is a crucial part of any STEM career. Lastly, by providing more diverse examples of what a scientist or engineer resembles, children will be more prone to think that they are truly capable of studying STEM.

Sources

Bian, Lin, et al. “Gender Stereotypes about Intellectual Ability Emerge Early and Influence Children’s Interests.” Science Magazine, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 27 Jan. 2017, science.sciencemag.org/content/355/6323/389.full.

Choney, Suzanne. “Why Do Girls Lose Interest in STEM? New Research Has Some Answers – and What We Can Do about It.” Microsoft News, Microsoft, 13 Mar. 2018, news.microsoft.com/features/why-do-girls-lose-interest-in-stem-new-research-has-some-answers-and-what-we-can-do-about-it/.

“Field of Degree: Women.” WMPD in Science and Engineering, National Science Foundation, 2017, www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/digest/fod-women/computer-sciences.cfm.

Gjersoe, Nathalia. “Bridging the Gender Gap: Why Do so Few Girls Study Stem Subjects?” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 8 Mar. 2018, www.theguardian.com/science/head-quarters/2018/mar/08/bridging-the-gender-gap-why-do-so-few-girls-study-stem-subjects.

Loewus, Liana Heitin. “More Female Math and Science Teachers Increase Likelihood Girls Pursue STEM.” Education Week – Rules for Engagement, 9 Mar. 2016, https://goo.gl/JWpoVw

“Undergraduate Degrees Awarded.” Penn State College of Engineering, Penn State, 2018, www.engr.psu.edu/facts/undergrad-degrees-awarded.aspx.