The first thing learned happens before the students/citizens enter the building; the bell rings and they are told to be quiet and get in line.

I don't think its just americans. I'm currently attending a very large school with less than 46% caucasian students. And please don't take that statement as racist, its been a privilege meeting people from all over the world (only use the % to emphasize its diversity). I can tell you though, it's not just americans who lack the ability to have independent thought and critical think.

You can't solely blame schools for not teaching critical thought, the most influential force pushing me to think critically has always been my parents. Without that influence I doubt anything school tried to teach me would have even close to the same impacted on my views.

Over 200 comments so far, surely I can thrown in my two cents worth.

This article reminded me of what I realized just a few days ago, that if our nation decends to something like third-world status or an extended severe depression, our people will be the only people on the planet surprised to see it happen.

One, because overall our culture is too stupid to know it's been dumbed down and too thickheaded to realize the ONLY thing to do at this point is to admit our issues and deal with them as soon as possible. Time erodes our remaining options.

Instead, we look at our health, lifespans and other indicators (we aren't even as tall as the Europeans anymore) and our failing infrastructure and failing schools, our terrible economic situation, our number one in prison population (by all measures, we're number one in THAT)...and somehow our people think this stuff is all going to work itself out. They don't add up the +2 trillion spent on the wars already, and they honestly think our government will make the "rich" people in this country pay for some of it, any of it, forgetting who's pulling all the strings and wanted the wars (but not for oil) in the first place.

While the rest of the world quietly de-couples from us, we yawn and talk about the wars overseas we started. The same people who believed we went into Iraq to liberate them, as if any nation on earth has ever done anything like that for free, for no good reason, and on the cheap. Almost as good a delusion as believing three steel buildings melted down in a matter of hours, straight down into their footprint as good as any demolition team could have dreamed. Three times, in one day, in one place, and all it took was two planes, against all the design specs and most laws of physics. Okay.

It's easy to believe, if you try. Learn something new every day.

Yeah, I'm thinking we might be halfway there already, and maybe we just don't see it because it's happened gradually, with millions of dollars of propaganda thrown at us all the while. And of course, it's us, the best, the US of A. We're Americans, of course we'll be fine.

When I think of the sprawling slums in other nations, Slumdog Millionaire comes to mind, and wonder how they got that way, I think that if it could and if it does happen to us? We'll be the only one's surprised. Don't you think? The rest of the world will surely nod it's head, thinking yes, they were on a downhill slide for a while, they denied it and refused to do anything about it. Didn't even educate their kids, or care if they had food, or a even home, hating the poor all the while. Blaming "illegal" people for working too hard for too little money. No, when times were tough they kicked people OUT of their homes instead, and didn't care that they turned whole neighborhoods into unkept wastelands and allowed the banking industry to wipe out the housing industry too.

Health and homeowner insurance industries so full of fraud, people basically live without insurance coverage without knowing it. They certainly couldn't have known, unless you believe all those people living on the coast by during Katrina would have stood by and done nothing knowing their insurance policies only covered wind damage, but not the complete devestation the water did during the completely predictable "storm surge". Er, can there BE a hurricane without water and a storm surge? Home insurance that doesn't cover the home, health insurance that doesn't cover health treatments, can there be such widespread insurance "policies" without fraud? Our people go unknowingly without insurance while funding million dollar bonus checks to insurance execs. And look now, there goes our Congress giving us ALL over to health insurance companies. Because, you know, they'll keep us all healthy, those insurance companies. Gee. Think they'll get to tell us what we can and cannot eat someday? Ha. Like we'll have food.

And, unlike what it might have been even ten years ago, the rest of the world might not even care that much. They might even breath a sigh of relief, and maybe that's the saddest part of all. After 911, every nation on earth had our sympathy and our support. But now? Now I imagine we're seen as an "opportunity".

I can't say I believe we are for certain going to take a huge fall, but I know denying it can happen at all is NOT realistic. What boggles my mind is that I think we'll be the only people surprised.

I'm sorry, posting this long isn't all that rational either, but I didn't really sleep last night because I don't sleep very well anymore.

aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh. Every day of my teaching career I was certain that one day I would do a rewrite of Ginsberg's HOWL on "Education in America". Not sure if I'm up to it right now but all I can tell you is that the textbook industry, the testing industry, the teacher training/certification industry is too bottom-line focused to evolve to a point where decent sustenance for actually nurturing kids' considerable potential trumps the use of children as a marketing tool. In an ideal world, and even some very conscious families, home/community schooling would be best. It probably sounds harsh, but education is broken because the economy is broken because community cohesion and self-reliance is broken because agriculture is broken because people's ability to even perceive their own strangulation is broken when our capacity to perceive and respect and cooperate with the natural world WE DID NOT INVENT is broken.... So many cognitive dissonant moments occur housed within those factorylike institutions called schools that it is a wonder we can function as well as we do. It is not just the first nations folks (though they are blessed and cursed with the memory of their culture's violent oppression) who have been forced into a situation rendering them powerless against the Masters of the Universe controlling the money pipeline, oil pipeline, weaponry and violence pipeline to assure 'full spectrum dominance', "New World Order", Globalization, "the End of History" or whatever words you want to give this sad delusion of grandeur. Yesterday reading Thom Hartmann's piece on CD on Columbus and the Taino made me remember being asked to help with a social studies' textbook adoption for our school district and how surreal it was looking over those books. They glorified the myth of the beneficent empire (though the E word was never to be seen) and omitted the indigenous perspective and hollowed out the content that might have provided sustenance to students: The actual writings of Columbus, what happened to the Taino, the Nez Perce, the Arapaho and so many other invisible nations now covered by Roundup Readied corn, McDonalds, Wall-Mart and asphalt, Susan B Anthony's courtroom eloquence, Martin Luther King's stance on militarism, let alone what happened in Iran or Guatemala in the 50s...and no mention of union or Indian massacres that might be relevant to students residing in the state where the Ludlow and Sand Creek massacres took place and were headline news for those kids' great-grandparents. I became a teacher later in life than most and did so because of how appalling it was to me to find that my most fascinating 'education' took place in any context BUT in formal schooling. I was told the profession would chew me up and spit me out. It did and now I just try to do no harm.

The only education worth anything is the one that teaches humans how to think critically. Too much time is spent teaching the lower order thinking skills, because it is easier to plan and deliver lessons that deal with memory. The best education facilitates the development of higher level thinking skills, producing an electorate that sees right through propaganda and demands real social change. This kind of education can even overcome the influence of backward thinking parental units, whose ideology is passed down to their progeny as if it were genetic in nature.

Most people think the public schools should be responsible for teaching children EVERYTHING, yet if you calculate out the actual number of hours a child spends in school, compared to being OUT of school, you discover the child spends a little less than 17% of any given year in school!

There was a time when mothers were able to stay home and teach their children some of the basics, but now most mothers have to work, just to help keep the family's heads above water.

On top of that, normal parental pride and defence of their children combined with an army of hungry attorneys have caused a massive increase in the number of things for which a school system can be sued!

As a result, almost no discipline is permitted in public schools anymore! Kids can't be kept after school... can't be made to write "I will not stomp Suzie's head anymore" on the blackboard 100 times, or be assigned additional homework!

For most kids, a good teacher can establish a modicum of discipline, but for many it is virtually impossible to control them... thus hurting everyone's chance for a decent education.

Want more successful schools? Cut the paperwork in half and protect schools and teachers from frivilous lawsuits!-

Sorry Paul,

We're too busy bombing the crap out of other countries, stealing oil, bailing out the criminals in banking and lying about 911 to educate anyone.

Americans are too stupid, by and large, to learn anything anyway. They think the Bible is the word of god. Or the tooth fairy or the Easter bunny... something like that.

If a person learns to count to ten, then learns that 2+2=4, that person, is then able to reason that 2+3=5. The total of what a person has learned is called apperceptive mass and in theory at least the more information included in this mass the better a person's ability to reason. That varies of course but essentially the more building blocks that a person has to work with the better that person is at building. The important thing here is to understand that the ideas created by the combining of learned information has the potential of being original knowledge. All other information is therefore borrowed to an extent.

What is happening in the U.S. is that too many of the building blocks are distortions and falsehoods. As the apperceptive mass becomes infected with faulty building blocks the reasoning process becomes increasingly less worthy of trust. For example, a child learns that "equality" is a "truth which we hold dear" at one point in the educational process; but at some later point that child learns that the "framers" also protected against populism via intended design of the government's institutions. Or perhaps at a more simple level the child's mind is infected with the obvious contradiction between claims of equality and the existence of slavery.

However, this is not to suggest that contradictions and complications can not be learned from, the point is instead that there becomes a tipping point where simple truths become confusing to a degree that the reasoning process becomes a source of conflict. The word "equality" for example means one thing to one person and something else to another person, this makes reason or original thoughts interpretive. This creates a dynamic of arguementation between not only people but also in the mind of the individual. Some of us enjoy arguing of course but for most Americans the reasoning process is too marginalizing and so the reasoning process is avoided and supplanted with cataloged information. This is why most people communicate with cliches as opposed to constucted sentences. This also explains why the hard sciences are advancing so much faster than the soft sciences. For example, the technology to produce enough shoes so that every person on the planet could have an ample supply of shoes has existed for at least decades, but socio-economic solutions are well short of meeting even these simple needs. This because the fields of study are advancing at paces which differ as dictated by truth. Progress is more evident in math-based studies which are less dependent on interpretive reason, Americans are better at producing medicine for instance than they are at administering medicine. But the field of economics includes the extensive use of math yet has enough distorted reasoning to alter outcomes. And so it is a little more complicated than a simple math or no math proposition but until a measurment for truth comes along that might be the best I can explain it in so short an effort. Put simply, a democracy allows progress at a pace determined by the sophistication of its voters.

The solution though is fairly easy to explain. Teach kids to count and that 2+2=4 and challenge them to find the answer to 2+3= . It does not matter how long it takes. Once a person learns to reason, memorizing things that will probably just be forgotten anyway are a pointless waste of time. Once a child learns to reason he or she is then ready to learn how to use a calculator. Not to suggest that all memorization methods should be removed from the learning process, but the balance needs to be shifted toward teaching how to reach conclusions; this then combined with how computers too are redefining the importance of memorizing and the goal of educators could be focused on making the learning process as enjoyable and interesting as possible.

The other part of the solution is to make every possible effort to replace falsehoods with truth. Our collective apperceptive mass must be sorted through and made true and functional. A good start is the conversation our nation is currently having regarding the value to society of bankers as opposed to teachers. When bankers and teachers earn about the same per hour the social sciences will have caught up to their counterparts. The current difference of the value given to those professions, a monetary measurement of vocational worth, may be a good indication of just how confused things are. One could say we have a $400 to $1 confusion rate.

In my experience, schools do not provide education, they provide the foundation/tools for a person to go out and become educated. The newly graduated go into industry to become educated.
I have hired many newly graduated engineers. They have learned how to study, they've learned how to investigate a problem, but it takes them years to achieve a valued education.

I am encouraged to see the volume of posts. Times go by when one feels like nobody cares.

We need to get serious about funding education properly and reducing classroom size. Research shows that overcrowded classrooms make it impossible to reach the student who is struggling.

We need to pay teachers enough so they don't have to take second jobs in order to make ends meet.

We need to teach children to think.

We need to understand the history and politics of our own country.

Parents need to see that their children do their homework and treat their teachers with respect. That said, this can be extremely difficult for those struggling to make a living in this economy.

Home schooling is not the answer to our problems with education. Most parents do not have the time or the resources or the knowledge to properly educate their children at home. The do need to take a supportive role of encouraging their children, reading to them and emphasizing the importance of learning.

I did home school my granddaughter when she was in fourth grade and living with us because she was going to return to her former school. She needed to be following the same curriculum, which was not available in local schools. She also needed to keep working in Spanish, which she had been learning since kindergarten in an immersion program. I have a Master's from Purdue and am a former teacher. We still didn't have an easy time of it. It's difficult to keep the social contact a child needs when home schooling. We took music lessons together, went to a Spanish tutor, and used a local class twice a week for social contact. This was a full-time job, and she is an exceptional student. This is why I don't recommend home schooling for everyone. Too many of the kids in the home school class were not really learning very much. We were successful; she returned to her home school and easily passed the tests to return to her former program, greatly surprising the principal.

In short, we need to fund our schools and support them.

My experience in both industry and education is different. American technical education is better overall, still. A very telling example is that during the exportation of the US industry to Asia, American employees are massively used to train their replacements abroad and here. Trained monkeys don't get the job done no matter how well trained they are. Foreign educated employees are on average below their American colleagues, they beat everyone only in self promotion. Then most Walmart garbage breaks the next day...

No matter how well educated the students are, if they don't get a job quickly and expand their experience, they can't grow, they can't contribute and their education is simply WASTED.

THE SKILLS ARE WHERE THE JOBS ARE - not the other way around.

Unbalanced trade, slave labor and the ongoing race to the bottom are the real problems for America, from there we go to less resources for education, and only then education starts to deteriorate.

To all who think that education deserves better funding - it probably does, but we don't have industry to pay for it. This is the real problem. "Globalization", bank fraud and wars simply suck the funds out of the country.

We don't have systematic public education in this country. Our system is to real education as Jackson Pollack's work is to painting. You throw some paint here and there and see what sticks, what drips. You do the same thing every year.

If you talk to young people who are being educated in Switzerland or Germany, there is a stable system with predictable funding. Teacher training is rigorous and the schedule, benefits and pay attract more candidates than there are openings. There are well thought out and interesting academic and career paths you can count on. The career paths are related to actual opportunities and social needs. There are industries and services to absorb trained people.

I believe our problem lies in a strong belief by some that much of the population cannot or should not be educated. In the past, uneducated people had a place in the factory. Now there is the military. If we had a true green agenda, there would be many jobs requiring educated and trained people at all levels.

Another underlying problem is the localization of funding, which obviously reinforces the existing poverty or prosperity of a community. Education funding should not be a toy to play with. It should be a national concern. Intelligent and judicious efforts to level the playing field would help.

And yes, school systems need to reach out to parents, help them to understand how best to support their children's learning and break any pattern of distrust that exists between the school and the community.

Joe

The last thing America needs is an analysis of Education from economists, the same group that cheered fundamentalist capitalism and made free markets a religion. Like Weekend At Bernies, capitalism now dead, is propped up by citizen involuntary indebtedness in the amount of eighty thousand dollars per person. Hocus pocus economists, who like the weather man, get paid even when they are wrong, are not the gold standard of educational philosophy. IMO, anyone who looks to an economist for guidance in education is brain dead. Krugman, give your ego a rest and stick to correcting the injustice that the economic collapse brought on by those of your ilk birthed, or is cleaning up your own mess too much work? Hopefully, cleaning up your own mess will keep you busy enough so that we are spared any more of your blathering idiocy. In short, STFU !

Manny of the posted comments are good ones. The issue in the article is, however, poignant and of immediate pertinence. I have been a professor of engineering for over 25 years- first at Purdue, and now at Iowa State University. During that time I've traveled 'round the world. Krugman is right on target. The US system of education- especially higher education - is actually in some respects worse than that in some 3rd world countries. In relation to high school and grade school education, we've been woefully sub-par for decades. It has been our university and post-secondary education that has kept us afloat. But in the past 20 years our university bachelor's education has been reduced to an extension of high school. Efforts of dumming down the curriculum have failed simply because there is no lower limit. Worse than that, it has resulted in an educational instability. Students have been exposed to pseudo-education that would insult the intelligence of a 6th grader. They know it, and so, even though they get A's, they know that a million flies can't be wrong- it's merde! And so, often their frustration expresses itself in the demand to be coddled. IF an assistant nontenured professor doesn't succumb the negative evaluations will spell death for him/her.

And now the cracks in the damn have reached the very top. The graduate level of university education is going the way of undergraduate education. Combine this with the advances in countries such as China and India, and what you have is the beginning of the end of any semblance of high quality. The sciences and engineering have relied primarily upon high quality students from those countries. American students could often find a job after the undergraduate degree, and so they didn't have to compete in the GRE competition they they felt was a joke. This is further exasperated by the economic plight. Retiring professors are not being replaced. Professors, many of whose annual raises have been on the order of 1-3% for years are now taking paycuts and forced furloughs. Students continue to be raked ever more over the coals. UC-Berkeley will hit them with a 30% tuition hike next year. Student loans are either impossible to get, or, if gotten, leave students strapped with repayments on the order of $500-$1000/month for the next 20 years. Universities embraced the 'business model' approach to education (i.e. the customer is always right; highly disproportionate raises to the those who bring in the most money; and big bonuses to administrators- even NOW- in spite of insane financial positions resulting from state budget cuts. The university systems have emulated Wall Street in more ways than one. The attitudes of those at the top are very similar to those of the CEOs of major corporations. "I deserve it! Screw the peons!" The US system of higher education is rapidly becoming, in a word- elitist.

Unfortunately, many countries are following in the footsteps of the US. Private universities. Raising costs to students who by their wealth expect to be pandered. And perhaps worst of all, a global job market that is so obscenely obsessed with short term profits that they will outsource jobs to anyone who can maximize their short term profits. I feel deeply sad for young people in the world today. We, their elders, have not only forsaken them, but, what is worse, we have provided them with role models that are killing their spirit and integrity. We lie. We cheat. We bow to the almighty dollar. We, the free love hippie idealists have, for the most part, become the worst nightmares of our youth.

And the market loves us for it. The market of buying and selling souls for profit. Welcome to the 21st century America. I love my students- no less than my own children. They ARE my children. And for that reason I will not pander to them. Sure, they want candy. But they need nutrition. And they are not getting it. Instead, they're getting screwed- royally! Will our university systems and governments (both state and federal) wake up? Not any time soon. And like global warming, by the time they do it will take eons to recover. The irony of all of this is that those who should be in power to stave off the impending tsunami are not power hungry. And those who are power hungry are the ones who will continue to rise to the top.(Indeed, merde floats!) Obama didn't get to where he is by being Mother Theresa. While there is no comparison between him and the last administration, he is, by definition, part of that system. Perhaps Pink Floyd was right: we don' need no education! At least not the type of education that has brought this planet to the verge of collapse.

Is anyone surprised about this? It goes back to a serious question: Why study engineering in the first place?

http://www.eetimes.com/news/latest/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220000561#community

I view engineering, etc as very important, and part of the reason this country is declining is because bad sci/eng education.

Par t of the problem is that due to expansion of the fields, you cannot get a real understanding of both sciences and the more socially important but economically irrelevant studies.

Why doesn't anyone question the obvious? Why does the US government spend as much as all of the rest of the world together on armaments and "defense" (actually when you think about it this should be "offense")? Wouldn't some of those funds do more for the benefit of Americans if they were spent on positive things rather than destructive things?

bligh4

The old "throw more money at it" argument.... American kids no longer value a good education, and that starts with the parents.

There is, I believe, a fundamental misunderstanding as to what constitutes an education. In his book, the 17 Tradiditions, Ralph Nader reflects upon how his father would ask him if he'd learned to 'think', or if he'd learned to 'recite' in school. All too often we hold the mistaken belief that because one can recite information, that one is 'educated'.

A QA "instructor", might tell people to look for a particular attribute because of a particular requirement. This is not a teacher, only a presenter of information. A teacher might have had them research on their own why the requirement exists and what might happen if the attribute was not adhered to correctly. Alas, neither industry nor the government pays for such a luxury in today's society.

I believe that Mr Krugman misses this point in his article. We are too intent upon presenting 'information' in order that the 'student' might succeed in the industrialized work force, and have stopped trying to teach him/her to research on their own and draw their own conclusion. Even our colleges have devolved to this point (for the better part), and give out degrees upon regurgitation of information presented and not upon critical thinking.

The reasons for this are many. A growing population, a rapidly changing technological society, foreign students paying higer premiums to be educated in American schools, cookie cutter teaching colleges, etc.. I've long advocated for 'cooperative' education, in lieu of competitave education and believe that there is the logical starting point... not sure, only an opinion...

Education is the lifeblood of a democracy. Without education, there is no informed citizenry and any demogogue can rise to positions of leadership and control.

A dumbed-down population is easier to control. A population that doesn't think for itself is in little danger of staging an uprising as long as they get their steady diet of "reality-tv" and high-fat foods.

After having been a teacher, on and off, since 1956, I have come to the conclusion that the educational system in the US does more harm than good. When I sent my own child to school, I always told her to not believe everything that they would teach that day.

Being educated is good. Sometimes going to school prevents real education and the development of critical thinking skills.

Notice how many graduate from US high schools and then are so ready to join the military and kill people. I used to be one of those super patriotic young adults. Now I know better.

"If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be 'education.'"

no - that word would be "ruthlessness".

How about repealing the No Child Left Behind Act and bringing back critical thinking?

I taught middle school science for thirty years. My coworker next door had a mattress in the lab store room where he slept during lunch, planning, and sometimes classes.

My coworker on the other side was a dim witted holy roller who once lectured me incorrectly on my use of exponents and gabbed to anyone who would listen about sessions with her psychologist.

Christ, I DON"T KNOW Maybe the one on the right imparted wisdom about which I could only dream, maybe the one on the right saved souls, but for me, from my perspective, it was Goddamn demoralizing.

This is a rich country. Money for education, not space probes, war, or God forbid, raises for members of congress.

You sons of bitches in congress, do you know how the rest of us live?

Stop............

1. The G.I. Bill after WWII and right thru till today is a concrete example of what government CAN do..........and of the value of investing public dollars in education.

2. China's top 10% of all students and India's top 10% of all students represent populations that are nearly as large as our total student population.

We need to get serious about funding education and it needs to be made available to everyone.

Unfortunately, many of the comments here are evidence of the fact that you can provide people with an opportunity for a good education but it does not mean that they will take advantage of it.

I notice home schooling is spreading like a crown fire from sea to shining sea, and a lot of home schooled students entering college with high marks and strong credentials in social activism.

Education? It's just a bullsh-t word to plop yourself up. We didn't need no stinkin' education back in the 1960s to get a good job. Passing high schoold was enough back in those days. To hell with education. Politicians aren't well educated so why must we?

For what Krugman is to be congratulated is NOT attaching his educational claim to Lawrence Summers' "math, science, and maybe economics." Many of the responses to Krugman's article here appear to presuppose this as the model, presumably because it has been the dominant representation of education in the United States since probably the moon landing. Other responses write of the fine arts, and fewer of the liberal arts, with very few of the social sciences. Even those in praise of the liberal and fine arts, though, provide no basis for their praise. A bit of history is helpful in understanding their significance. It is in the 1980s that "math, science, and maybe economics" became educationally wholly dominant as business absorbed public education into a mercanilitic servant to business interests. Liberal and fine arts, and social sciences, other than economics, became dismissed. My suspicion as to why is portraying alternatives to existing society, they were deemed dangerous. Dismissed as irrelevant, they have practically disappeared from Americcan public life. Why they are essential is they provide the knowledge necessary for a democratic citizenry, not "human resources" in service to merchant interests. Relevant here is diminishment of the occurrence of the word "democracy" in public discourse, and increase in the use of the word "economy" and its cognates. It is democracy which has been sacrificed, even by the "math, science, and maybe economics" policy makers. The agents of democracy have dismissed their own agency for "no child left behind."

Krugman takes the Nobel Prize in the category "uneducated". The corrupt Nobel committee gave him the prize in economics for his tireless efforts in promoting "globalization". He's been mum on his beloved unbalanced trade for a year now... it didn't bring the prosperity he was promising. The education system Krugman supports fails the American students but not in math and sciences, but in humanities, especially civics, politics and economics. One can teach math and science till the cows come home but without domestic industry, there is no place to apply them productively. Knowledge of math and sciences is not rewarded, only corruption is rewarded in this country.

How hard is it for the "economist" Krugman to grasp the concepts of balanced trade and balanced books? He fails at every step, he's drowning in the same corruption which his favorite policies perpetuate.

We always hear from various quarters that American students had better become more adept at math and science. In and of itself, this is a laudable goal; however this is not requested for "in and of itself," that is, for the following of mysterious fact for the enlightenment of the seeker.

We must learn the calculus: we can design faster and more efficient fighter jets and predator drones, using in addition the fluid dynamics we learn in engineering-physics.
We must study biochemistry and microbiology for their potential use in bacteriological and chemical warfare, or to bleed the public white in private medicine.
We must major in computer science and computer engineering so that the state and industry may spy more effectively on anyone using a computer.

What good does it do to graduate if you didn't get an education? Our colleges today are turning out uneducated twits.

The "we don't have enough money" scam is done. There are few schools that don't have enough money. Look art what is being taught, look at all the needless requirements for teachers, look at all the poor teachers that are retained....just a start.

No one can teach in a classroom full of chaos and disrespect.

Being educated doesn't always guarantee a great economic future especially if you are female and/or minority. I had to go through hell just to get a somewhat decent job despite all my troubles getting well educated.

This whole article is about the 'government' and what it needs to do to educate the kids and the higher education that is next but as essential as the government is to education and that not including the corporate control on education, I say emphatically that the parents are the starting point of a youngster's education and what the parents are most likely to be, the kids will be too and now back to the corporate side, they are a very heavy influence on what and how a kid learns and that presents the problem of their having turned kids into junkies of corporate marketing that has the huge effect of channelling a young mind away from real knowledge versus the trinkets, flashy and shinny things that have no other purpose than to distract or prevent a touch with reality.

A young mind must be given a chance to learn without the distractive outside manipulations of consumerism and that every little 'neat and cool' product that comes around is not a healthy thing for leaning much akin to kids today can turn on the computer and see information but do they know the back ground that makes up that information or 'neat & cool' product just waiting in the store for the kid to buy.

u c d duks
s i c dem
bu em r not duks

No one has mentioned the Internet. Today one can become well informed in moments on virtually any topic by judicious use of the Internet. Wikipedia, for example, is one of the greatest inventions ever.

No worthwhile discussion of education can ignore the Internet.

I agree with Krugman about the sorry state of public education but cannot agree that the solution is more spending until and unless I can see where existing money is going. Until then it looks like plenty of money is being spent but little finds its way to the classroom.

I see figures of from $8322 to $24,000/year/per child in DC. Multiplying an arbitrary guestimate of $12,000 times, say, a class size of 25 shows an averate of $300,000 spent per class. Try justifying that amount. If average teacher salary and benefits is $90,000 that leaves $210,000 to find and in many or most areas school construction is a seprate bond issue with books being supplied by the state. Show me where the rest was well spent and I'll support it.

You can be very well educated and still left behind and poor. I don't think that academic smartness determines whether you will be a liberal or a conservative. I was a study geek and I used to be a Limbaugh addict because I used to feel lonely and left out. Last year, I gave up conservatism and decided to try thinking liberally. As a recovering conservative, I can't tell you how important it is for children to be treated with respect for self development. Education has been too conformist all over the country and that needs to change. I thank God for giving us a president who will at least honor spirited thinking in education. There's plenty to criticize Obama about but on education, Obama is no W.

What does it tell everyone when 57% of America's annual budget goes to our military for while 4% is allocated for education?
Our leaders are more interested in violence aggression, and military might!

Wow, this got a shitload of comments already.

But Paul, haven't our "elite" universities already been falling behind? Henry Paulson, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, etc. are all products of our "elite" university system.

Apparently, our "elite" schools can't teach right and wrong as well as Sunday school (hey, Jews do Sunday school too), or a good parent. The Daily Show did a great segment on this a while back, I'll see if I can find it.

Edit:

Easy to find:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/
wed-august-12-2009/mba-ethics-oath

It's very funny, have a look.

It drives me nuts to hear people talk about how "throwing money at education isn't the answer". How would they know? When did we ever try it? I don't ever recall hearing about how teachers are so overpaid or have such luxurious conditions that we have to get things under control.

In my state, CO, we are 49th in education spending while we are 3rd in prison spending. Tell me those kids are getting a fair shake. We somehow seem to think that the phrase "you get what you pay for" applies to everything but educating the next generation of Americans. We have been starving education for funding for years, and we still think there is something left to steal back? Pathetic.

These are YOUR kids, folks. If you aren't willing to spend a few extra $$ on educating them, then why did you have them? I don't have kids, but I pay property taxes to educate YOUR kids. I don't complain when those taxes go up, as long as it's for actual education. You people with kids that I'M paying to educate complain more about it than I do.

We seem to think it's more important to buy the latest IPod or IPhone rather than to give a damn about educating the next generation. Keep on dumbing them down, and watch that generation turn out to be even dumber than the tea baggers are now. There are costs to everything, and the cost of this is HUGE.

Why do Americans care less about education than other people? I would argue that we are a nation of peasants. "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." We are not talking about the educated here. Europe got rid of tons of ordinary people who didn't have a chance in hell of making a decent life for themselves. So, they came here, without an education and only the will to bust their butts working, and they succeeded...hard work does have its rewards.

But times change. Hard work alone doesn't cut it. You need an education now. Trouble is, the underlying value--education is important--is not there, was never there. That is why we will never support schools the way they need to be supported, why cultural institutions are begging for money, why libraries are closing, why colleges are in trouble. We all talk a great game about the importance of education, but when it comes to tangible support, where are the dollars? Chasing a new aircraft carrier or those damnable drones or shoring up the balance sheets of sleazy bankers. I can understand why we are the way we are, but I have no sympathy for our inability to change.

Good article, and the general point is well taken; but the statement that "for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars" is ridiculous to the point of being an insult to the readers.

It is true that the Republicans view any and all government spending on services for the public as a waste of taxpayer dollars. But it is ludicrous in the extreme to say that they are against government spending in general. And Paul Krugman knows it.

The only explanation I can think of for Mr. Krugman's blatant misrepresentation of obvious fact regarding the Republicans' attitude to government spending is his desire, motivated by political loyalty to the Democratic Party, to play up the miniscule difference between the Democrats and the Republicans on this issue. If military spending is not recognized as government spending, then the "kinder and gentler" side of the Democrats is emphasized, because the Democrats are indeed a tiny bit more open to government spending on services than are the Republicans. But if the obvious fact that military spending is government spending is acknowledged, then it immediately becomes clear that the difference between the Republicans and Democrats on that issue is laughably trivial. (As Mr. Krugman knows, the Obama Administration is flushing even more money down the Pentagon toilet than did the Bush Administration. Imagine what the impact would be if only a tenth of that amount were given to the states to support public education. Imagine if only 25% of that amount were spent on public education and urban transit and a network of modern inter-city rail lines)

Mark Marshall
Toronto

Krugman accurately points out: "The rise of American education was, overwhelmingly, the rise of PUBLIC education — and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars." (my CAPS added)

Paul is right on target, and its no surprise that the entrenched ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE, which controls our country by hiding behind the facade of its two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy is against anything and everything that's in the "public interest".

As Al Gore emphatically stated in his fabulous (and under-appreciated) 2007 "The Assault on Reason", "The radical right-wing 'faction' (ie. Empire) which controls our government views with utter contempt the idea that such a thing as a ‘public interest' even exists".

It is quite natural and certain that the entrenched ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE (which Dylan Ratigan on MSNBC calls “Corporate Communism”) would not support any funding for ‘public interests’, particularly education, precisely because that EMPIRE entirely seeks extending and further entrenching its own ‘private interests’ --- and enlightened ‘public interest education' of the masses (or peons/serfs as the Empire calls us) would be directly antithetical to their ‘PRIVATE INTERESTS’.

Of course the corporatist EMPIRE and 'Corporate Communism' doesn’t want any government funds invested in educating their slaves, any more than the pre-Civil War southern plantation owners’ Empire wanted to allow any education of their slaves.

The very nature and current model of this hollow and dying ruling-elite’s corporate/financial EMPIRE is built on financial manipulation and ‘gaming’ of casino capitalism, and does not need or want a broad-based middle/working-class of employees (either blue-collar or white-collar) --- which is dramatically shown in the job-less nature of this supposed ‘recovery’ (with trillion of FED dollars to banks) which they themselves caused with the “Shock-Doctrine” near-collapse of Wall Street.

To this corporatist EMPIRE of ‘Corporate Communism’ the ‘public interest’ in educating the mass of serfs is about on a par with the Russian Czars or Soviet Empire dictator Stalin wanting to educate surplus bodies when the ‘grain supplies’ of their economy were a problem.

Education about the historical path of Empires in controlling political-economics, and suppressing of their populations is EXACTLY what this modern 21st century ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE doesn’t want to see any of --- since the more the people really know about EMPIRE the more likely they will revolt again against (internal) EMPIRE and install real social democracy, as our forefathers did against the British EMPIRE.

Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine

PS. The ruling-elite corporate/financial EMPIRE includes more than just the corporate CEOs and traditional bankers, but also the new breed of quasi- or alternative banking financial manipulators that Krugman often mentions, such as; Hedge Fund whores and Private Equity pirates --- who have roles that are almost exactly akin to the scamming ‘trusts’ and private ‘investment syndicates’ that were the names used during the Robber Barron age, and against which the early ‘progressive movement’ fought.

Since other people already have covered what I would add to the discussion, I will offer one other point. How about installing cash registers that don't indicate how much change to give to the customer? I realize that this is a risky proposition, and the business owner might lose some money and customers who have to wait too long while the cashier figures out how much change to give back, but at least it is a start in education.

also, this article's notion that education made america great doesn't necessarily correlate with her historical military and diplomatic activities...one might suggest mass murder and exploitation, combined with merciless foreign relations of a political or financial nature and a fair amount of land and related peripherals to rape and pillage and poison, made america great...

the intentional directing of domestic 'education' is well documented...perhaps if education was more about learning to live harmoniously within the biosphere as a critical thinking, and physically conditioned, individual with the inherent right to self-determine, rather than a confounding of logic to conform to the requirements of utterly fraudulent intellectual systems - systems that, eventually, when misdirection fails and coercion runs dry, resort to societal violence to enforce - perhaps if that were the case, there would greater enthusiasm and success...

hard to get excited about being fed lies and half-truths in an environment not unlike a prison, and having legitimate questions about life and society and science and religion squelched in favor of indoctrination into a culture, and lifespan, of nothing but labor and acquisition of crapola...

According to Edward Bernays, one of the founders of the field of Public relations claimed that in a “democratic society” we are and should be “governed, our minds . . . molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”

"our minds . . . molded"
It is telling I think, that often now when public officials speak of the people, they use the term "consumer".
And all i can think of when hear it,is Pacman.
Little creatures running around who's only purpose is too consume all that is produced.

Back in the early sixties when I started college in California, getting a higher education was nominally free in the four-year state college system and UC. What came into existence during these halcyon years was a student population somewhat similar to the French model mentioned by Mr. Krugman: a class-conscious population that came to describe itself as a "student movement." This could be maintained because of the relative inexpensiveness of going to college/university. And like their European counterparts, the student movement became politically active and attempted to take a hand in the policies and governance of the institutions they found themselves in. Counter to this activist generation, politicians such as Reagan arose to put in place policies that would guarantee in the future there would be no more "student movement." After thirty years, it's worked. Whether or not this was consciously plotted on the part of the conservative elements of the polity, it has become one of the effects of the erosion of spending for education. I believe there continues to be fear of a "French" (or Greek, or Iranian) student movement ever arising again.

Consider Reagan and George Wanker Bush, a couple of slack jawed idiots rolling out of bed every morning with their perpetual thousand yard stares, ready to face the world and destroy the United States. And who put them there? A nation of Sara Palins, proud of their laziness and ignorance and resulting lack of knowledge. Ignorance is bliss and they most definitely follow their bliss.

Education is not important in the USA except for the boss class and a few million knowledge sector servitors.

The mass class is composed of cattle people being reduced generation by generation into a subhuman sludge that can be exploited for cleaning up nuclear waste or eating sewage or serving as live-action dummies on shooting ranges.

Paul Krugman doesn't even have to compare the USA "education" to "advanced" economies anymore.

it is understandable that advanced economies - with much more money - OUGHT to be able to send their own people to highschool or college, if the families can't afford it.

BUT - Paul Krugman should be comparing american "education" and american educational "willingness"

NOT to "advanced countries" anymore.

it should be compared to how it is gradually matched by DEVELOPING economies who have far LESS money to spend .

check almost any Southeast Asian country , with each having a MERE fraction of the power and wealth accumulated and wasted by the USA -- and i am certain the level of education of their citizens , highschool and college are already at least on a PAR with that of US citizens. EVEN with so much less money.

China - is not YET among the "advanced" economies...

and yet churns out highly educated young folks - at least 20 million college graduates every year! who, if they are allowed to "go abroad" to find jobs - could overwhelm americans in "job competition".

for years - a good percentage of higher paid jobs in technology, science, medicine, nursing, research IN america have already been filled by Foreigners ALREADY bringing their education and credentials....

if THOSE people LEFT and returned to their home countries or elsewhere - what would america be left with? a HUGE HOLE of "knowledge"..to be replaced with WHAT?

college "degreed" graduates with the intellectual and discerning level of highschool students who can barely expound on subjects beyond a couple of simplistic sentences.

THIS i can attest to - from many years ago working part-time in a "copy shop" - which itself also shows just how LIMITED creative jobs really are in the USA - and reading the "college theses" of Columbia University students -

i was SHOCKED at how POOR their grammar is, even with the fact that these should have already been "edited" to correct things like , capitalization (like I don't correct here myself) - but more importantly - the MANNER of thought, the depth of analysis, the simplistic sentences.

it was amazing because it was so COMMON - from that of the USA's BEST level of education.

from a personal level:

i sometimes berate myself for having allowed the years of being in america to DRAG DOWN my own "grammar" until the habits of neglect dig their heels in...but one thing i noticed over the years is:

if I tried to "return" to proper grammar in daily speech , americans have that "look" in their face as if I was speaking from an Alien World . and in order to make them "understand" - one has had to "simplify" and adapt the "lingo" or manner of speech that is , at least from what I WAS used to, quite "uneducated".

worse, some americans actually would say:

"this is america, speak ENGLISH"

without realizing americans basically torture the english language and it reflects upon their own lack of intellectual sharpness or discernment or even just basic curiosity - about their own "mother language".

sometimes - i felt compelled to say , even to more senior ones who stick to their notions about "english" :

"yes, this is america, but that doesn't MEAN that one has to speak english IMproperly".

What's with all this Texas and Florida bashing? Sure, my state of Virginia is better than those two in some ways but there are a lot of great things about those two states. For one thing, diversity among ethnics is wonderful and competing with CA mind you. For another, lots of excellent tourist spots which my wife and I adore. Disneyland couldn't be built in Fauqier County, VA but Florida was somewhat wise to provide entertainment for kids and the elders too. I must say that when it comes to state taxation, I'm falling into the temptation of favoring Texas and Florida for not doing income taxes. The economy doesn't appear to be all that bad in those two states and certainly nowhere the disaster of CA, NY, and a lot of upper midwestern industrial states gone rusty. Virginia's economy beats Texas and Florida in some ways but those two states appear to be somewhat balanced. The only thing that keeps my wife and I from thinking of living there are the social conservative lunatics all over those two states giving them a bad rap.

But I will have to warn you that the social conservatives running the states amuck will continue to exist until the Democratic Parties of those two states return to economic populism and stop playing on the GOP turf which is social issues. Race, guns, "abortion", etc ... have crushed the Democrats in those two states. 1998 was the biggest disaster year in Florida when the white conservatives and the Black caucus had a big fight after Willie Logan was forced off a leadership post. I remember Buzz Ritchie on the McNeil Lehrer Newshour giving DLC bullsh** talk about Willie Logan being "too liberal" and not raising enough money for the party. Willie Logan was a strong populist progressive and I'm sure all Floridians who lived in Florida throughout the 1990s know this very well. I have studied these and similar patterns in Texas. I will also have to point out that the majority-minority redistricting supported by both conservatives and the Black caucus had a lot to do with ongoing racial tensions in those two states and I've seen similar here in Virginia when James Gilmore was winning even among African Americans in 1997.

It is not lack of education alone but the way both parties played politics too far that this country has ended up with such disasters Paul Krugman is talking about. Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter With Kansas?" is an excellent book to read and start picking up on the fact that the Democrats need to be consistently populist progressives and not just on the campaign trails. George Lakoff's "Don't Think of An Elephant" is another excellent book to read to get introduced to framing debates and issues well. Education alone is not the answer. Anyone can be academically dumb but politically smart. Just ask George W Bush.

California once had the best higher educational system in the country. The two year community colleges were virtually free and students could transfer on to a state college or to the University of California. And for state residents tuition was modest.

All that has been whittled away over the years with constant budget cuts and rising costs. Republican governors, beginning with Reagan, have hated UC, especially Berkeley. For political reasons. How many Nobel Prize winners do they have? These constant assaults can not sustain what may be the best graduate school system in the world, with the most top ranking programs. That should be obvious. We are only hurting ourselves.

Florid-DUH!

...our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars..

Always enough for them and theirs though...military hardware and casino crap games draining the common wealth.

I obtained a Masters in Education in 1968. About that time there were a lot of teachers who had only been in the classroom for a couple of years who were opting to get a masters level degree in Educational Administration. Once they had it they never had to face students in the classroom again. They could fly a desk and make more money. Over the last 30 years these people have commanded the 6 digit salaries as specialists and administrators in the school systems. When there are budget reductions they are the last to be laid off. They call the shots but know little about teaching. There-in lies much of the problem.
What did I do with my M.Ed? I didn't work for any school system. So don't blame me.

One of my neighbors died a couple of years ago. He routinely wrote letters to our small, local newspaper. His letters, written with passion and truly from the heart, were unintentionally hilarious. His grammar and train of thought were twisted, his conservative mindset saw public schools as obscene extravagances when venturing beyond the 3 Rs of reading, riting, and rithmetic. He seemed to be an extreme caricature of conservatives, but perhaps he was solidly in their mainstream, merely a bit more uneducated. One bit of logic that I believe most conservatives understand, is that more education can lead to a variety of new, liberal ideas. And, of course, that is a danger. One thing I do know, is that the local newspaper has been but a mundane shell since this man's passing.

The US government is very smart....they are investing in armaments so that they can eliminate the competition from countries who are investing in educating their youth! In fact this flexing of lethal and barbaric muscle will solve all our problems concerning competition from all those unamerican nations that are attempting to serve their populations in humane ways!

For all the govt education programs, how about requiring the knowledge of math times tables before students enter high school? Or passing an actual number of courses before becoming eligible for a parking pass??

Might as well crank those presses to warp-speed and print all the money needed - for everything. It will soon be worth NEXT TO NOTHING!

I've seen the predictable, there's-n-point-in-throwing-money commentary about how Americans just can't do anything anyway. I teach at a 2 year state-assisted (our cuts have been so severe, we don't like calling ourselves state anymore, though officially we are a state school) commuter campus. My students sometimes fall asleep in class, not because they partied too hard last night, but because they were working last night. Money matters.

My dad was printer and sports writer for a minor New Jersey newspaper in the 1920s. When the Depression started, he was unemployed, and decided to become a doctor. With part-time work, low tuition, and scholarships, he went through pre-med at Cornell University and medical school at Columbia University. He said the Great Depression was the best thing that happened to him, because it started him on a course of education he would not have otherwise started. As the economy collapses and unemployment increases, that is exactly the situation in which schools at every level need to open their doors.

republicans are blocking recovery at every turn

education should be funded totally but he federal government, they are the only ones who can tax corporations without them threatening to go to another state

That may be easy to say for those of us who live in the most conservative small towns or in states like Mississippi where I live but even educated people can act backwards on economic matters. It doesn't take education to gain compassion. It takes pain, suffering, and learning experience. That's the real education we should be talking about. I don't believe that throwing money at the problem will solve anything. In my state of MS, African Americans are given meager education while whites get a little more and yet African Americans vote for good economic policies while most whites vote against their own economic interests.

"...and for the past 30 years our political scene has been dominated by the view that any and all government spending is a waste of taxpayer dollars."

Unless it's trillions for arms and wars.

I mean, c'mon, Mr. Krugman. surely you know that the last thirty years have been dominated by shifting wealth ever-upwards. This was accomplished not merely through not spending money on education but by cutting taxes, allowing corporate crime to go nearly-universally unpunished, and perpetuating and funding conflict worldwide through arms and other means.

I know you're an esteemed economist, but how can you write such a glib statement and expect it to go unnoticed? If you truly believe your statement, you've lost all credibility; the amount of glaring counter-evidence is so stupendously large that one is forced to conclude you are either glib, or merely stupid.

Or, perhaps most likely, merely established.

We need to wage a War on Education!

Or would it be a War for Education?

We need to defeat those communist socialist Hitler youth jack booted thug government radicals who are standing between our children and their corporate produced textbooks!

Let's commence bombing!

Does anybody have any idea which country we should bomb?

The biggest failing in "education", at all levels, is the failure to teach political economy. Krugman is a prime example of this.

ignorance is the backbone of america

only in ignorance can you live here - deep and profound ignorance at that - hopeless ignorance

i believe america is the only country in the world where creationism isn't a cartoon - it is reality - who needs that crap about evolution

god made the damn world in 6 days and rested on the 7th

that's why we have sunday - to rest our weary abortion hatin bones

only in america is newt gingrich considered - and i must say i really got a good laugh out of this - an intellectual

good one

only in america is an alcoholic drug addict allowed to steal two elections and start a war on phantoms

america is the last country in the world to believe the 9/11 tv show - there are folks living in huts in the congo who know it was an inside job

fat boy limbaugh and glen peckerhead - sob sob - i love my country man - hannity and billo - pat robertson, let's not forget palin or how about the moron from the midwest - bachman

only in america

gop'er craig giving blow jobs in the men's can and dem barney frank running a male whore agency out of his apartment

"keep the guvermen out of my medicare"

ronald reagan was smart they say - real smart - he was so smart we, as a country, couldn't even tell he was senile while in office

we are so stupid we fell for the nwo shill barry obama - we got sucked in hook line and sinker - man do i feel cheap and used

like i said - we are stooooopid

I beg to differ with prof Krugman. The problem is not money. The problem is mindset. How would throwing more cash at schools help students who graduate cannot add/subtract/read/write at highschool level? That is basic stuff. You don't even need any equipment to teach those skills. Yet I see a lot of 20somethings who cannot do math. Ant don't get me started on spelling.