U.S. education system is failing

guest commentary by Jack Moseley, former award-winning editor of the Times Record

Most people will tell you the worst will be over once the stock market stabilizes. Don’t believe it. This country is headed for a roller coaster of rapid fire changes over the next few years.

Most people will tell you the biggest change for better or worse will be the way health care is delivered to the American people. Don’t believe it. The biggest consequence of the recession, financial crisis, semi-depression or whatever you choose to call it will be in the way education is delivered to the American people.

The public school system and higher education represent the most entrenched social system in our society. Yes, expanded regulation and reform of our financial system will happen. Yes. Health care and the ways in which we pay for it will be vastly different 10 years from now. It likely will be universal, with all our health histories and information on the inner workings of our gizzards computerized for instant recall virtually anywhere on the face of the earth.

But the biggest reform that must happen if this nation is to retain its status as a/the leader of countries on this planet has to be education.

Call it socialism or whatever you wish, public education will become more performance based than most people can imagine today. Not just the teachers and professors, but the students as well.

For this county to retain its position in the world, we must do better than we have done up to now. The one wonderful period in the history of our educational system was the GI Bill after World War II that totally changed the face of America for the better. It was something we needed to do. It was the right thing to do at the right time in our history as the majority shifted from the small towns and farms to cities and suburban living.

Public education, despite both isolated improvements and many disappointments, continues to falter, stumble and slide backward more than this country can afford to maintain its position in the world.

In my view, higher education is even more of a disappointment. Rising costs — $1,000 or more just for books for one semester, for example — are denying many the education they and this country deserve to be strong, smart, innovative and on the cutting edge of the future. Tuition costs must be brought under control. Major reforms in the ways learning is delivered are essential.

I cannot tell you what forms all the changes in education will be, of course. But I have some idea of the directions those changes will take.

I believe a degree of discipline will have to be restored to the young people of the United States. One way to do this will be the establishment of a program of national public serve in and out of military uniforms for all able bodied young men and women.

Another shift will be career testing all students before graduation from high school. Scores could determine whether public funds should be invested in those who cannot otherwise afford post-high school education in one or more fiends of work — college and academic learning and the sciences or vocation education for good-paying jobs as plumbers, electricians, brick layers, etc. Perhaps there could be a third area of work such as law enforcement and public service employment.

This is what already is being done in other countries, and it is, I believe, why those nation are improving their standards of living faster than we are.

Education is the essential key to all our futures on this earth. To simply accept it as it is today in this country is simply unacceptable.

Life, luck and -30-.