The Colbert Report is hardly the space for government officials to lay out their ideas, but it only took a few minutes of an interview with US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan for me to feel depressed about the country’s education leader. Duncan essentially laid out the following logic behind the government’s latest education initiative, Race for the Top:
- There’s high unemployment in America
- Schools are responsible for fixing this problem
- Schools fix this problem by making sure everyone earns at least a GED
- Once everyone has a GED unemployment will vanish
Each word out of Duncan’s mouth left me feeling more disappointed than the last. There certainly is high unemployment in America, but is that due to our education system or is it due to an economic system which is structured to intentionally keep a reserve labor force on the sideline in order to maintain low wages and a power relationship that favors the employer? I would argue for the latter.
Secondly, does our Secretary of Education really view education primarily as a process which will help people to get a job? I believe he does, and this is what depresses me most. In the interview, Duncan more or less stated that people without GEDs are considered unemployable. I don’t doubt that employers possess this attitude, but it’s not like unemployment will disappear once everyone has a GED. Just ask the thousands of unemployed Americans who own a college level diploma. Unemployment will always exist with our current economic structure, Duncan’s naïve to think that employers are just holding out for a more qualified workforce to emerge. People without GEDs are certainly at the bottom of the employment barrel, but if everyone attains a GED it merely means the bottom will be more qualified, not that unemployment itself will evaporate.
By maintaining this attitude Duncan is essentially encouraging education to continue down its current path, which is unfortunately that of degree chasing. People should be going to school because they want to learn things, not to obtain a piece of paper which validates your qualifications to serve as a laborer. During the interview, Colbert asked why memos and instructional manuals are being inserted into the curriculum in place of classic literature. Duncan offered a weak reply, stating that “a memo or manual here or there won’t hurt.” Unfortunately, Colbert didn’t ask him to explain how it will help, but I have a feeling that his answer would have contained as much substance as his ideas on education, which is very little.
