I was at a conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, a few weeks ago and interviewed Craig Barrett, the former chairman of Intel, about how America should get out of its current economic crisis. His first proposal was this: Any American kid who wants to get a driver’s license has to finish high school. No diploma — no license. Hey, why would we want to put a kid who can barely add, read or write behind the wheel of a car?
One can imagine Friedman's thoughts as he filed this beauty: "Suck on that, Matt Taibbi!" Friedman may not have invented the place-drop / name-drop / facile idea three-step, but he's certainly perfected it.
Internet space is free yet I'm still resentful of the resources about to be wasted pointing out how ridiculous this is. But okay: Many high school drop-outs live in cities where you don't need a car to get around. As for those who don't--let's say you drop out of high school because your high school is terrible or you get pregnant or there's a family emergency or you're 16 and prone to foolish choices. A couple of years go by and you realize you need that diploma. How do you go back to school if you can't drive a car to get there? Or get to your job and feed your family in the meantime? Friedman and Venter seem not to realize that a sizeable majority of American teens don't attend Rydell High School. "Don't drop out, Kenickie--you won't be able to take your hot rod to the drive-in!" Plus, you don't actually need a high school education to be a good driver--for pity's sake, Dale Earnhardt was a drop-out.
All of this would be merely aggravating if this kind of sad excuse for policy debate didn't have a real, detrimental impact on the lives of students. When you tell people that large problems can be solved with simplistic, nominally clever policy solutions, you're implicitly raising a question: "If it's so easy, why haven't we done it already?" That in turns breeds cynicism and mistrust, a jaded worldview in which large social problems are either fundamentally unsolvable or hostage to venal politicians who won't do the right thing even though the answer is so obvious that anyone with a lick of common sense can see it. And once you get there, the temptation is strong to throw up your hands and worry about something else.
The high school dropout problem is serious business. We can do better, if we focus on improved funding, leadership, better teachers, curriculum and assessments tied to high standards, alignment with higher education, integration of social services, virtual high schools, and many other things. Meanwhile, Friedman continues to crank out endless slightly altered copies of columns that weren't very good to begin with, getting rich and making the world a dumber place along the way.
9 comments:
The province of Ontario, Canada, tried to introduce a variant of this :
CBC story
but mercifully it got shouted down and the government backed off. It fails to address any of the real causes of the high dropout rate, which include poor elementary school preparation (literacy, numeracy), lack of diversified and technological or non-academic programs for students not college-bound, lack of English skills training for second language learners, and lack of flexibility in huge secondary schools that can't accommodate students who are working while going to school.
Well said.
and Kevin, what did those Finns do to you?
Hmmm. Friedman's idea doesn't sound all that much goofier than "Hey, let's use multiple choice tests as a way to improve schools and teaching."
August,
You're right also.
It's true that simple "obvious" solutions fail to take into account the complexity of the issues, but our biggest problem is that we try to turn everything into a policy for all rather than promoting a range of options to accommodate students with a variety of needs.
We have excellent tools for reducing the high school drop-out rate--including dual enrollment and an early GED--but we persist in pushing up the number of college-bound students by funneling them onto a track that all too often smothers rather than amplifies their greatest talents.
We're not failing because we don't have options--we're failing because we're wearing the Old School blinders when we need a far more inclusive AND expansive view of education.
Looks like you got your Craigs mixed up there. You started talking about Craig Barrett (Intel) then mention "Venter" (I assume you were thinking Craig Venter of human genome sequencing fame).
i remember a college class debate about the legal drinking age. Should it be 18 or should it stay 21? A friend suggested everyone who gets a high school diploma should be allowed to buy alcohol-you've shown some intellect and perhaps could be responsible enough to handle alcohol. Perhaps an incentive to graduate?
I know plenty of parents who wouldn't let their kids drive unless those children maintained at least a 3.0 average. But that should be parental prerogative not a government mandate...
the spirit of friedman's comment is valid. literally speaking, it may be nonsense.friedman's books are hugely popular in india for the same reason.
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