Charles Forelle
"A nation of dropouts shakes Europe"
Wall Street Journal
March 25, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704076804576180522989644198.html
Topic: Importance of education
This article highlights the importance of an educational system to a country. By not continually trying to improve the education of our children we risk long term damage to the country.
“Improving education” may not necessarily mean bigger budgets and what exactly that phrase means is key to the debate. One thing all sides can agree on, is that we can’t afford to raise a country of educational drop outs only willing to move when their welfare payments become threatened.
Key Points: There is a nice chart on dropout rates. Finland is raised up as a good example of education but Ireland was also mentioned. That country has really turned things around in just a decade or so economically and a big reason for it was their educational reforms. If I was to look for ideas here, I would look closely at what they did to turn Ireland around. Just raising taxes and throwing money at the problem does not seem to be helping.
Relevance: Improving education is not just a nice thought, it is critical to the survival of nations. It’s a long term investment.
Improving education is not just a nice thought, it is critical to the survival of nations.
ReplyDeleteYour comment reminds me of a book my doctoral thesis supervisor, Dan Keating, edited called "Developmental Health & the Wealth of Nations." This work used comparative data and gradients to demonstrate the significant association between socio economic status (SES) and health and how societies with sharper differences across this SES gradient have poorer health outcomes overall compared with societies with flatter gradients.
Of course those Scandinavian countries stood out in the comparative data with their flat gradients and higher scores. The USA, Canada, Britain, on the other hand were not looking so good -- not what one would expect from such wealthy countries [Keating refers to it as Modernity's Paradox]. Here's a link if you're interested in reading more:
https://sites.google.com/site/learningcommunitiescontent/demographics-of-diversity/developmental-health-1
It's fascinating to see the data. It is a bit confusing trying to figure out which are the dependant and independant variables. What variables are causes and which are effects.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a lot like figuring out a solution to the common cold... We are pretty good at pointing out the symptoms and treating those but actually killing the virus...that's the challenge.
Thanks for the link!