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Will Education Fix Our Political Polarization?
Many folks on both sides of the political spectrum will tell you that the reason their political opposition doesn’t agree with them is a lack of education. This can go as far as groaning about uneducated (typically either poor rural or poor urban) hordes voting en masse after being fooled. Education, therefore, is the fix for the crippling political divide we have. If people are educated, they’ll agree on the facts, and we’ll be able to move forward.
But does this claim hold up to evidence?
Education in America, Pt II
After busting some myths about US education performance and its causes, we interview renowned SF Teacher of the Year Lana Corda to understand some of the challenges facing one of the toughest school districts in the country. We learn a lot about the on-the-ground details about some of the barriers to improving student performance.
Education in America, Pt I
How’s the US education system performing relative to other countries? How can we improve our own performance?
There are many opinions and narratives about what to do, and in this episode, Xander and Erik dive into the data to understand which hold water, and which are swept away by facts.
Measuring Poverty for Education
In researching our upcoming podcast on the US education system, I came across an interesting debate about how to best measure poverty. Since poverty is correlated with poor academic performance (see chart below), the dialogue was focused on whether the US has higher than average poverty rates compared to other countries, which could explain the US’ low test scores.
What I’ve Learned So Far Trying to Figure Out the Quality of US Education
“What’s wrong with the US education system?” This is something I hear a lot, and we probably all do. The second thing we probably hear about education is that we should spend a lot more on it. Finland, which is looked at as probably a gold standard of education, gets a lot of attention from those trying to reform. What’s going on, and what can we do about it?
Free Speech in America
Free speech protests have popped up in campuses across the United States over the past few years, and everyone is getting their word about it in, even President Obama. You may or may not yet feel strongly about this. No matter where you stand, now’s the time to get yourself some context. What is “harm,” and what kinds of speech should still be protected even if they are harmful? Time to ReConsider.
How Would Reducing Student Loan Interest Rates Affect the College Bubble?
We were doing a bit of research on college education and costs, and came across a pretty surprising piece of analysis. According to payscale.com, a number of colleges in the United States yield, on average, negative 20-year returns on investment (ROI). What that means: for these colleges, the difference in salary from attending (compared to not) is not high enough to make up for the cost of attending–sometimes by a long shot.
Sometimes politicians react to this by trying to lower student loan interest rates. What would the impact be?