As Nelson Mandela said, “education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” The pursuit of knowledge opens the doors to better health, financial, and life decisions, as well as increased happiness. Higher education leads to greater job prospects with higher salaries, which gives people the spending power to pump money right back into the economy. Additionally, more knowledge gives people new ideas on starting a business, which boosts the economy by creating new jobs.
Why is this chakra broken?
Insane student loan debt
Our education system is old school
Insane student loan debt
At every level of our education system, there are financial hurdles that increase the achievement gap between high- and low-income students. Compared to 40 or 50 years ago, a lot of jobs today require education beyond high school, while the cost of college tuition has skyrocketed. This has left nearly 45 million people with student loan debt, some of whom are paying this off over their entire lives. People are hindered from buying a house, buying a car, or starting a family.
Our education system is old school
Out of 35 countries, the US ranks 30th in math and 19th in science. Plus, the skills we learn in school do not adequately prepare us for the real world. As automation radically changes the landscape of available jobs, we must move accordingly to incentivize stable career paths such as teaching and vocational jobs. We have to come up with bold and creative teaching solutions that fit the modern era.
Reduce the achievement gap in K-12
Bernie Sanders unveiled his massive Thurgood Marshall Plan for public education, which among many things, does the following:
Triple Title 1 funding
Ban for-profit charter schools
Raise teachers' salary
Feed all school kids
Expand education programs
Triple Title 1 funding
This increases support for at-risk schools and special education
Ban for-profit charter schools
It also makes non-profit charter schools follow the same oversight regulations as public schools. Half of each charter school board must be made up of teachers and parents.
Raise teachers' salary
Teachers get a minimum starting salary of $60,000
Feed all school kids
Universal school meals support the 1 in 6 kids who go hungry.
Expand education programs
Annual government spending of $5 billion would expand after-school, community, and summer education programs.
Make higher education universal
Bernie Sanders’ College for All Act is the most comprehensive bill for lifting the monetary burdens of higher education, and is fully paid for by a tax on Wallstreet gambling. Here’s what this bill does:
Eliminate all tuition and fees
Eliminate debt
Pump the brakes on college tuition hikes
Support low-income students
Eliminate all tuition and fees
This applies to public colleges, universities, community colleges, and trade schools, and apprenticeship programs in a 2-to-1 dollar match agreement between the federal and state governments.
Eliminate debt
All $1.6 trillion in student loan debt gets canceled
Pump the brakes on college tuition hikes
College tuition is incredibly bloated. This plan prevents colleges from using the money to hire more administrators or build a fancy new stadium
Support low-income students
The plan builds federal grant programs to cover non-tuition costs like books, transportation, and housing, for low-income students.
It also increases funding for work study programs to build valuable career experiences after students graduate.
Expand education...
For pre-K
For everyone
For pre-K
The brain develops rapidly in the first 5 years of life, but many low-income families cannot afford to send their kids to pre-school. Universal Pre-K would give all children access to high-quality learning environments in these formative years, regardless of family income.
For everyone
Learning is life-long. A community enrichment program, like Singapore’s SkillsFuture program, understands that skills are the currency of the future. It encourages the people to continuously develop themselves and connect with their community. We should provide vouchers to all citizens every year, use-or-lose, to enroll in a community class of their choice, such as yoga, painting, public speaking, or martial arts.
Remove stigmas...
Of vocational professions
Of teachers
Of vocational professions
Only 55 % of college students graduate within 6 years. College isn’t for everyone, and is being over-prescribed in this country. The underemployment rate for recent grads is nearly 44 %, while Georgetown estimates that there are 30 million well-paying jobs that don’t require a college degree. Unfortunately, society views the vocational track as less prestigious than the college track. We must increase awareness of these trade school career paths that are in high demand, pay well, require problem-solving skills, and will not be automated away in the next few decades.
Of teachers
In Finland, teachers are highly regarded and trusted, which grants them nearly complete autonomy in developing new and creative ways to teach. A big reason is that it is a highly competitive profession that requires at least a Master’s degree. Bernie’s teacher pay raise proposal assigns more value to teaching and is the first step in drawing the best and brightest into this profession. We should also deregulate the profession and place more trust in the teachers to come up with creative solutions to educating their students, such as the ones below.
Reinvent how we teach
With people, one size doesn’t fit all. Just like how we are replacing broad healthcare approaches with personalized medicine, we should move toward student-centered learning to tailor education to each individual.Flipped classroom model
Mastery-based learning
Have students teach
Prepare students for the real world
Dissolve subject-based learning
Flipped classroom model
In the flipped classroom model, teachers have their students listen to pre-recorded lectures at home on their own time. They can pause, re-listen, etc. In class, teachers can give a quick quiz on basic comprehension to make sure the students listened to the lecture. Then they can run problem sets in class, and students can work together to solve the problems. This is also more engaging for the teachers because they can walk around and tailor their teaching for different students and their questions.
Mastery-based learning
As Sal Khan of Khan Academy states, it’s very easy for students to fall through the cracks if they are allowed to move to the next class without fully mastering the building blocks in the class before it. Rather than relying on letter grades, students should be allowed to work through as many online problem sets as they need to master the concepts.
Have students teach
Full mastery of a subject is best demonstrated if you can teach it. Therefore, everyone should sufficiently practice the art of teaching during the learning process, and submit their own short video lectures for assessment. This gives students more control of the learning process. Furthermore, when everyone has teaching experience, we can reduce our teacher-to-student ratio and transition toward a society where everyone is both a teacher and a learner, as automation continues to make millions of jobs obsolete.
Prepare students for the real world
We should emphasize building life skills such as teaching students how to learn, manage their time, manage their finances, resolve conflicts, and improve focus and mental health through meditation.
Dissolve subject-based learning
When possible, classes should be taught with the major skills as the focus. “History class” can be designed to teach the art of storytelling. “Philosophy class” teaches argumentation, concise writing, and critical thinking. Emphasis on the skills keeps students engaged in what they are learning, because they know exactly what they should be getting out of it.