Start and End Mandatory School Earlier

The report on reforming our school system just released by the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce urges that mandatory schooling begin at age 3 and end after 10th-grade. After that, going on to colleges and universities would be one of several choices available. Another choice, equally typical and just as well-funded, would be vocational training.

Obviously, however, the solution is not to strand students with an eighth-grade education as it currently stands in America. Rather, education should be “front-loaded.” In much less time than we take students’ time up with now, they could be given a substantial but no-nonsense education tooled to preparing them to be productive citizens. This can be done without the pretense that any but a few Americans need to be plied with “book learning” over several years beyond this basic toolkit.

…The commission report notes that this arrangement would free up more money for education at younger ages. Also imagine the death of the assumption that sketchy remedial courses in college — now taught at 90% of them — could make up for what is not taught earlier.

Perhaps some of our readers would be interested in joining me in exploring pragmatic solutions to chronic challenges.