Political Equinox

Yesterday, the new Secretary of Education announced plans to push for longer school years in the United States as a method of making our country more competitive with nations around the world.

This reform seems like a pushover. Instead of really taking a look at how we are educating our children and devising new educational strategies; the plan seems to be let’s simply give ourselves more time to teach these children, cheating them out of much-needed breaks in the academic calendar.

While there is no doubt that more time in the classroom gives us more time to teach and therefore may increase learning, we must not look at it from an absolute numbers perspective. What is the marginal benefit to increasing the time these kids are in the classroom? At what point, does does the additional benefit gained become no longer worth the time that must be spent in the classroom?

From my recent experiences in the transition from high school to college, I have been awestruck about how much time our public schools “waste.” There were many classroom days that could have been used much more effectively than they were. We already are wasting too many task hours in our schools at present, instead of simply extending the days, why not get rid of these worthless hours and use them for truly effective instruction time.

If you were running a business and your employees were wasting 5 hours of their week playing fantasy football, would you follow the lead of Secretary Duncan and extend the workday by 1 hour or would you ensure that your employees were being more effective with the current 8 hour workday by stopping the worthless waste of time on fantasy football?

Sounds easy enough there. It’s one thing if we had a 4 hours school day and wanted to make it 5, but I can assure you that by 2:55pm last year, I was more than ready to make the break for home. I could’ve have lasted another hour.

Instead of simply extending the school year, we need to take a hard look at the different ways we can educate our children. By searching around the nation and globe for innovate strategies that can be implemented on a school-by-school basis in a cost-effective manner, we will achieve much greater success than simply keeping the doors open a few more week in the year.

This morning I found out that the total compensation package for the postmaster general was nearly $800,000. I have no problem with paying him that amount if that is what the market demands for his services. However, if the Democrats are going to play their silly CEO pay game, then it’s time we play that game with these types of agencies.

I realize that the postal service is and has been an independent agency for a long time now, but its starting to roll in huge deficits and if the problem doesn’t get corrected soon I can see the Obama administration stepping in with taxpayer support for one of the oldest institutions in America.

Nevertheless, since we are going to walk down the path to socialism by limiting pay, then by golly the postal service chief should be included as well.

Hopefully, this example can show you how absolutely ridiculous limiting CEO pay is as a policy idea. I hear the Lawrence Summers has been lobbying Senator Dodd to change the limits they passed in the American reinvestment and recovery act of 2009 because of the problems it may cause in restarting the economy.

My counterpart Patrick may not love the free market as much as I do, but there’s a difference between the government stepping in at market failures and the government just being outright stupid.

I hope this makes you realize the pure stupidity of the salary limits on CEO’s at $500K.

President-elect Barack Obama has proposed giving a $4,000 tax credit to any US higher education student who works 100 hours of community service each year. Making college more affordable would be a major help to the American education system – it’s a perpetual problem and Obama proposes improving the community by having college students perform community service, which instills lifelong values of servant leadership and volunteerism. In return, these college students can cover two-thirds of the cost of tuition at the average public college or university.

Cutting Costs, Helping Others

The cost of college is rising each day and students continue to struggle with find ways to pay for it without taking out enormous loans that place a burden on themselves, their families, and their success later in life. Instead of being able to purchase things to make the US economy run, build wealth, and give to charity these former students are concerned about paying off student loans.

Our country is falling behind in some sectors of higher education and encouraging more students to head or stay in college can only help America become more competitive in the global marketplace. This doesn’t require them to take on a job delievering pizza at night or doing other work that may interfere with their studies, all it requires is two hours of their week for the year.

A Life of Service

Serving others and volunteering is an essential lifelong habit that wouldn’t hurt the college students of the country to develop. If we are able to get our students to realize the rewards of helping those in need by performing service on a weekly basis, then chances are they will continue their service upon leaving school.

The non-profit world is forever in need of new volunteeers and creating a generation of people willing to give their time, money, and expertise to help others would be a gret victory for this country.

The only question is….do you think it’s worth the money?