Education

I homeschooled until I entered 3^rd grade at Holy Child School in Queens NY at age 7. I moved back to St. Louis Mo. and finished 8^th grade at Immaculate Conception School in Maplewood Mo. I finished high school at Christian Brothers College in Clayton Mo. I finished college at St. Louis University, St. Louis Mo. with a Bachelor of Science degree in 1965. During my last year, I took graduate seminars for undergraduate credit. I am a Fellow in Strategic Studies from Western Behavioral Sciences Institute 1985.

These were all Catholic schools seeped in “Classical Education” in well maintained 100 year old buildings. The school work required 4 hours of homework per day. I was able to work my way through school working as a musician in St. Louis Mo. My college tuition was $900 per year. I was inner-directed and self-reliant. I had learned how to learn. My elementary schools did assessments; my high school and college had entrance exams.

I chose a career in Personnel / Human Resources.  I liked science, particularly Physics, but I was more interested in “high performing” groups, particularly engineers.  I worked for large manufacturing companies, except for the 5 years I worked at Washington University in St. Louis Mo.  I began leading corporate personnel functions in 1971 and left corporate life in 1993 to start my own private consulting practice.  My client companies (currently 46 clients) were mostly manufacturing companies including Boeing, Rockwell and other large companies.  As an employer, I can speak to the state of education in the US over the past decades as I observed the capabilities of various employees and applicants.  I used testing extensively. 

I had heard that ACT scores for 1961 were the highest scores up to that time, but they began to decline after that.  I wondered what the problem was. I was able to find great employees who were high school grads, but preferred the A students. In recent decades, I began to notice that schools were spending $billions on buildings and campus expansion to attract students, but new degrees were offered that had little value. Also, many students were in “remedial” courses trying to learn what they should have learned in high school.  At the same time, high school graduation rates struggled and many “college grads” had “high school grad” skills. In the same period, government funding of education at all levels quadrupled.

Now we are facing the Education Bubble. It seemed that schools were lowering the bar and the students followed suit. We threw the gates open to allow everybody who could sign a student loan agreement to enter college without an entrance exam.

Tuition has increased 6 fold and student loans were given indiscriminately. So, now college enrollment is on the decline because of costs and student loans total $1.2 trillion.

Unless schools can cut costs and improve the curriculum, fewer and fewer students will choose college. Most will complete their “remedial work” at 2 year community colleges.

All education is self-education. Homeschoolers perform better because they are basically tutored. They also have the time and the freedom to pursue their own interests. The student is responsible for learning. The internet allows students to research the answers to their own questions.

Like healthcare, education has reached the price/demand curve. The price is too high, so demand is receding.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader