How to reform education

two articles in the New York Times, which are relevant to SCSU and LRS

What to Learn in College to Stay One Step Ahead of Computers

http://nyti.ms/1ekXOyu

• Two strains of thought seem to dominate the effort to deal with this problem. The first is that we teachers should define and provide to our students a certain kind of general, flexible, insight-bearing human learning that, we hope, cannot be by computers. The second is that we need to make education more business replaced-oriented, teaching about the real world and enabling a creative entrepreneurial process that, presumably, computers cannot duplicate. These two ideas are not necessarily in conflict.
• Richard J. Murnane and Frank Levy in their book “The New Division of Labor”
• the study certainly suggests that a college education needs to be broad and general, and not defined primarily by the traditional structure of separate departments staffed by professors
• The developing redefinition of higher education should provide benefits that will continue for decades into the future. We will have to adapt as information technology advances. At the same time, we must continually re-evaluate what is inherently different between human and computer learning, and what is practical and useful to students for the long haul. And we will have to face the reality that the “art of living in the world” requires at least some elements of a business education.

Why More Education Won’t Fix Economic Inequality

http://nyti.ms/1ywwOzI

• strengthening education so that more Americans can benefit from the advances of the 21st-century economy. This is a solution that conservatives, centrists and liberals alike can comfortably get behind.
• Brad Hershbein, Melissa Kearney and Lawrence Summers o
• Hamilton Project, a centrist research group operating with Wall Street funding and seeking to find third-way-style solutions to America’s problems that can unite left and right.
• “Increasing the educational attainment of men without a college degree will increase their average earnings and their likelihood of being employed,” the authors write.
• In other words, it’s worth pursuing more and better education for working-class Americans on its own terms, because it will improve their lives and economic potential. Inequality, meanwhile, is a deeper problem, and its potential solutions remain ideologically divisive.