EDUCATION SECRETARY DESERVES A FAILING GRADE
- There’s a More Viable Solution than the Database Proposal -
(9.27.06) Education Secretary Spelling’s proposal to create a national database to improve student performance and accountability of higher education institutions completely misses the mark and fails to provide any real solution to either problem.
It is absolutely senseless to spend potentially more than $100 million to create a “unit record system” and fill it with poor and misleading data. This will do nothing to improve higher learning and do very little, if anything, to create legitimate financial and performance accountability of our “increasingly dysfunctional higher education system.” There are more direct and effective ways to institute financial accountability than to create a database that cannot quantify the subjective nature of student learning . The more critical issue is about preparing students for the workforce by making them more capable and self-sufficient.
Pointing a finger at higher education institutions is no way to foster collaboration or progress. An actionable solution and better way for our government to spend U.S. tax dollars would be to support initiatives to close the gap between school and work and forge a stronger cooperative between academia and business.
Employers have the greatest need and motivation to better prepare college students for the workforce. Secretary Spelling should enlist businesses to provide more practical learning opportunities for students to gain vital hands-on experience and career training.
Some lessons must be experienced to be learned. Business internship programs provide the single most viable means to improve career education. Unfortunately, at present, there are more students in need of internships than there are employers offering them opportunity. Our government should collaborate with academic institutions to phase-in an internship requirement into the student curriculum. Some of the few progressive institutions already have this requirement.
Just imagine. We stimulate the supply channel of student workers. Businesses respond in kind by instituting formal internship programs. This adds productivity for employers and our collective economy, which benefits all the more when better trained graduates join and contribute to the workforce. I have a dream. It begins with wishing that our government leaders had more vision.
Matthew Zinman
Founder & Executive Director
The Internship Institute