Here’s a recycled article from the first year I taught the class.
In our examination of the scope of distance education, we want to spend a little time talking about what we aren’t doing — or aren’t doing very well. Almost 20% of people older than 25 in the US don’t even have a high school diploma. Is that ok? One in five? Only 23% have a bachelors degree or higher. In the US economy that’s the base level credential that lets you apply for a job. But three out of four people don’t have one. So what? When you finish your MA’s you’ll be part of the rarified group (6%) of the population with an advanced degree.
I’m very aware that most of the people in the class are immediately and directly looking for information they can use in their classrooms. There’s some data.
How can we deal with this issue of an uneducated populace? Should we?
September 11th, 2009 at 10:38 PM
Honestly, we live in an area where education is not emphasized as valuable. I have a fantastic resume and it compares squat against the next interviewee if they are a teacher’s, cousin’s, uncle’s, second cousin’s, dog’s owner, from a third cousin, twice removed, who was born right here in Kentucky. I just can’t stand up to those qualifications once any educational board sees that I am from the city and especially when they see Las Vegas printed on my papers. I might as wore leapord print stilettos to the interview and sucked down a cigarette for good effects.
There is a strong bias in Eastern Kentucky. Yes, there are bias everywhere, but not like the one that has a hold on the Appalachians. With this in mind, I still plan on getting my MA, and hope that eventually E KY will grow beyond some of its pettiness when it comes to southern comfort over professionalism.
September 12th, 2009 at 12:02 AM
Very interesting. I hadn’t really thought about completing my master’s degree making me a part of a rare group.
My question is this, “How recent are these statistics?” I would like to see a comparison of these statics for several decades. How does the percentage of adults lacking a high school diploma in 2010 compare with the percentage of adults lacking one in 1990, 1970, 1950, etc? I would think this percentage would be improving with time.
I would also like to see these statistics broken down by age group. I would like to know what age group contributes the largest number of people without high school diplomas. None of my grandparents (3 of whom are currently living) received a high school diploma. Most of their classmates didn’t as well. Instead of completing high school, teens in the 1920 and 1930s quit school to help at home with the farm work or to get married. As that generation passes away, I would think the percentage of adults over 25 with high school diplomas would increase.
While 20% of the population over 25 didn’t have a high school diploma at the time these statistics were calculated, I believe this is a problem that will fix itself with time. I may be totally wrong, but it seems a larger percentage of students are completing high school today than did just a few decades ago. There also seems to be a larger percentage of students going on to get a college degree. As I stated earlier, I would like to see a comparison of statistics over several years and by age group.
Although I predict the percentage of uneducated adults is dropping, I do see a need to address the problem. As suggested either in your archived post or comments made in regards to it, I feel offering the GED online is a great idea. I can only see one problem. Will the 20% of the population needing to get their GED have access to getting it online?
I find it interesting that you stated, “We want to spend a little time talking about what we aren’t doing — or aren’t doing very well.”
Another issue we might need to consider is how we define uneducated. While the twenty percent not having a high school diploma would be considered uneducated as far as formal education is concerned, we have to consider what type of informal education they have received. While I totally support getting a formal education (I do have a teaching degree for a reason), many of the people I know who are a part of the 20% who don’t have a high school diploma, know how to read, write, and do math just as well as many of the people who do have a high school diploma. The most of them are between 50 and 80 and have developed these skills through self-instruction, help from others, and on-hands training. If these middle aged and elderly men and women without high school diplomas are able to perform as well as (and sometimes better than) students with high school diplomas what aren’t we doing – or not doing very well?
We have students graduating high school who can barely read, write, and do math. Just a few months ago, I heard a news report about the number of high school graduates having to take remedial reading and math college courses. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but the statistics were pretty high. We not only need to figure out how to deal with the 20% of the population without a high school diploma, we need to figure out how to ensure all students with a high school diploma are educated.
September 12th, 2009 at 12:31 AM
In response to Venus:
I know exactly what you are referring to, but I can’t totally agree with your perspective. I do know that I have relatives who were born and raised here in eastern Kentucky, who have relatives in the school system and politics, and they don’t have teaching positions. I guess who you know isn’t always an advantage.
I don’t know any “teacher’s, cousin’s, uncle’s, second cousin’s, dog’s owner, from a third cousin, twice removed, who was born right here in Kentucky” who has been hired to teach, but maybe you do.
I might add that I am offended by your stereotypical remarks about east Kentucky people. I do know a “FEW” people who fit the description you just gave, but I am sure you could find people to fit that description in every other part of every other state. I am a part of a family and community that values getting an education. I’m tired of being labeled as something I am not.
September 12th, 2009 at 8:35 AM
The stats are from the US Census as of 2000. They’re a bit dated but when compared to 1990′s numbers, the number of people who are lacking high school diplomas increased from 20% in 1990 to 23% in 2000. I found *that* statistic to be pretty shocking.
The numbers *are* broken down by age at the US Census Bureau’s site. I’ve got the link in one of these posts, but I can’t seem to find it. In the meantime, you’ll find more current data at Census.Gov
Keep in mind, I’m not talking about people who don’t know how to read, or do basic math when I’m talking about “un-educated” or “under-educated.” I’m talking about the people who lack the credentials necessary to qualify for base level jobs.
You’re right in your assertion that we need to make sure that people who have the credentials actually have the skills and knowledge to back it up. Ultimately, that may well the thin end of the wedge that cleaves the stranglehold of credential from employment. As more and more companies come to realize the lack of value that these credentials carry, they may well decide that requiring them is a waste of time.
What if colleges and universities found that their degrees were, for the most part, worthless as “employment tickets” and that there was no economic advantage to getting one in terms of an individual’s ability to get a job? As the values of college degrees drop, the value of a high school diploma drops — students can no longer be threatened with “you need good grades to get into college” — and the whole house of cards comes down.
Perhaps then we can return to “learning” instead of just being concerned with “education.”
Just my opinion.
September 12th, 2009 at 11:23 AM
Interesting. Maybe if colleges realized their degrees weren’t so valuable the cost of getting a college degree would be lower making it easier for more people to obtain one. Do you really think businesses not pushing for a college degree will lessen the value of having one?
Will politicians ever allow us to return to “learning” instead of being concerned with getting an “education?”
September 12th, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Is this a problem in our schools or in our homes and families? I have worked hard for many years incorporating more and more new methods in my teaching and still have many students who just don’t care. Yet their parents still dress them in nice clothes, give them cell phones, and they drive nice cars.
Until students view school as a privilege not a God given right in our country I do not see how we change this statistic.
September 12th, 2009 at 7:23 PM
Take 2 – The first response ended in an error message because I forgot to put my name and email address in the boxes. I lost the post, but here is basically what I had written:
I finally found time to play around with numbers on the U.S. census webpage Dr. Lowell provided. I was surprised by my findings. If I calculated percentages correctly, only 13% of the population over 25 was lacking a high school diploma according to the 2008 U.S. census. 12% of women over 25 and 14% of men over 25 didn’t have a high school diploma in 2008. While these percentages are all lower than the 20% figure given for 2000, what I found next was shocking.
Comparing percentages by age group did not provide the results I expected. 18-24 year old males and females had a higher percentage of people lacking a high school diploma in 2008 than all but 2 other age groups, ages 70-74 and 75+. In a previous response I had predicted that the percentage of people without a high school diploma would increase with age group. According to the 2008 census, I was wrong.
With 18-24 year olds being the age group with the third highest percentage of people without a high school diploma, who is to blame? At this point, like Joe, I’m asking if this is a problem with out schools or homes/families. No matter how much or how well teachers teach, a student isn’t going to learn unless the student wants to. A quote from a book I was given as a high school graduation present: “You can lead a boy to college, but you cannot make hime think.”
Now I realize we have a problem. Is the percentage of 18-24 yr. olds without a high school diploma on the rise? Maybe, maybe not only time will tell. If it is, we need to determine what can we do about it.
September 13th, 2009 at 8:38 AM
These are much improved over 2000′s raw census data.
Having the data disaggregated by age is helpful.
Avoiding the issue of “knowledge” for the moment, my point remains that the real issue here is that the problem is one of credential. With HR departments serving as gate keepers to employment and minimum qualifications being established by paper, not performance, the only wonder should be that our economic structure has survived as long as it has. When the general population lacks the minimum credential, they’re precluded from participating in the economy except at the marginalized edges.
More and more employers are discovering that they have to spend too much time training recent graduates in fields and subjects they have every right to expect a graduate should be fluent with. They’re discounting the value of that credential already — any recent grad who’s had the situation where they discover they need experience to get a job, but need a job to get experience knows what this is about.
The implications for the economic stranglehold that Education has held in this country for the last half century are important. The interesting question for me is:
“What will replace Education when the value of the credential is marginalized?”
September 13th, 2009 at 8:24 PM
I have to agree with Joe. I believe that most of the cause for these low numbers is that a degree is not valued in many families. They no longer look at a degree as a guarantee that you will get a job. At this point in the economy, I can see their point. So many people who have degrees are just as jobless as those who have worked in factories since they were 18 and have worked at the same place for over 15 years.
However, I do think that the fact President Obama has addressed the issue and is encouraging our students to stay in school and telling them so himself, is a change for the good. Up until this point, it seems that only the first ladies have been the ones addressing the issue. And I don’t mean this in a negative way, but they are not taken as seriously as the President himself. I mean, Laura Bush can read to students, Hillary can write a book about it taking a village, but until the President starts addressing the issue and speaks directly to the ones to whom it applies, it’s just a photo opportunity.
September 13th, 2009 at 8:33 PM
I don’t disagree – but we’re back to the purpose of education.
We *say* it’s to give people the knowledge they need to be happy and productive contributors to society.
What we *do* is give them a piece of paper that certifies they had sufficient seat time.
There’s a break down there – it goes beyond online instruction to the core of why and how does anybody learn anything.
What’s the value added of “school” when the products have no value to the people who are buying them?