Ralph Walker
One of my friends likes to say 'you can't boil the ocean'. To that I respond, 'No, but I have a pot a lighter and a bunch of friends. Let's see how far I can get'. Welcome to my Blog, Ed NeXt Step. This blog has been created as an online space to discuss, debate and challenge anyone who comes to visit about what is the NeXt Step in education??
Education in the United States has been the gold standard for the entire world ever since World War II. Unfortunately in many ways we have been stagnant in our approach to modernizing education and extending its reach and effectiveness. While we continue to do a great job teaching basic skills, creating a literate society and setting a base line for expectations around the world, are we really preparing our youth for the next set of challenges? Are students leaving their institutions with the skills to take on issues of globalization, sustainability, population growth or even just feeding and clothing their families? How do we prepare the next generation for the wide ranging problems of disease, poverty, famine, war, and ultimately how to get by on this planet?
This set of challenges does not only rest on the shoulders of our educators. We are all party to education reform as long as we live in a place where public education is a right and we support that right though action. Regardless if you are a student, parent, educator or someone on the sidelines as a citizen you are engaged. Our taxes support education in this country and even if you are not paying attention you are paying for it.
As an architect and an educational designer I have been engaged with school administrators, teachers, parents and funders around the country who are struggling with modernizing our system without abandoning the infrastructure we have. There are many good, honest people who are looking for the best ways to deliver an excellent education to the most people without leaving anyone out in the cold. There are some amazing ideas boiling away in today's schools.
Our corporations, industries and professions all rely on an educated population to provide the products and services we all use. Individuals within our society but outside the education system have a unique perspective about the effectiveness of our schools. We have seen the investment of time, money and resources in new concepts from titans of business and industry for centuries. It is critical that we engage everyone in these issues. In my personal experience both with non profit boards and individual projects I have found that the impact of these members of our community can be profound.
While it is also important to understand new ideas we must remember that we can't just chuck the system we have and start over. Millions of children and families rely on stable and effective schools today. Transforming that system can not overlook the realities of today's world. We have an amazing infrastructure of qualified teachers and administrators as well as the physical, monetary and political structures in place. They are assets that should not be ignored, but instead leveraged for maximum effectiveness. How can we get the best efforts out of what we already have?
In this blog you will read posts that will range from discussions of classroom design to whole system reform. Anything that is relevent to making our education systems better is worth writing about. Nothing is to small, or to large to engage in an open dialogue. If you have a topic, bring it on!
Educators, policy makers, designers, planners, students, parents and citizens are encouraged to engage in this challenge. We can't do this alone in a dark room. It is time to open the windows and shed some light on the challenges we face in taking our educational systems and ultimately our society to the next level. Bring your best ideas, thoughts and experiences and lets find out what the NeXt Step in education really is!!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Where do plumbers come from???
Have you ever noticed how much it costs to get a plumber to come to your house or apartment? Recently I had a minor problem in my house and called a local plumbing company. While the whole issue wasn't a catastrophe a leaky pipe needs to get fixed right away. Not only did it take calls to multiple companies to find a qualified plumber, but the cost was ridiculous.
Hopefully you have never had to deal with this, but it led me to a different question. Why do plumbers cost so much? There is a simple answer, and a far more complicated one.
The simple answer is Supply and Demand. There are not enough plumbers in our society to handle all of the leaky faucets, broken pipes and runny toilets. Truth be told there are not enough plumbers to handle all of the bigger problems with our infrastructure either. While there is not an accurate count (they are counted differently in each state) of exactly how many plumbers, pipe fitters and steamfitters there are in the country I can say for sure that there simply are not enough.
So what does this have to do with education? Now that is the complicated answer.
In the United States there has been a historic trend to expand the amount of education each person receives. Over the decades we have seen laws that have mandated primary and secondary education, extended early childhood education and subsidized higher education. These are all incredible steps that have transformed our society in less than 1oo years from a people who worked primarily in agriculture and industry to a diverse workforce of professionals working in a wide range of industries, services and professions.
During that change we have watched families send their first children to college, improve their financial footing and often abandon the professions that gave them their start. As people transition from working as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics and other 'blue collar' jobs into the professional or service workforce their numbers are traditionally either diminishing or taken up by new immigrants. We have watched this trend happen over and over from the times when people came through Ellis Island to today.
Ironically the need for many of these positions has only grown. As our cities age skilled tradesmen are needed to maintain existing infrastructure, repair and build new. In some places talented bricklayers and plaster workers have all but disappeared, but we have thousands of brick and plaster buildings that remain. Very few people with right skills remain to take care of the work in place. In other areas we have seen mass migrations of skilled tradesmen in places where work is abundant and the pay is good. We have seen it within our country and even from country to country. Anyone been to New Orleans, or even China lately ??
It is not without good intention that we encourage our youth to reach for more education and move towards white collar jobs. It has been shown that individuals who complete college will traditionally make substantially more money than their counterparts who only finish high school. Individuals who work in the trades are often the exception to this rule. They can often make huge sums of money. It is also important to recognize that working as a tradesman can be backbreaking and dangerous work. But reality is that we do not have a good system to educate people about both the skills it takes to be a plumber or its value to our society.
As an architect I have had the pleasure of engaging many contractors and tradesmen. The best of them often come from a family who have continued a trade for generations. Many have been apprentices to uncles, fathers or family friends who have taught them first hand what it takes to do a professional job. This education formal or not, is one that can't be ignored. For most of these individuals they have learned by doing, nothing more, nothing less. Hours and days of actual practice have taught them skills that can't be learned in a classroom or lecture hall. Some of them have nothing more than a high school diploma, in some cases less, but they are often skilled businessmen and even pillars of our communities.
There are also a few lessons to be learned:
1. We need more plumbers, as well as other skilled trades. They are important to our society and our educational system should teach the value of our skilled tradespeople.
2. Our systems traditionally teach more through sight and sound than hands on experience. Many skilled individuals are not 'book learners' but understand the hands on approach to doing the right job.
3. There is value in relationships. Apprenticeship of any type can be a powerful learning experience. Perhaps there are better ways to bring this tradition into our schools.
While the costs of a plumber are driven by supply and demand, as a society we have neglected to learn how to educate and encourage potential future plumbers and tradesmen. It is not enough to challenge our youth to consider being the next President of the United States, perhaps we need to challenge them to also be the next Master Plumber.
Hopefully you have never had to deal with this, but it led me to a different question. Why do plumbers cost so much? There is a simple answer, and a far more complicated one.
The simple answer is Supply and Demand. There are not enough plumbers in our society to handle all of the leaky faucets, broken pipes and runny toilets. Truth be told there are not enough plumbers to handle all of the bigger problems with our infrastructure either. While there is not an accurate count (they are counted differently in each state) of exactly how many plumbers, pipe fitters and steamfitters there are in the country I can say for sure that there simply are not enough.
So what does this have to do with education? Now that is the complicated answer.
In the United States there has been a historic trend to expand the amount of education each person receives. Over the decades we have seen laws that have mandated primary and secondary education, extended early childhood education and subsidized higher education. These are all incredible steps that have transformed our society in less than 1oo years from a people who worked primarily in agriculture and industry to a diverse workforce of professionals working in a wide range of industries, services and professions.
During that change we have watched families send their first children to college, improve their financial footing and often abandon the professions that gave them their start. As people transition from working as electricians, plumbers, carpenters, mechanics and other 'blue collar' jobs into the professional or service workforce their numbers are traditionally either diminishing or taken up by new immigrants. We have watched this trend happen over and over from the times when people came through Ellis Island to today.
Ironically the need for many of these positions has only grown. As our cities age skilled tradesmen are needed to maintain existing infrastructure, repair and build new. In some places talented bricklayers and plaster workers have all but disappeared, but we have thousands of brick and plaster buildings that remain. Very few people with right skills remain to take care of the work in place. In other areas we have seen mass migrations of skilled tradesmen in places where work is abundant and the pay is good. We have seen it within our country and even from country to country. Anyone been to New Orleans, or even China lately ??
It is not without good intention that we encourage our youth to reach for more education and move towards white collar jobs. It has been shown that individuals who complete college will traditionally make substantially more money than their counterparts who only finish high school. Individuals who work in the trades are often the exception to this rule. They can often make huge sums of money. It is also important to recognize that working as a tradesman can be backbreaking and dangerous work. But reality is that we do not have a good system to educate people about both the skills it takes to be a plumber or its value to our society.
As an architect I have had the pleasure of engaging many contractors and tradesmen. The best of them often come from a family who have continued a trade for generations. Many have been apprentices to uncles, fathers or family friends who have taught them first hand what it takes to do a professional job. This education formal or not, is one that can't be ignored. For most of these individuals they have learned by doing, nothing more, nothing less. Hours and days of actual practice have taught them skills that can't be learned in a classroom or lecture hall. Some of them have nothing more than a high school diploma, in some cases less, but they are often skilled businessmen and even pillars of our communities.
There are also a few lessons to be learned:
1. We need more plumbers, as well as other skilled trades. They are important to our society and our educational system should teach the value of our skilled tradespeople.
2. Our systems traditionally teach more through sight and sound than hands on experience. Many skilled individuals are not 'book learners' but understand the hands on approach to doing the right job.
3. There is value in relationships. Apprenticeship of any type can be a powerful learning experience. Perhaps there are better ways to bring this tradition into our schools.
While the costs of a plumber are driven by supply and demand, as a society we have neglected to learn how to educate and encourage potential future plumbers and tradesmen. It is not enough to challenge our youth to consider being the next President of the United States, perhaps we need to challenge them to also be the next Master Plumber.
Bailout Education?
Maybe we should bailout Education?
January 1, 2009
Ralph Walker
Seven Hundred Billion Dollars!
$700,000,000,000.00
That is a huge amount of money. Our public officials have told us that they need to spend it all to repair our financial systems, help our automakers, perhaps save our very economy. I am not sure I believe them, but they are all saying it needs to be done. They are the smart guys in Washington, right? Well I sure hope so, but lets think about this all the same.
Since it is the start of a new year why don’t we take a step back and think about what kind of numbers we are all talking about. I mean I have heard that number batted around so much in the past month that I have lost track of what that really means. In public we have been talking about spending huge amounts of wealth to basically repair a broken system, but I don’t know what 700 Billion dollars looks like. Is it all the gold in Fort Knox? Is it worth a Space Shuttle? Maybe it is worth the Yankees? I just can’t fathom its real value.
I do know a little about schools so maybe we can compare it to education spending. Now I am not an economist. I was not even a math major, but I am a strong believer in a trickle up theory of economics. It goes kind of like this. If we spend money to create maximum opportunity we can create long term growth for our society as a whole. In my life at a small scale the greatest opportunity to be had has been education, so why instead of bailing out Wall Street and the Big Three Automakers why don’t we put all of this money into educating our society. Think about it, if we spent the money on teaching our children how not to make this mistake in the future we might all be better off.
OK now I realize that this is all a crazy scheme, but just for fun lets run the numbers.
$700,000,000,000.00 could pay for:
10 Million Teachers with a $70,000 average salary for 1 year(wouldn’t it be great to give all of our teachers a raise while we are at it?)
Ok, maybe 10 Millions teachers for 1 year doesn’t make sense so how about 2 Million teachers for 5 years! Currently we have 6.8 Million teachers in the United States who all get paid an average of $46,800 per year. We have heard that we have lost 2 Million jobs in this nation over the past calendar year. This effort would replace those jobs and transform our public schools. The money spent by the federal government could be used to help transform how teachers are paid (merit pay anyone?), what kind of training they get and might even influence the way our society values this imperative profession. By adding teachers to the workforce we can raise the standards of education, properly staff all of our schools nationwide and build an educational structure that supports students, families and faculty. Teachers deserve the help and they sure deserve a raise.
Upgrade every school in America with 3.7 Million New Classrooms
(assumes a 800 sf classroom at $235 per sf)
America has lost track of the state of its schools. Our school facilities are out of date and in high need of modernization. Currently there are 95,615 primary and secondary school building in the United States. I keep hearing discussions of infrastructure projects, so how about this one. Building and updating 3.7 Million Classrooms would drive not only jobs (architects, contractors, bankers, lawyers, school administrators and eventually new teachers) but would leave our country with a tangible asset for the money spent. This money could amount to literally updating or expanding every school building in the USA with up to 38 new classrooms! Building classrooms can infuse a town with pride and change the face of a school.
Pay for the Education of every student in America for 1 year
(an average year of school costs $8,287)
Now if the federal government took on the costs for every student’s education for one year it would create a number of amazing opportunities for local school districts and municipalities. It could allow a municipality to reduce the tax burden on their residents, or it could create room in a school budget to infuse new programs that they have been differing. Each town and city needs something different. By providing a windfall that eases the local educational burden this money can build real local opportunities as varied as the needs our country faces. $700B would more than cover it. In fact we could spend over $12,000 for every student giving schools an even better budget to work with.
These potential upgrades to education would pay dividends for decades to come. The better our schools are, the better our students will be as they complete their education. Census data shows that students who finish High School earn an average of $9,000 a year more that their counterparts who don’t, and those who finish college earn almost double what the high school graduates make. Education is one way to rebuild our wealth in America. The world needs well educated productive people to solve its problems. We can provide that.
Now I am not suggesting we federalize education, but why not think about some better ways to use our tax money to change the way the system is working. I do recognize that our economic system is in heart failure so instead of taking the whole $700B we could try to do something more modest. Maybe some of these proposals are a little more palatable:
Let’s spend some federal money to teach household economics to every student who graduates high school. Basic skills in personal budgeting, long term and short term investing, personal credit, buying a car, buying a house and saving a little for a rainy day could have saved thousands of families from the economic crisis they face now. We could make this happen through a few simple steps; develop a federal curriculum, provide nationwide teacher training, and launch a national promotion program. I bet the whole thing could be instilled for a cool 150 Million dollars. That still leaves $699,850,000,000 to spend on the banks and the automakers.
Or how about this one; We can spend 5 Million Dollars at each of the top 1000 universities (yes one thousand, there are over 4000 colleges and universities in the US and we have a lot of amazing schools) in the country to start a mandatory economics class for every liberal arts student in the country. The money could fund new teachers, books, even classroom space to make sure every student who has a Bachelor’s degree or greater in this country can follow the economic health of our nation. This proposal would leave our coffers with $694,850,000,000 (I already spent the money on the first proposal)
All right, this is my final proposal. Put some money in basic math education at the primary levels. I don’t think we need to spend a huge amount, say 1 Billion or 0.1285% of the total bailout package to make sure every school in America has the tools it needs to teach math properly. I would love for my children to understand the difference between 1 Million, 1 Billion and 1 Trillion so they can properly compare the salaries of major league sports stars, the GDP of developing countries, the amount of money Bill and Melinda Gates give to charity and this crazy Bailout that we are all burdened with. For those of you keeping score at home my three proposals left the bailout package with $693,850,000,000 to spend on automakers, banks and whoever else needs the help to get our economy back on track. I don’t know where they got the number of $700B to begin with so I am sure they can make it work for a little bit less.
The simple fact is that as a nation we do not even understand what is happening to all of this money. We are watching it fly out the door, but can not explain to each other, let alone our kids why it happened or who it happened to. We have failed to prepare our society for this type of crisis and we must build new safeguards to protect future generations from the same issue.
At the end of the day, if we can’t touch the bailout money maybe we can cut back on buying all of those stealth bombers and use that money for some of these proposals. I know it is only 1.3 Billion at a time, but hey, it’s a start.
* All statistics and figures quoted were direct from the Census. See http://www.census.gov/ for more information.
January 1, 2009
Ralph Walker
Seven Hundred Billion Dollars!
$700,000,000,000.00
That is a huge amount of money. Our public officials have told us that they need to spend it all to repair our financial systems, help our automakers, perhaps save our very economy. I am not sure I believe them, but they are all saying it needs to be done. They are the smart guys in Washington, right? Well I sure hope so, but lets think about this all the same.
Since it is the start of a new year why don’t we take a step back and think about what kind of numbers we are all talking about. I mean I have heard that number batted around so much in the past month that I have lost track of what that really means. In public we have been talking about spending huge amounts of wealth to basically repair a broken system, but I don’t know what 700 Billion dollars looks like. Is it all the gold in Fort Knox? Is it worth a Space Shuttle? Maybe it is worth the Yankees? I just can’t fathom its real value.
I do know a little about schools so maybe we can compare it to education spending. Now I am not an economist. I was not even a math major, but I am a strong believer in a trickle up theory of economics. It goes kind of like this. If we spend money to create maximum opportunity we can create long term growth for our society as a whole. In my life at a small scale the greatest opportunity to be had has been education, so why instead of bailing out Wall Street and the Big Three Automakers why don’t we put all of this money into educating our society. Think about it, if we spent the money on teaching our children how not to make this mistake in the future we might all be better off.
OK now I realize that this is all a crazy scheme, but just for fun lets run the numbers.
$700,000,000,000.00 could pay for:
10 Million Teachers with a $70,000 average salary for 1 year(wouldn’t it be great to give all of our teachers a raise while we are at it?)
Ok, maybe 10 Millions teachers for 1 year doesn’t make sense so how about 2 Million teachers for 5 years! Currently we have 6.8 Million teachers in the United States who all get paid an average of $46,800 per year. We have heard that we have lost 2 Million jobs in this nation over the past calendar year. This effort would replace those jobs and transform our public schools. The money spent by the federal government could be used to help transform how teachers are paid (merit pay anyone?), what kind of training they get and might even influence the way our society values this imperative profession. By adding teachers to the workforce we can raise the standards of education, properly staff all of our schools nationwide and build an educational structure that supports students, families and faculty. Teachers deserve the help and they sure deserve a raise.
Upgrade every school in America with 3.7 Million New Classrooms
(assumes a 800 sf classroom at $235 per sf)
America has lost track of the state of its schools. Our school facilities are out of date and in high need of modernization. Currently there are 95,615 primary and secondary school building in the United States. I keep hearing discussions of infrastructure projects, so how about this one. Building and updating 3.7 Million Classrooms would drive not only jobs (architects, contractors, bankers, lawyers, school administrators and eventually new teachers) but would leave our country with a tangible asset for the money spent. This money could amount to literally updating or expanding every school building in the USA with up to 38 new classrooms! Building classrooms can infuse a town with pride and change the face of a school.
Pay for the Education of every student in America for 1 year
(an average year of school costs $8,287)
Now if the federal government took on the costs for every student’s education for one year it would create a number of amazing opportunities for local school districts and municipalities. It could allow a municipality to reduce the tax burden on their residents, or it could create room in a school budget to infuse new programs that they have been differing. Each town and city needs something different. By providing a windfall that eases the local educational burden this money can build real local opportunities as varied as the needs our country faces. $700B would more than cover it. In fact we could spend over $12,000 for every student giving schools an even better budget to work with.
These potential upgrades to education would pay dividends for decades to come. The better our schools are, the better our students will be as they complete their education. Census data shows that students who finish High School earn an average of $9,000 a year more that their counterparts who don’t, and those who finish college earn almost double what the high school graduates make. Education is one way to rebuild our wealth in America. The world needs well educated productive people to solve its problems. We can provide that.
Now I am not suggesting we federalize education, but why not think about some better ways to use our tax money to change the way the system is working. I do recognize that our economic system is in heart failure so instead of taking the whole $700B we could try to do something more modest. Maybe some of these proposals are a little more palatable:
Let’s spend some federal money to teach household economics to every student who graduates high school. Basic skills in personal budgeting, long term and short term investing, personal credit, buying a car, buying a house and saving a little for a rainy day could have saved thousands of families from the economic crisis they face now. We could make this happen through a few simple steps; develop a federal curriculum, provide nationwide teacher training, and launch a national promotion program. I bet the whole thing could be instilled for a cool 150 Million dollars. That still leaves $699,850,000,000 to spend on the banks and the automakers.
Or how about this one; We can spend 5 Million Dollars at each of the top 1000 universities (yes one thousand, there are over 4000 colleges and universities in the US and we have a lot of amazing schools) in the country to start a mandatory economics class for every liberal arts student in the country. The money could fund new teachers, books, even classroom space to make sure every student who has a Bachelor’s degree or greater in this country can follow the economic health of our nation. This proposal would leave our coffers with $694,850,000,000 (I already spent the money on the first proposal)
All right, this is my final proposal. Put some money in basic math education at the primary levels. I don’t think we need to spend a huge amount, say 1 Billion or 0.1285% of the total bailout package to make sure every school in America has the tools it needs to teach math properly. I would love for my children to understand the difference between 1 Million, 1 Billion and 1 Trillion so they can properly compare the salaries of major league sports stars, the GDP of developing countries, the amount of money Bill and Melinda Gates give to charity and this crazy Bailout that we are all burdened with. For those of you keeping score at home my three proposals left the bailout package with $693,850,000,000 to spend on automakers, banks and whoever else needs the help to get our economy back on track. I don’t know where they got the number of $700B to begin with so I am sure they can make it work for a little bit less.
The simple fact is that as a nation we do not even understand what is happening to all of this money. We are watching it fly out the door, but can not explain to each other, let alone our kids why it happened or who it happened to. We have failed to prepare our society for this type of crisis and we must build new safeguards to protect future generations from the same issue.
At the end of the day, if we can’t touch the bailout money maybe we can cut back on buying all of those stealth bombers and use that money for some of these proposals. I know it is only 1.3 Billion at a time, but hey, it’s a start.
* All statistics and figures quoted were direct from the Census. See http://www.census.gov/ for more information.
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