Dr. John Psarouthakis is the Executive Editor of www.BusinessThinker.com Internet Magazine, Distinguished Visiting Fellow / Professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies in the Humanities, University of Edinburgh, Scotland, Publisher of www.GavdosPress.com and Founder and former CEO, JPIndustries, Inc., a Fortune 500 industrial corporation

The world is a better place because of great novelists and poets and painters and musicians and sculptors and actors. We could include great chefs on a short list of specialists who add value to our cultural lives. Even such a basic need as food, after all, can be lifted above the ordinary and into the realm of art. As a voracious consumer of the arts (and occasional patron of the arts), and as someone who enjoys a wonderfully prepared meal, I obviously believe esthetic good things enrich us all. I also believe everyone’s education should include a well-guided tour of the literary, visual, and musical arts. But only a relative handful of citizens can pay the rent by knowing the difference between a sonata and a fugue, or by sharing their opinion of Moby Dick—or, for that matter, by knowing how to play a fugue or write a novel or choose the best fresh ingredients and bring them to table well enough to rent a building and start printing menus. The world doesn’t work that way. The overwhelming majority of us always have needed to make a living in the mundane realm of commerce and industry (or, via subsidy by the private sector, government). Education’s role in that familiar dynamic must be fundamentally recast, however, for the 21^st Century.

At a glance, educating young people for the 20^th Century workforce didn’t look much different than what education must accomplish in the new age. For example, all young people preparing for today’s job market know the lately fashionable acronym “STEM,” meaning “science, technology, engineering, and math.” Pointing toward a STEM career means, according to a 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics essay, preparing for a job that will . . .

“ . . . play an instrumental role in expanding scientific frontiers, developing new products, and generating technological progress. These occupations are concentrated in cutting-edge industries such as computer systems design, scientific research and development, and high-tech manufacturing industries. Although educational requirements vary, most of these occupations require a bachelor’s degree or higher. Accordingly, STEM occupations are high-paying occupations, with most having mean wages significantly above the U.S. average.

Dr. V.E.”Bill” Haloulakos is an AIAA National Distinguished Lecturer and a contributor to The Business Thinker

• Education has become a big business in the United States
• The proliferation of the number of departments and major fields of study in both public and private universities is staggering
• The number of students at undergraduate and graduate levels is phenomenal
• The amount of money expended is almost beyond measure
• Yet, many businesses in the US need to hire special help from abroad under the umbrella of the H-1B Visa programs
• This implies that the education business establishment may not be satisfactorily fulfilling the needs of the Business World
• The proliferation of for-profit universities and the expansion of special extension courses in many of the large universities strengthen the above conclusion
• Political correctness has significantly altered the environment whereby open discussion and debate on key issues appears sharply limited or restricted in our schools and universities
• It was this “new political correctness” environment that caused the President of Harvard University to resign for merely raising the question as to why there is an under representation of women in the fields of science and mathematics and whether they could do something to remedy the situation
• The deleterious effects of this political correctness is perhaps best illustrated by an article, exposed by Diane Ravitch, in the Wall Street Journal, June 20 2005, titled “ETHNOMATHEMATICS”

EARLY HISTORY

Education has been around for the entire history of mankind. It has been something that is always sought in order to elevate and improve a person’s or an entire family’s life. This was by way of acquiring knowledge that enabled one to do things and perform tasks that had market value and as the world of business entered human life the value of education increased substantially. Business required record keeping of the transactions between the trading individuals and groups. In fact it has been suggested that it was this business record keeping that developed the need for written languages.

Dr. Frank Marangos is CEO and Founder of OINOS Educational Consulting. He received a Doctors Degree in Adult Education (Ed.D.) from NOVA Southeastern University (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) and a Doctorate in Ministry and Childhood Education (D.Min.) from Southern Methodist University (Dallas, TX).

Dr. Marangos has taught at several American colleges and universities. He is a nationally Certified Distance Learning Leader with extensive expertise in developing and conducting on-line distance learning courses. He is currently an adjunct assistant professor at Saint John’s University (Queens, NY).

“Do you wish to rise? Begin by descending. You plan a tower that will pierce the clouds? Lay first the foundation of humility.” – Saint Augustine

The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) recently released the vocabulary scores for 4^th and 8^th grade students on the 2009 and 2011 reading comprehension exam. This marks the first time that results of a separate mastery scale for vocabulary comprehension administered by the National Assessment of Educational Progress have been released. The scores are troubling – but not unexpected. While the average performance on the U.S. Education Department’s national exams remained mostly stagnant at low levels, the highest performers lost ground during the same period!

According to the report, the comprehension levels of 4^th grade students were tested on words like create, spread, clenched, outraged, puzzled and striking. Eighth-graders, on the other hand, were expected to know the meaning of more difficult words such as anecdote, edible, replicate, specialty, and permeate. Finally, high school seniors were asked to recognize terms such as prospered, capitalize, articulate, proactive, mitigate and delusion. As the NCES described it, the exam’s word index was based on vocabulary usage across a variety of content areas. Unfortunately, while on average, 4^th graders scored 218 out of a total of 500 points, 8^th graders recorded a paltry 265!

 This article ir republished from and in accordance with the policy of  “VoxEU.org”

Dr. David Hummels
Professor of Economics at Purdue University

Dr.Rasmus Jørgensen
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Yale University’s Department of Economics

Dr.Jakob R. Munch
Asian Dynamics Initiative Professor of International Economics in the Department of Economics, University of Copenhagen

Dr.Chong Xiang
Associate Professor of Economics, and Director of Graduate Studies, at Economics Department, Purdue University

With stagnating wages and lingering unemployment, income inequality is back in the headlines. Is globalisation to blame for this inequality? Is more education a solution? This column argues that focusing on university education misses important effects. It presents evidence that wage effects vary markedly among those with degrees depending on their specific skill sets, and that globalisation can often benefit workers
without degrees.

Fuelled by concerns over rising income inequality, Occupy Wall Street has grown into a global movement in slightly over 2 months, with protests i over 900 cities worldwide. Protestors have been criticised for lacking a specific set of policy demands, but in this the protestors are