In his opinion piece for the New York Times, Thomas Edsall interviews the Project on Workforce's David Deming about public education and equipping the workforce of the future. "What if... there is a “sleeping giant of talent” out there? How do we find him? How do we awaken her? How do we reach out to make a better world?"
David Deming, a professor of education and economics at Harvard, dissented from those faulting the quality of public schooling.
“There is a narrative out there that our K-12 schools are failing, and I think it’s wrong,” Deming wrote by email.
NAEP scores in grade 12 have been flat for 20 years, but we are educating more low-income and immigrant students in grade 12 than ever before, which makes me think that flat overall scores are understating our progress due to composition effects. The high school graduation rate over this period rose by 7 percentage points, from 84 percent in 2000 to 91 percent today. So there are many more young people staying in school long enough to be tested.
Read the full article at NYTimes.com