New Report: Reorienting an Education System that Fails Most Students

America’s public education caters to the minority of students that travel smoothly from high school diploma to college degree to career.

NEW YORK, NY (8/28/18) – America’s public education is designed to produce college graduates. Yet most Americans do not fall into this category, and current trends offer little hope for improvement. Politicians and policymakers are finally paying attention to this population and calls for more vocational education and apprenticeships have become fashionable. But in a new report, Manhattan Institute senior fellow Oren Cass argues that a more fundamental reordering of the nation’s misshapen educational infrastructure is necessary.

In “How the Other Half Learns,” Cass finds that fewer than one in five students travel smoothly from high school diploma to college degree to career. The public education system remains oriented entirely toward college preparation, and funding flows almost exclusively to those pursuing the elusive golden ticket. When a system fails the majority of the people it is intended to serve, Cass argues, the system is the failure.

Cass’s other findings include:

• Data show a significant overlap in wage and salary distributions for college graduates and high school, and hence a college degree is often not required to reach the middle class.
• While the potential demand for Career and Technical Education (CTE) is immense, the federal government spent only $1 billion on CTE in 2016 but more than $70 billion subsidizing college attendance.

Cass concludes that education funding should begin from the principle that a student pursuing a noncollege track deserves at least the same level of public support as one pursuing college. The report provides concrete recommendations for achieving that goal through reforms in metrics, standards, regulations, and funding.

Click here to read the full report.