Education

Education is the process, whether in a formal setting or not, of acquiring skills and knowledge. It is most familiar in the schooling of the young, but continues throughout life. It is considered a human right, and Article 26 of The Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) recognizes education along with other necessities such as food, shelter, and water as a fundamental human right, and that parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 192 countries in 1989, affirms the right of all children to free, relevant and quality education. As a catalyst for human development, education provides people with the tools and knowledge they need to understand and participate in today’s world. It helps to sustain the human values that contribute to individual and collective well-being. It inspires confidence and provides the skills needed to participate in public debate. It makes people more self-reliant and aware of opportunities and rights.

Academic performance correlates most closely with the amount of time kids spend on homework. The United States has a socialized education program, though there are also smaller, competing, privately-run schools within the country. While it has been the establishment for some time, many have argued against the merits of government run programs.

Quality of life

Education enhances the ability of households to manage health problems, improve nutrition and childcare, and plan for the future. In developing areas of the world particularly, basic education provides girls and women with a greater understanding of basic health and nutrition, as well as of their own potential.

• Educated women marry later and receive better prenatal care.
• Children of mothers who have received at least a basic education are healthier, better nourished and more likely to receive education themselves than children of mothers who have never received education.
• In the Philippines, maternal primary education reduces the risk of child mortality by half and secondary education by a factor of three.
• Education helps to prevent the labour, trafficking and sexual exploitation of children, and their use as soldiers.
• It is one of the most effective weapons against disease, and raises awareness of living conditions and environmental protection.
• Life expectancy rises by as much as 2 years for every 1 per cent increase in literacy.

Economic development

Education is essential for economic development and eradicating poverty. It allows people to be more productive, to play a greater role in economic life, and to earn a better living.

• An adult with a primary education earns twice as much as an adult without any education.
• In Niger, the incidence of poverty is 70% in households headed by adults with no education, compared to 56% for households headed by adults who have received basic education.
• Farming practices can be improved through basic education.
• In Uganda, four years of primary education raise a farmer’s output by 7%.
• It is the foundation for acquiring knowledge and skills necessary to participate in and benefit from globalization and technological change.

However, the idea that higher education through colleges is necessary for greater productivity and higher income is challenged by many. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, in 2008 the average college graduate made $46,000 while the average plumber made $49,200, the average electrician $44,000, the average HVAC tech $47,000 and the average carpenter $42,940. In addition, only 35 percent of students earn a diploma in four years, and just 52 percent graduate in six, with the national college-dropout rate being 65 percent. "Blue collar" tradesmen are also not burdened with years of college debt, nor do they add to the national debt by going into public service in order to have their student loans "forgiven" after 10 years of employment therein (with 120 continuous payments).

Political stability and democracy

Education makes it possible for people to be responsible and informed citizens, and to have a voice in politics and society, which is essential for sustaining democracy. It also provides people with the knowledge and awareness needed to promote tolerance and understanding among people.

Ideology in modern education

In addition to purely academic teaching, education forms a part in developing a moral and political worldview. In many countries formal religious instruction is part of public education, while the United States, which holds to separation of church and state, no longer formally engages in such. However, it is argued by conservatives that the modern degree of exclusion of religious belief from the State was not the historical norm. One example invoked in support of this contention is that an estimated 75 percent of the school systems in the South had religious services and Bible readings as late as 1962, when in Engel versus Vitale, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that school-sponsored prayer was unconstitutional. It is also argued that it is impossible to completely separate an educational system from moral beliefs, and that the modern divorcement of religion from education constitutes an official "establishment of a religion of secularism" - a term used by U.S. Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart in dissenting from the decision rendered on June 17, 1963 in Abington School versus Schempp, which outlawed State-sponsored Bible reading in public schools.

Education in America, especially as its higher level, is typically seen by conservatives as promoting liberalism and helping to promoting moral degeneration. A (disputed) study showed that 50% of American college faculty identified themselves as Democrats and only 11% as Republicans (with 33% being Independent, and 5% identifying themselves with another party). 72% described themselves as "to the left of center," including 18% who were strongly left. Only 15% described themselves as right of center, including only 3% who were "strongly right."

Research on the political leanings of their university professors by members of The George Washington University Chapter of Young America’s Foundation (GWYAF) found substantial liberal bias in the academy. The school’s faculty gave 92 percent of their political donations ($221,490) to Democratic candidates versus only 8 percent ($20,500) to Republicans in the 2008 primary election. Consistent with this, in the presidential election the ratio was 91 percent to 9 percent.

Similarly, the ratio of Yale faculty donations in the 2004 presidential election between Kerry and Bush was 150:3. The ratio at Princeton was 114:1, and at Harvard, 406:13.

Law professor Richard D. Parker, after 35 years at Harvard University, noted, “On this faculty, there are around 100 professors or assistant professors, and of that 100, I think you’d have to estimate there would be maybe eight registered Republicans." “I’m a registered Independent…and there’s no one else in the 100 who would identify as a populist.”/

Textbooks used in schools of all ages have also been exposed as promoting a decidedly liberal bias against the nation of Israel. A landmark book called The Trouble with Textbooks, by Dr. Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra described results of a comprehensive study they conducted of the 28 most widely used Social Studies textbooks in the United States. The researchers found that U.S. textbooks often contain "repeated misrepresentations that cross the line into bigotry.” Examples included Jesus being called a Palestinian, Islam being "treated with a devotional tone in some textbooks, less detached and analytical than it ought to be. Muslim beliefs are described in several instances as fact, without any clear qualifier such as Muslims believe...' The Islamic empire of the Middle Ages was presented as “a time of unqualified glory without blemishes”, while various aspects of the wars of Arab states against Israel were misrepresented.

One the glossary of book, World History: Continuity and Change, the entry on the Ten Commandments skeptically describes them as "Moral laws Moses claimed to have received from the Hebrew G-d Y-hweh on Mount Sinai," while the very same glossary states the Qu'ran is a "Holy Book of Islam containing revelations received by Muhammad from G-d.”

One textbook publisher, Teachers Curriculum Institute, has agreed to rewrite its unit on the Middle East after being challenged, and consulting many scholars. The San Fransisco-based Jewish Community Relations Council found that the textbooks were so filled with inaccuracies and biased that they should not be used.

Professor, Larry Schweikart notes that most textbooks tend to come from New York, Boston, Washington and Philadelphia, all liberal bastions. As concerns American history, Schweikart sees the "Reagan test" as a consistent indicator of whether a book is politically slanted. The majority of books he has examined credit former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev with ending the Cold War, while marginalizing Reagan.

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute conducted extensive surveys in 2006 and 2007 of 14,000 college freshmen and seniors at fifty colleges nationwide, aimed at determining the impact a college education has on civic knowledge. The study resulted in the average freshman and the average senior scoring just over 50% on a sixty-question multiple-choice exam on fundamental knowledge of America’s history and institutions. An additional survey of 2,508 American adults resulted in the average college graduate scoring 57% in a thirty-three-question basic civics test, correctly answering only four questions more than the average high school graduate.

While scores indicated a college education resulted in little advance in knowledge of American history and institutions, an often significant increase in favoring liberal ideology was seen over those who were not college graduates. In addition, those with the highest degrees were the most liberal.

James Piereson, in analyzing changes in higher education in America, comments on the growth of the liberal university, and which was then displaced by the left university during the revolutionary years of the mid-1960s to the early 1970s, with its alterations becoming institutionalized in the years that followed. Some of the noted resultant changes are that,

“

single-sex colleges all but disappeared; college regulation of student morals disappeared as well; government regulation of employment expanded, putting pressure on institutions to hire women and minorities for faculty positions; the line between teaching a subject matter and advocating political positions was blurred or even eliminated altogether as the new campus radicalism asserted that all teaching is political in nature; the liberal underpinnings of academic culture--the freedom to teach and conduct research--were attacked and eroded in the name of political correctness; the unifying character of the humanities was subverted and discredited when they were said to represent an oppressive tradition formed by white European males; new fields, usually with ideological preconceptions, were created outside the traditional departments and areas of study, thus expanding the positions available for radical faculty; serious academic requirements, including foreign language proficiency, were softened or eliminated. ...the radicals of the 1960s went further to launch a wholesale attack on American culture and the middle-class way of life, which they condemned as repressive and, worse, boring. The cultural radicalism of the 1960s, derived from the Beats of the 1950s, was so appealing to the new campus left because it promised something beyond political reform--namely, a different way of life with a revised set of morals...

”

In his State of the Union address of 2010, President Obama called for providing complete "forgiveness" of student loans to students who spend 10 years (with 120 continuous payments) employed in public service. However, this would be an extension of 2007 College Cost Reduction Act, which took effect in July 2009. Public service includes government and non-profit work, but excludes employment in religious instruction or proselytization. In addition to increasing the national debt, this provision may be seen as being conducive to further promoting an entitlement mentality, and populating government with those who often manifest and propagate the same.

See also

• Citizens For Excellence In Education
• Homeschooling
• Liberal Myths About Education
• Pygmalion effect

External links

• U.S. Department of Education, the major federal agency for education in the U.S.
• National Center for Education Statistics, an excellent research resource for educational statistics.
• National Assessment of Educational Progress, for researchers and educators interested in assessment issues.
• A history of the modern homeschool movement, from the Cato Institute.
• National Home Education Research Institute, a research resource for homeschoolers.
• The Effort Effect - According to a Stanford psychologist, you’ll reach new heights if you learn to embrace the occasional tumble.
• Why Won't Politically Correct Professors Teach English and American Literature? - Dr. Elizabeth Kantor at The Heritage Foundation talks about why English professors don't seem to want to teach English and American literature, and about why the consequences of that failure are more important than you might think.
• What Liberals Say - Category: Education, Accuracy In Media