Dear Harvard, we have a problem. The educational system is broken. Surely you can help fix it?
Dear Harvard,
We have a problem.
Look, the educational system is broken. It isn’t even an argument. It is unfair by race. It is unfair by socioeconomic class. It is unfair by gender. It is unfair by the amount of innate intelligence a child is born with. The current educational system unfairly dictates how much you will earn the rest of your life, whether you’ve got a shot at getting out of poverty, or whether you’re going to continue being rich. It starts at a the base level, at a small school sprouting up from the ground in Alabama to a 6th grade science lab in Harlem with no lab equipment. It starts with the way some school systems get money, and some don’t. Some kids get to go to private schools who openly flaunt the number of graduates that get into the Ivy’s. I don’t need a degree from your university to understand that, in this country, it is the luck of the draw that allows a child to go to attend a good school system or not. And try as I might to see how this is “justice for all,” I simply cannot see it as anything but unfair.
And, Harvard—(I’m picking on you, Harvard, but it could also be your good brothers Yale, Dartmouth, MIT, Princeton, etc.)—you do understand, don’t you, that this is elitism, and you do everything you can to foster being elite?
Your very being, the core of your soul, is designed to keep people out. To only allow the cream of the crop in. Give the people who come to Harvard an education that they simply cannot get elsewhere. Hoard your professors, hoard your resources so that only a select few will get the topmost education. A show of hands, please, by all those who think that maybe, just maybe, this may be unfair as well.
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At one point in my life I wanted to be a geologist. I had the finest rock collection a nine-year-old could ever have. Mica, quartz, topaz, limestone, geodes. Organized and labeled and categorized. I knew the color, the weight, the physical properties of all of them. Years later, all grown up and with a nine-year-old of my own, I walked into my son’s public school classroom with my rock collection.
And the teacher said, “Oh, look class, wasn’t it nice that Ms. Hickey brought in her collection. Now we can study rocks.”
Now we can study rocks. It wasn’t until I had the idea to share my rock collection that the school system thought that studying rocks was even a possibility.
Sure, a lack of geological knowledge might not be enough on its own to keep a kid out of Harvard. But a lack of a thousand-dollar tutoring system to get those SAT scores up? That will probably do it.
♦◊♦
Harvard, I have to ask this. You’re smart. You’re rich. You’re powerful. Who better to fix this broken education system than you? Who better to help make this work than the very institution we hold up in esteem as the finest in the land, the colleges and universities that gave our country the reputation it has now? Who better to innovate widespread, systematic, educational change than the universities who are now producing some of the finest innovators we’ve ever seen? Who better to spread out the educational resources that you believe make the best students in the world?
The solution is not really all that complicated. What I am asking for is equality.
If you wake up each morning, thinking, “How can we make Harvard a better place?” then perhaps you’ve got it wrong. Wouldn’t it be better to wake up and say, “How can we make the educational system inherently fair for everyone?”
Harvard, what if the only thing left to do is to stop worrying about being so elite? What if the only thing left to do is to share?
After all, look what happened a few years ago when a bunch of colleges and universities got together and decided to share information with each other.
Y’all invented the Internet.
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Related: Are Ivy League Colleges Misrepresenting How Diverse They Really Are?
Well, there are lots of things that need to be fixed in K-12 education in America, but these would be my two top priorities (neither of which is up to Harvard): 1. Public education is a right and a privilege. It should not be a legal mandate. Instead there should just be social pressure to stay in school. If people think “Yeah, I can drop out and be successful,” they’ll drop out. If people have to be legally forced to be in school, they’ll be less inclined to think of school as something they want to go to. How did… Read more »
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A major problem is that the education establishment resists change. Many administrators and teachers desperately want to maintain the status quo, which keeps minds closed to improvement that involves change. This includes many of the worst school systems in the country, which is why the are the worst school systems in the country.
This is so wrong, at so many levels, that a single comment can’t begin to address it. So I will leave you with a tale of two schools. The first was a public middle school in which the students just didn’t care one whit about learning. Neither did their parents. Violence was such that armed police patrolled the halls. The highest badge of honor among these middle-school girls was to have a baby. And the teachers were, by and large, substandard. Why? Because any good teacher than fell into that environment fled as quickly as possible. The second was a… Read more »
You fix inequality by caring about inequality and making it a priority. Most of the comments that are against my idea seem to be arguing that there is nothing really wrong with inequality, it is not only a part of life, but we should strive for a world in which some people can excel and some people can’t. It’s not a sentiment I agree with, but it is one I can understand. So it seems to me that in your tale of two schools, the answer might lie in this “the parents were proactive and took an active role in… Read more »
This article is a joke. Harvard has one duty–to provide a good education to the students that are qualified enough to get into the school. The reason they are elite is because they excel at this duty. Maybe with their large endowment they should fund health care for all because they “can” or buy school lunches for kindergarten children because they “can”.
It was this mom’s dream for her boy to attend Harvard; job losses and lay-offs in first decade of 21st century dashed those hopes. He’s a pretty smart kid too; should have started college this Fall. Instead he’s working part-time at B&N to help put food on his family’s table.
P.S. You book-learned people have loads to say!
I realize I am very late to the discussion, but this post was so delightfully foolish, I had to comment. I suppose I am one of those “book-learned people” with “loads to say”. I am a Harvard graduate and it’s interesting to see how you “street-learned people” are quick to blame without knowing the full picture. My personal story, which I will make very quick, will show you that I am not in some kind of super privileged group from which Harvard selects their pool. My parents are both immigrants who came to the country with a couple thousand dollars.… Read more »
*get over it folks, really
(I hope this formats lol) Lisa, fine idea. although youve started at too high a level. it is not the best uni’s that need to franchise out their formula – but the best high schools. they should be encouraged to franchise out their teaching methods, organisational structures like mcdonalds does. Whether that achieved by the best schools sharing their methods, seconding their teachers out to underperforming schools for part of the term or the best schools taking over and directly managing a group of schools. i would hope the differential between the teachers at the best high and primary(grammar) schools… Read more »
jameseq, I really like your idea of franchising out the best education methods. That’s exactly the kind of game changer needed. And it means the educational system can be run more like a business, which might ultimately be the best thing at all. I like to your UK stat that says “to educate a pupil it costs the state the same as a parent paying for their child to attend a private school.” In “Waiting for Superman” they talk about how in the worst of the worst schools only 3% of students graduate — and the dropouts are 8x more… Read more »
Yes lisa it is amazing how those who are hawkishly bottom line cant see it costs less to heavily support vulnerable students, than to pay $150k a yr to lock them up for decade after decade later in life (according to my prime minister in a recent interview).
In the case of vulnerable students it’s not just about them receiving better education. But that they also need extra funding to replicate the educational benefits that a stable home gives. Thats why id eg. pay them, or encourage a kibbutz(sp) feel
Harvard can’t fix this problem… the problem is ultimately cultural. Everyone has a right to a basic education, but that shouldn’t include college. Less than half of all people who start college acquire a degree, because these are people that shouldn’t be going to college to begin with. I believe that we should only have required schooling through age 16, then that would end mandatory schooling. There should then be a whole host of options… college preparatory programs, skilled trade schools, etc. If you are 16 and don’t want to continue with schooling, then you’re done. By making these schools… Read more »
Harvard has over a $25 billion dollar endowment. They have brilliance to spare. Of course it’s not ridiculous for me to write a letter asking them to share. Have you ever actually seen the difference between a school with money and a school without? This can be colleges, universities, high schools grade schools. Here’s the difference money in a school system buys you: In a school without money there is swear words written on the bathroom stalls. In a school with money, there is poetry. In a school without money, they teach astronomy by showing a movie. In a school… Read more »
Absolutely love this post!!!!
What “school with money” have you been to with sonnets in the bathroom stalls? I’d also add that as someone in the military who regularly encounters the half-educated detritus who tend to write those things, the problem is simply that they’re entitled assholes with no sense of good manners or respect for the property of others (or of all). They’re the same people who urinate in the corner of their guard post and then stand in their own urine for eight hours because they don’t have the manners or common sense or dignity to walk three feet away and urinate… Read more »
The “school with money” that had sonnets in the bathroom stalls was Milton Academy. They promote themselves as having one of the highest percentages of students go on to attend Ivy League schools. Public schools simply don’t have as many students going on to the best colleges and universities. Period.
If you are arguing that a “reasonably educated person” is good enough, that’s a different argument than I’m making.
Lisa, Above you pointed to inadequate K-12 education as the root of the problem. I’m still not clear how this is the fault of Harvard or any other elite institution of higher education. How exactly are they responsible for this? Beyond responsibility for the problem, how are they supposed to fix that? Let’s grant that many children are unprepared for elite level advanced education through no fault of their own, but due to lack of good educational opportunities in K-12. But what good is it going to do for Harvard to admit students who can’t write a complete sentence or… Read more »
I’m not saying Harvard should fix the problem of inequality because they caused it.
I’m saying they should fix it because they *can*.
I don’t understand. How can Harvard and the other elite universities change the educational policies of schools in hundreds (or thousands? not sure how many there are) of school districts in fifty states? How can Harvard and these other schools revamp governmental funding schemes that provide unequal funding for education from district to district? Or…?
First and foremost, it seems like these (mostly) private, elite universities lack the authority to go in and revamp K-12 education. For starters, a lot of what is done is done by law which Harvard, etc. cannot simply go in and overrule.
I stand by the last statement of my post: “The last time colleges and universities got together to share, they invented the internet.” I think the solution is different than what you think it is. I think it’s bigger, more innovative, simpler. I don’t think the laws need to be changed to help underprivileged schools. I think underprivileged schools can be helped by making the problem a priority, and having the leaders of our educational systems — the ones who have studied for decades how to give students one of the best educations on the planet — let those leaders… Read more »
Okay, how?
Correct me if I’m wrong here, but you seem to be saying:
1. There is a problem with (mostly government run) K-12 education.
2. Somehow, (mostly private) elite universities are to blame for item 1.
3. (Mostly private) elite universities should go fix item 1 in spite of government control over that system by somehow being sufficiently Harvardy and MITish about it.
4. Being Harvardy and MITish is not our problem. Let them go figure it out. We’re sure they can some how even though we have no idea how they should do that.
Actually, what I’m saying is this: 1. While there are certainly things that are working about our educational system, the fact that there is such a wide disparity in the quality of education that a child will get based on their location, race, socioeconomic status, family financial situation, gender, and innate intelligence is unfair. The gap in education that someone gets from the poorest schools to the wealthiest schools, and the where that gets them in life, is huge. This starts in K-12 but continues into the educational system after that. 2. I am not saying that elite universities are… Read more »
Harvard thrives on “perceived” educational inequality. If Harvard got rid of that there would be no point in Harvard. So is ridiculous for you to write a letter to Harvard advocating that they get rid of their competitive moat.
The solution is not to make every university like Harvard. It is to realize that a Harvard graduate is not superior in anyway and State schools are just as good. The real question is why anyone places extra value on a Harvard degree?
Interesting thoughts, Lisa. I would like to share that I’ve had some very positive experiences with the California public school system and its priorities. I think some of the programs and incentives instituted by the University of California campuses in the past couple decades have served as good examples of egalitarian-minded leadership. I know the California school system gets a lot of flack for its failures, and I can’t argue that the budget cuts have affected every level of education in the state. Still, as someone who has spent his entire life navigating the California school system – from preschool… Read more »
Oh Lisa, what a timely piece! Can’t wait to read through the comments and suggestions on my commute home. Much love, T
Elitism is the enemy of fairness for sure. And having been around Harvard and the like all my life it makes me sick to my stomach. Given the chance to hire someone from HBS and pretty much anywhere else, I am with Clarence Thomas (just this once), screw HBS because all they teach you is how to look down your nose at everyone else which is really bad in business. It is of course ironic that Harvard has a school of Education which has done very little to solve the nations education problems (its probably the weakest graduate program at… Read more »
Here are some thoughts on how: 1) Have each teacher at the top elite college or university spend a semester teaching at the top worst / most impoverished high schools as a condition of tenure. 2) Whatever it is that they teach in those tutoring courses for the SAT’s – teach them in every school in the country. Don’t make access to information and knowledge dependent on money. 4) Allow teachers who teach in any public school system in America to virtually audit any class Harvard (etc) offers. 5) When my oldest daughter was struggling in high school, she had… Read more »
Agree to all. My other suggestion is that if you go to an elite school (defined as any college that doesn’t have open enrollment) you must do two years of national service focussed on improving the educational system in some area where it is broken. In Medical school you learn, you teach, you do. I think the same applies here.
I think if you’re looking to Harvard for leadership in this area, you’re barking up the wrong tree. Stay in Cambridge though. Again I’ll point as another of your respondents did to MITOpenCourseware! http://ocw.mit.edu. This is an extraordinary effort. I can’t imagine a similar effort coming forth from Harvard.
Love the idea of national service to improve the educational system everywhere!
Frank — thanks for the MIT link. GREAT idea — and exactly what I meant about sharing.
I honestly was just using Harvard as an easy way of referencing “all elite schools everywhere.” If we can’t even see them as a leader, then that is really troubling — but you’re right — let’s look to those who are really solving the problem.
Lisa, there are hundreds of institutions of higher education around the world- elite ones, even- with open learning opportunities:
http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/1_Top_10_Universities_With_Free_Courses_Online.php
Including not only MIT, but also Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, Carnegie Mellon, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Duke, and yes, what is this? That’s right- Harvard.
Google “OpenCourseWare Consortium” to find out more. I’d link to it myself, but then I think my post would get stuck in the moderation queue.
1. The entire point of having professors at research schools is for them to do research. Unless I’ve been lied to (possible…) they’re not there particularly because of their pedagogical gifts but because of their talent or knowledge for their subject. Having some theoretical physicist from MIT stop doing research so that he can try to teach almost-certainly non-compliant teenagers basic math which they could learn from anyone with a bachelor’s degree is a fancy gesture with no likely positive results. The problem at these terrible schools — aside perhaps from funding — is terrible parenting which devalues education and,… Read more »
I agree with you. I come from a family where if your grades are below A, you get this 1 hour lengthy lecture that you’re lazy and didn’t try hard enough from each parent. Therefore, I tried hard (simply just to avoid these annoying lectures) and in the process I’ve found many things. I see no reason to pull people away from the field that they’ve worked so hard to get into just to teach basic rudimentary skills to students below post-secondary education level. They can get tutored by someone who’s aced to course (who’s still in high school or… Read more »
Tom, I’m noticing a pattern wherein your “solutions” to social problems involve forcing people to do or not to do things. Why is this?
You agree to all of that Tom? You think that institutions and students and faculty should just do what Lisa or any other egalitarian wants them to just for the sake of their arbitrary definition of justice?
What kind of world are we living in? I hope that you’re just saying you agree with her here because she is the CEO of this joint and not because you actually agree with her.
I think one of the erroneous assumptions here is that a place like Harvard “makes the smart smarter” whereas other lesser-known are less capable of doing so. Harvard does have a number or resources that other universities may lack, but most state schools still have solid libraries, collections, etc. From my experience, the quality of professors at top schools—and their ability to impart information to their students—varies enormously (especially at the undergraduate level). Rather, I’ve found the teachers who have had the most impact on my intellectual development were those from high school. In fact, a professor’s role and position… Read more »
Well said.
Totally agree in this: “to advance in your field—whether it’s finance, the arts, education, public service—takes guts, drive, passion, and intelligence: something no degree can offer.”
I just think without an equal education from the very beginning, it’s very hard to get a job where you can show that off. Not impossible. But a lot, lot harder.
I think it is absolutely correct to call out institutions when they sort students on an irrelevant basis such as socioeconomic class and so on, but there are relevant factors that I am happy to see used to promote elitism if it is about actual merit. I think it is important for there to be places where people are encouraged to reach their maximum potential without their educational experiences being dumbed down for the sake of absolute equal opportunity. How is it “fair” for someone who is not at all motivated to work hard, or is not talented in particular… Read more »
I’m not actually advocating that we have an open door admission policy at every school. Certainly schools should specialize, and there should be places where people who have passion, talent and guts can go to have those passion, talent and guts fully realized. But before they get there — in the high school and grade school level — the education system is a broken as it gets. The problem is that the distribution of education follows the same basic pattern as the distribution of wealth in our society. The smart get smarter. The disadvantaged have no way to keep up.… Read more »
But before they get there — in the high school and grade school level — the education system is a broken as it gets.
I agree, but how is Harvard, MIT, Dartmouth or Yale responsible for that? I think we’re calling out the wrong schools on that problem here.
@Kirsten: I think her point wasn’t that Harvard is responsible, so much that Harvard might be able to do something about it.
@Lisa: That said, sorry, but it wasn’t very clearly written. I definitely came away from it with the feeling that the point was to to let everyone in regardless of ability.
The point you were trying to make (and clarified in the above post) was good though, it’d be nice if someone made the US education system more merit based.