Red scare, pt. 2

Duf Sundheim was speaking in PoliSci 179 this Wednesday, a class my sister is taking and I am crashing! (Webcast here). Basically he's a big wig in the California Republican Party and presided over it for a few years. He was also a key player in the recall of Gov. Gray Davis and masterminded the election of Schwarzi in his stead. Even more exciting for the crowd of Berkeley undergrads, he is an alumnus of Stanford.

...And yet I found him one of the most reasonable speakers I've heard in that class so far. (I missed a few -- I hear last week's Charles Wiley was awesome). Sundheim talked mostly about education and what's wrong with it in California. I have to admit, I agree that the thought of 80¢ on the dollar spent on education is being paid into pensions for teachers (or professors) who aren't even teaching any more. He mainly stressed the need to conceptualize education in terms of the individual, rather than the institution. I'm not totally clear on what that means, but the idea of focusing more attention on how to get kids what they need out of education, rather than thinking in terms of test scores and The School, seems ok to me. Maybe this is all part of some republican plot for smaller government.

One kid whose parents were teachers mentioned that try as they might, they just couldn't get through to some kids. Is it because they're not good enough at their jobs? Is it the lack of support for education at home? Is it...??? Mr. Sundheim agreed that 80% of the opportunity for education is tied up in a kid's home life. I find the number generous, but the concept not entirely unreasonable. Sure, it makes a big difference if your parents and the people in your life generally value education. I'm more uneasy, though, with the conclusion he draws -- that if a kid doesn't feel inclined to go to college, we should respect that -- craft education around what they actually want to do with their lives. I know we have technical high schools and all that, and I recognize that there are trades and unskilled labor that needs to be done, and we need people able to do them, but the idea of shunting someone that young out of the track to higher education scares me. Am I just biased because that's the way of life I know best? Would classes more immediately useful to employment actually keep them more engaged in school?

I don't know.