More on economic literacy
CRITICAL MASS
By Erin O'Connor
In January, Maurice Black and I published an essay on the failure of our colleges and universities to compensate for the failure of K-12 by ensuring that students graduate with basic economic and financial literacy (not to mention the even more basic mathematical skills that these require). This is a theme that can't be emphasized enough, and that requires a great deal of elaboration and thought--not only about the nature of the problem, but about how to tackle it effectively.
Here's ACTA program officer David Azerrad, doing just that:
>>>According to the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE), more than half of American adults do not understand what it means to say that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has increased. Nearly two-thirds do not know that in times of inflation, money loses value, the NCEE poll revealed. As for the current mess we're in, less than half of Americans can identify what a subprime mortgage is, according to a recent survey by the nonprofit Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy.
While no one will go so far as to blame the current debacle on widespread economic illiteracy, part of the nation's ongoing soul-searching must address the question of whether we are preparing leaders and citizens who can understand and think critically about this crisis, or for that matter, economics in general.
While we've heard innumerable stories about the causes of the downturn, its ripples and repercussions on every conceivable segment of American society, and how best to revive the moribund economy, we have for the most part ignored this fundamentally important question.
To answer it, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni surveyed 100 leading universities across the country to identify which ones require their students to take at least one introductory economics class. The results are disheartening. Only two institutions--the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and the United States Military Academy at West Point--have an economics requirement. The rest--including the entire Ivy League, the top liberal arts colleges according to U.S. News & World Report, and the flagship public universities in each of the other 49 states--are not doing anything to ensure that their graduates are economically literate.
Not surprisingly, the results of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute's survey of college graduates reveal similarly stunning levels of economic ignorance. For example, 40 percent of those polled by ISI did not know that business profits equal revenues minus expenses. Only half could articulate the principles underlying free market capitalism.
[...]
Unfortunately, the dearth of economics requirements at our colleges and universities is part of a broader sad story: the collapse of the core curriculum. On campus after campus, critical subjects like math, science, and American history have become optional. In ACTA's study, only 11 of the 100 colleges and universities surveyed have an American history or government requirement. Barely more than half require mathematics.
Some will claim that requirements are outdated and that students should be free to decide which classes they wish to take. They are, after all, paying for them. But students are not consumers, classes are not commodities, and an education isn't simply a collection of courses that add up to a degree.
A college education--or any education, for that matter--presupposes that those who know more teach those who know less. Indeed, an undergraduate education is supposed to prepare students to become informed, engaged, and productive citizens by acquainting them with certain fundamental areas of knowledge.
Rather than leave it up to 18-year-old freshmen, still inexperienced in the ways of the world, to determine what they need to know, educators and administrators should exercise judgment and identify critical areas for mandatory study. Students, of course, remain free to choose from an array of courses to fulfill their requirements and pursue their own interests through electives, but the basics should be covered.
In other words, Economics 101 should not be just one more option among "Mafia Movies" (Barnard College), "Digital Game Studies" (Dartmouth College), and "The History of Furniture" (University of Nebraska at Lincoln).
As for those who would put their trust in our high schools, a 2007 survey by the NCEE reveals that only 17 states include economics as a graduation requirement. But the requirements are minimal. For example, the New Jersey State Board of Education requires only a half-year of economics and financial literacy. Similarly, Alabama, Arizona, and Florida require just a half-credit in economics in order to graduate.
This makes college-level attention to economics even more essential. Indeed, even if our high schools were doing their job, universities should shoulder the responsibility to strengthen what had already been learned, and to build upon it. A high school classroom is no substitute for a college lecture hall.<<<
Azerrad goes on to offer ideas for what you can do--as an alumnus, or as a trustee--to make sure that your school is doing what needs to be done.
It's worth noting, too, that the argument he makes about how vital economic understanding is to our present national and global situation might also be made about science. I've written here before that we are a society that needs to understand what, for instance, a stem cell is, and what stem cell research is all about, before we can have an intelligent debate about it and pass legislation about it. It also strikes me that Azerrad's final point--about how taking a class in high school does not necessarily mean that one is "done" with a subject, and does not absolve colleges and universities from including that subject in its course requirements--is an argument that we ought also to be making about U.S. history and writing.
I'm up for letting folks test out of math or foreign language (I speak as someone who took calculus in high school and had six years of French before college), but not the others (and that, too, is spoken as someone who AP'd out of college history and college writing). I would have benefited enormously from taking college-level history, and I know now that I actually would have loved it; instead, I avoided it completely, having not loved my high school experience, and did not re-discover the subject until I was in grad school, reading around like a maniac the way grad students do. I think there are good odds I would have become a historian rather than a literature person if I'd made my little discovery earlier. As for writing, I wound up taking freshman comp even though I didn't have to, as that was the only English class I could get into as a Berkeley freshmen (back then, you couldn't get a spot in lit courses unless you were an English major, they were in such demand; people camped out overnight to get into the freshman comp courses, even as upperclassmen; I was actually lucky to be in that course). As it happened, I learned a lot, and acquired lifelong habits having to do with revising, revising, revising, and starting projects early enough for all that revising to happen.
But enough about me. On a related note--if you are past the schooling part of your life, but still want to study, still want to learn, and perhaps even want to fill in some gaps (in economics, or math, or history, or anything else) consider the Teaching Company. They have, to name one of many, a terrific Western Civ course, which runs from ancient Mesopotamia to yesterday, totals two professors, 48 hours of lecture, and 96 lectures. Watch during dinner; listen while you commute or work out. And ye shall be edified. |
