David Coleman Again Demonstrates He Doesn’t Get Education
Common Core architect and College Board President David Coleman recently joined a public forum to discuss “the next America.” His eight-minute speech gives a window into the ideas of those driving education in this country, which many Common Core critics have disagreed with all along.First is the central idea of college as a pathway to financial security. Coleman opens with this: “The fact is completing a college degree is the most powerful force in driving against income inequality in this country. Seriously, it is the only technology we have.”
Odd. He seems not to have noticed the research demonstrating that intact families are a far better “technology” for fostering economic opportunity. Also, research typically does not show that getting a college degree automatically makes young people better off. It shows that better off people more often have a college degree. This distinction is significant, and understood by anyone who has ever heard in science class the difference between “correlation” and “causation.” For someone who says he is “obsessed with data,” Coleman is extremely sloppy on this point.
The worst thing about his statement, however, is its assumption that the point of college is money. I’m sure if you asked him this, Coleman would say “of course college is not just about
