Bryan Caplan's The Case Against Education is a compelling explanation of why American schools have a seemingly non-sensical structure. In one example he points out how ridiculous it is that a high school Spanish teacher could flunk you, prevent you from graduating, and therefore hold up your whole career path.

Of course, actual teachers are not hardasses like this and school administrators are usually lenient on these things (like when I was "accidentally" skipping gym my senior year and technically wasn't supposed to graduate).

But I guarantee you that 70% of my high school education was irrelevant. Your grandfather isn't wrong for calling your major "Underwater Basket Weaving." Even the highest places of education require you to absorb so much useless knowledge to get the carrot on the stick. And the carrot on the stick went moldy some time during your binge drinking in sophomore year.

College aged children must understand the difference between what is useful and what is enjoyable. They are not the same thing! It is a commercial instinct to think that they are.

Even allowing our colleges to give you economically stunted degrees is a joke. There are only 3,400 jobs for historians in the country, but there are far more graduates in history every year.²

The reason is that school is no longer education first. It is society first. And that social conditioning is what white-collar employers are looking for. I guarantee those alumni donation letters from UIowa aren't appealing to my admiration of the high quality education I got there.³

The author goes on to point out that college degrees are valuable to employers because they signal three things – intelligence, conformity, and conscientiousness.

Intelligence is easy to measure with only one conversation. As Paul Graham said, "Hit a few tennis balls over the net and see if they hit them back." Though a college degree doesn't hurt to get a better idea of their area of expertise.

However, conformity and conscientiousness can be faked in an interview, and a bad hiring decision is painful all around. So a college degree signals you can work with a faceless organization for 4 years with other strangers for a higher goal. That's a good bet for an employer. It shows that you can work towards a culturally agreed upon standard, whether you want to or not.

Of course, a college degree is the "ultimate" education for Americans. But the roots for the college degree are planted deeply in the public schools of childhood, which have become incredibly resistant to reform.

Here's a helpful life tip. Never talk to a public school teacher about charter schools.

It's a hot button topic for public school teachers because it undermines their authority as caretakers distinguished educators. Over the years, I've talked to several people in education on this topic. And after some fraught emotions, the core argument always boils down to "We know what's best for your kid, and we're already underfunded, so please don't rock the boat."

In the digital age, it is foolish to believe you know what's best for my kid. You represent the government. And this isn't like the old days where you would walk 3 miles to a schoolhouse and be taught by the same guy for 5 or 6 years. That's a much deeper mentor/mentee relationship that public schools are not equipped to give.⁴

At some point, my kid is exposed to dozens of teachers of varying quality and political beliefs, and telling me that you're somehow the best does not make things any easier for me, especially when I'm locked into your school district by my local government.

I am not discrediting the power of a teacher to set a good example for their students. I admired the male teachers of my high school years. But it's foolish to take loud and proud claims of goodwill at face value.

Norm MacDonald roasting this heckling teacher always cracks me up. It's not a mistake that most teachers are women. This is obviously because public school is a caretaking role first and foremost. I never hear teachers complain about how hard it is to teach, but rather how hard it is to keep children sitting still. I have less respect for caretakers than educators.

It's already strange enough that we ship our children off for 8 hours a day to be instructed by the government on how to think and act. But the social advantages of public school are just too great – especially in a culture where we're often working with strangers. You don't want your child to be brainwashed by zeitgeist media slop, but you don't want them to be a social outcast.

This is the difficult choice that urbanization puts before us. How much do we want culture to shape our children, and how much do we want to shape them in our own image? One of the side effects of women entering the workforce en masse is that the family has less say in this matter. Parents simply don't have the time to spend with their child, so children are going to build their identities outside of their families.

Modern education has also become a tragedy of the commons. It would be foolish to tell your child not to pay attention in school or to not go to college. Right now that's the best path to wealth and success. But it does not take a genius to notice it's become remarkably inefficient.

Education should accomplish two things

1. Create a strong work ethic in children
2. Teach basic life skills

I think our schools do a good job with number 1. Working through seemingly useless shit is a good way to build work ethic, and as it stands, the goal is worth it. The problem is that we've defined the end goal as not being possible until you're 22. It's more likely than not you could learn the same skills with on the job training starting when you're 16, or possibly a more intensive standard for two year degrees. Though not ideal, I think modern education builds a strong work ethic.

Number 2 is much harder to accomplish. Most notably because children are very isolated from the "real" world we've created for ourselves. So much of life has been abstracted into our technology and niche occupations. It's much harder to teach a kid to manage their social media habits than it is to teach him math from a government textbook. Children don't have the framework for deeper insights into character that come from words on a page. They need real flesh and blood examples of great people to become great people themselves.

I do agree with liberals on the point that mental health skills are not given enough attention in early education (especially for honors kids that don't threaten the school's budget). However, I do not agree that the solution is to give more power to the government. The most direct, least wasteful solution is to build a stronger sense of community and trust. But that must happen at the cultural and family level – which is a much bigger beast.

In addition, I do not think that education will be easy to change so long as it is dominated by women. It is my experience that the more women in an organization, the more proceduralist and rules-based it becomes. Men have a much higher tolerance for experimentation and social risk. I think if education is to meaningfully reform in the classroom, it is likely to come from male educators.