В Арканзасе призывают связать развитие STEM-вузов с повышением школьных стандартов

STEM education isn't vital just for higher ed I just read a short article in the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the planned STEM university on the former Walmart HQ property in Bentonville. The addition of STEM-focused higher education in the region is laudable. The problem is whether local students will be able to take advantage of it. I came across recent statistics, for example, that stated that only 25% of the population in Siloam Springs could read at or above the sixth-grade level. That is abysmal! I am also hearing that many families, because of the cost of 4-year college educations, are actively discouraging their children from going to college and instead directing them into the trades. While this has merits, I suspect it may be dumbing down the educational expectations for the elementary, middle and high school systems. If so, the local population at large will continue to suffer in its ability to achieve work success in their lives and improve the futures of their children. Low expectations in life are easy to meet, but is that what we should be striving for in Arkansas and the United States at large? If we don't want to see the U.S. continue to fall behind in its achievements, STEM education at the university level needs to be supported by STEM and generally higher achievement standards in lower education. Steve Studabaker Siloam Springs ================= Declaring 'socialism" enemy is inadequate I read the recent argument from Leslie Rutledge that "socialism is not the answer for Arkansas" as a Lutheran pastor who, actually, supports many of the DSA's calls for more just and democratic forms of governance. That doesn't mean I agree with every DSA proposal. The DSA isn't the Democratic Party, for one thing, and democratic socialism itself includes plenty of internal disagreement. But I do wish we could get past using socialism as if the word itself settles the argument. Every successful modern economy is a mixed economy. The Scandinavian countries are obvious examples: robust markets and private businesses coexist with strong social safety nets, labor protections, public services and democratic restraints on the excesses of capitalism. Those policies haven't eliminated innovation or productivity. They've tried to make sure the benefits and risks of a productive economy are shared more justly. We do this in Arkansas, too. Consider soybean farmers. Federal crop insurance, commodity supports, disaster assistance and programs that protect farmers when prices or revenues collapse are deliberate government interventions in the market. And I'm glad they exist. We have collectively decided farming is too important, and farmers too vulnerable to forces beyond their control, to simply say, "Let the market decide." That's a socialist impulse woven into a capitalist economy, and it's a good one. The argument should be about where and how we do this, not whether anything that can be labeled "socialist" is automatically dangerous. The same applies to some of the more provocative DSA rhetoric. Take prison abolition. I don't know that we can abolish prisons tomorrow, and public safety is a real responsibility of government. But as a Christian pastor, I certainly don't believe we should want prisons to exist as an industry, much less build economic incentives around keeping them full. In fact, I recognize something deeply Christian in the hope for a society so just, peaceful and restorative that prisons eventually become unnecessary. Christians have always had a word for imagining a world that does not yet exist and orienting our lives toward it: eschatology. So yes, I'm a Christian pastor who has observed that markets can be extraordinarily productive, and I support many democratic-socialist efforts to constrain their excesses and distribute our common goods more justly. Those aren't contradictions. They're the kinds of checks and balances that already structure much of American economic life. We can disagree about how much socialism belongs in our mixed economy. But Arkansas already has some. Arkansas soybean farmers benefit from it. And sometimes it's very good policy. Clint Schnekloth Fayetteville You're one step away from the full story. Log in or create an account to continue reading. Support journalism that covers the topics that matter most to you. Donate today to preserve the quality and integrity of local journalism.