Building a Competitive Education Industry
A Weekly Column by Myron Lieberman

From time to time, EPI will include an article by Dr. Lieberman that was published 20-30 years ago. Putting these articles on the EPI website (all of Dr. Lieberman's columns are archived at www.educationpolicy.org) serves several purposes. First, they demonstrate the persistence of certain problems, hence they raise questions about progress in resolving the problems. Second, they show how our educational agendas have changed in the last twenty to thirty years. Also, they provide some insight into Dr. Lieberman's batting average as a policy analyst; however, the articles were not chosen to improve his reputation as an analyst.

Institute for Research and Development in Occupational Education
City University of New York
1411 Broadway, New York, N. Y. 1001B

An Occasional Publication for Selected Audiences -- #15

The Future of the Custodial School
Dr. Myron Lieberman
Irving I. Melbo Professor of Education (1975-1977)
School of Education
University of Southern California
University Park, California

Teenagers may not waste a lot of time in school, but many people think they do. In fact, five national study groups, each established under different auspices, have recently concluded that "we are unnecessarily and unwisely prolonging secondary education." Despite differences in membership, information, assumptions, and objectives, all of the study groups agreed: Teenagers should spend less time in school before high school graduation, and they should graduate sooner than they do now.

Obviously, any such changes would have massive repercussions, not just in education but throughout our economy. For instance, if youth could complete high school in eleven instead of twelve years (with no loss of achievement), and if they worked an additional year, and if this additional year of employment did not displace others in the labor force, the gains to our economy would be measured in billions of dollars. [Of course, all of these assumptions are controversial and involve some genuine uncertainties. For example, if earlier entry into the labor force led to earlier retirement instead of a longer work life, the result would be to redistribute national income rather than to increase it.]

In fact, however, most estimates of the benefits resulting from educational acceleration err on the conservative side. This is because they are based only upon the savings resulting from the need for fewer teachers, less supplies and equipment, and other reductions in cost. Although substantial, such savings would be much less than the increase in national productivity if most of us went to school a year less and worked a year more. This is easily overlooked because the largest real cost of secondary education, student time, is typically not treated as a cost at all in educational circles. Undoubtedly, this is why little effort is made to conserve such time.

Before we ring up any savings, however, let us first consider the reasons why the study groups concluded that secondary youth (roughly 14-18) were spending too much time in school. Although their reasons vary somewhat, as do their recommendations concerning the use of out-of-school time, the reasons can be summarized briefly as follows:

• Studies that show secondary students learn as much even when attendance in school is reduced materially.
• Evidence that present restrictions upon youth employment have little relevance to their educational or safety needs but are based upon labor fears of excessive competition and wage cutting from younger job seekers.
• The widespread movement to lower the age of majority from twenty-one to eighteen. This is not just another incremental change. It is a drastic alternation of adult legal status, such that secondary schools can no longer be permitted their overwhelming preemption of the process by which the young become adults.
• A wide range of foreign experience in education and employment which strongly suggests that U.S. levels of educational achievement need not require so much time in school, and that youth can efficiently perform many adult jobs from which they are presently excluded.
• The increase in programs, such as Advanced Placement and College Level Educational placement, designed to make it possible for secondary youth to take advanced work in high school and receive credit for it on an objective basis.
• Studies indicating that youth capable of advanced academic work in college can usually handle more advanced studies in secondary school.
• A significant amount of absenteeism in secondary school, especially in large cities. This is interpreted as evidence that many young people perceive little benefit in school attendance, a perception shared by some economists.
• Evidence that physical and intellectual maturation is usually reached by age eighteen. There is some evidence that such maturation occurs sooner today than it did in previous generations, due to improvements in nutrition and health care. In other words, there are physiological reasons for believing students today can complete an equivalent program in less time than previous generations of student.
• The fact that the present policies on the school day, school year, and school leaving age were formulated prior to and independently of relevant research bearing upon these matters; such research as is available is either inconsistent with present policies or can, with equal justification, be cited to support earlier school leaving and earlier participation by youth in higher education or the labor force.
• Evidence that the alienation of youth, insofar as it constitutes a genuine problem, results largely from their sweeping isolation from responsible roles in interaction with other adults and social institutions, such as the economy and the political system. Schools cannot simulate these other institutions or successfully provide the kinds of experience which they offer.
• As more women work outside the home, the role of the family in providing meaningful interaction between youth and adults has continued to diminish. Like other social institutions, family life invites the domination of youth by the peer group, which plays a passive and dependent role in school and a non-responsible role outside it.
• Successful legal challenges (such as the celebrated case of Griggs v. Duke Power Company) to high school and/or college graduation as prerequisites for employment are likely to increase and further weaken the practical value of formal education.

The evidence in the reports themselves is only mildly persuasive; on the other hand, the reports omit a great deal of evidence which might be cited to support their recommendations. For example, in August 1974, the New York State Board of Regents released a policy statement severely critical of overlapping high school and college programs. The statement cited 1971 studies showing that liberal arts colleges repeated 40 percent of high school social science courses, 35 percent of those in English, 24 percent of courses in science, and 21 percent of those in mathematics.

Whatever their merits, however, these educational arguments are likely to have only a marginal impact on attendance policies. Present attendance policies were not adopted on the basis of educational considerations, nor are they likely to be changed for educational reasons. As the Regents statement emphasizes, high schools can and do offer a great deal of college level work. Nevertheless, it will be argued that students cannot reasonably be expected to graduate at present levels of achievement at least one year sooner, or that their psyches will suffer if this is tried, or that twelve years in school provides significantly more protection than eleven from would-be exploiters. All of these arguments, and many more, will be made ad infinitum, but they will be rationalizations of positions taken for other reasons.

[This is evident when we look at the historical context of the problem. For example, the desire to Americanize immigrant children, or the children of immigrants, was an important consideration in extending school attendance even into the 1930's; today, it is a negligible factor, except in special cases. Nevertheless, nobody appears to be advocating a reduction in school attendance even where there is no reason to be concerned about "Americanizing" immigrant children.]

The basic issues are not the educational ones relating to whether youth could learn as much or more despite less time in school. They are the economic issues relating to what youth would do if they had a shorter school day and/or graduate sooner from high school. Will there be jobs or work-study programs for those who do not want to be full-time students in higher education? Will employers be willing, even if they are legally free to do so, to employ 15-16-year olds at full-time positions? Economic issues such as these are more important factors influencing the duration of schooling than the educational arguments on the issue.

Of course, earlier graduation from high school would necessitate some major readjustments in higher education, especially in admissions policies. Nevertheless, even in the short run, I doubt whether college admissions policies would be a problem. Many colleges are already running short of students they would like to admit; others are running short of students, period. For this reason, colleges are likely to join, or even to lead, the movement toward earlier admission, even though this solution weakens the job market for teachers below the college level. Professorial complaints about unqualified students will continue, but they will be even more pro forma than they are now. If you don't believe this, show me the professor or the college who prefers no students to poorly qualified ones.

Unfortunately, since about 50 percent of our high school graduates do not enter college, the willingness of colleges to accept large numbers of students at ages 14-16 would not solve the basic problem. If graduates not going on to college cannot enter the labor force, they will face a lengthy period of unemployment. Nobody appears to be advocating this, and nobody should. The crucial facts in the present situation, are demographic and economic. Teacher organizations are greatly concerned about declining enrollments, especially in relationship to the total number of persons eligible to teach.

Other things being equal, a decline in enrollments results in a decline in job opportunities for teachers. Any such decline also weakens the bargaining power of teachers. To counteract this, NEA and AFT are already urging smaller classes to solve the teacher surplus problem; they are also initiating a strong effort to lower the age of compulsory education and to bring education of the pre-kindergarten group under the jurisdiction of the public schools. Under these circumstances, efforts to lower the age of school leaving, or to reduce the time youth spend in school, are certain to encounter strong opposition from teacher organizations.

What are the chances that legislators, employers, and unions will accept earlier entry into the labor market? At the present time, the chances are poor indeed. Currently, the unemployment rate among youth aged 16-19 is about 21.1 percent; among black teenagers, it is about 41.1 percent. Among adults over 25, it is 5.7 percent. Thus, employers as such have no reason to support an earlier entry into the labor market, and unions have strong incentives to oppose it. For these reasons, legislators and policy makers are not likely to make the change, feasible as it may be) solely on educational grounds. Given the likelihood that high rates of unemployment will persist, and may even increase as one of the tradeoffs in the fight against inflation, the outlook for reducing the custodial function of secondary schools in the near future is not very promising.

This pessimistic outlook is even more difficult to accept when we consider some of the practical advantages of private sector alternatives. In New York City, the banks are among the largest trainers of the hard core unemployed. When a bank accepts an inner city dropout for training (e.g., for a position as teller), the trainee is an employee from the first day of training. Thus, unlike the school situation, there is no uncertainty about the availability of a job if the trainee is successful; the bank trainee already has what the school trainee hopes to get. The training is conducted in the bank, on bank equipment, by bank employees; bank trainees are more likely to accept the obligations of training because they are already employees and are treated as such. With all due respect to school-based vocational education, it is readily understandable why the bank should succeed in this situation where the school did not. Exploitation of youth by the bank is, of course, a legitimate concern, but so is the possibility or exploitation by schools even though everyone's motives are 9944/100 percent pure.

In this connection, I once asked a bank vice president for training about the age at which youths were able to handle a job as teller. His answer was that l2-year olds could do the work efficiently, but compulsory school attendance laws, insurance requirements, and other factors of this nature precluded their employment. In any case, one does not have to accept this conclusion to be convinced that society is over-protecting the young to everyone's detriment.

To sum up, enormous improvements in education may well be possible, but they cannot be effectuated without basic changes in other institutions, especially , the economy. The political support needed to bring about these changes does not exist, nor can it be developed under present conditions. Nevertheless, I believe there is one factor which could and will render the protectionist line extremely vulnerable to attack and transform the entire situation.

The coming decline in the number of high school students) and in the pro- portion of youth to the rest of the population, will have an enormous impact on the labor markets of the future, especially in the 19801s. In 1972) the 16-19 age group in the labor force was approximately 8.4 million, or 9.4 percent of the total labor force of 89 million. In 1990, the 16-19 age group is expected to be 7.1 million, or 6.3 percent of a total labor force of approximately 112.6 million. In other words, there will not only be a moderate decrease in the absolute number of teenagers, but a very substantial decrease in the proportion of teenagers in the labor force and the total population. Unless we permit large scale immigration, teenage unemployment will drop substantially; eventually, there will be severe shortages in the youth labor supply. As this happens, employers will try to weaken the complex of laws, regulations, and practices that discourage or prohibit the employment, of youth in their early and middle teens.

This forthcoming change in employer attitudes should not surprise anyone. War-time employers, deprived of their traditional sources of labor) suddenly discovered that blacks and women could handle all kinds of jobs that tradition and practice had said they could not do. By the same token, employers deprived of a plentiful supply of workers age l7-19 will suddenly discover that workers age 14-16 can perform about as well. As full-time employment becomes a realist alternative to full-time schooling) increasing numbers of youth will choose the work option that is not available at the present time. Similarly) for reasons of its own, the higher education industry will become increasingly critical of protectionist policies) so that the politics of the issue will differ drastically from the present situation.

NEA and AFT will probably lose their battle against earlier entry into the labor market but not the entire war to protect the job market for teachers. They have a good chance of lowering the compulsory age limit) especially since the economics of this change are much more favorable to their cause. The direct costs of schooling for children from 3 to 5 are much less than for pupils 14 to 16; more importantly) since children aged 3 to 5 can't contribute as much as adolescents aged 14 to 16 to the economy) the opportunity costs of educating the former are far less than for the latter. The big battle will be over the certification requirements required to teach below the kindergarten level; given the plethora of job seekers with bachelor's degrees) the teacher organizations will fight hard to establish requirements comparable to those for elementary school teachers. Whether they succeed or not, secondary schools are due for the most fundamental changes since the rise of the comprehensive high school.

The five panel reports discussed in this article are:

1. The Greening of the High School, Weinstock, ed. New York: IDEA-EFL, March 1973.
2. American Youth in the Mid-Seventies, Conference Report, NASSP, December 1972.
3. Youth: Transition to Adu1thood, Report of the Panel on Youth of the President's Science Advisory Committee, June 1973. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974.
4. The Reform of Secondary Education, National Commission on the Reform of Secondary Education, July 1973. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973.
5. National Panel on High Schools and Adolescent Education, U.S. Office of Education, March 1974.