Issue 232 Track system of education December 20, 2013

The track system of education was designed in the age when production shifted to a factory based system. It was set up to give the top 10% of students the best education so that they would become business leaders and politicians. The next 10% was to be the primary support group for the top 10% with them serving as Secretaries and aids in multiple forms. As for the remaining 80%, they are regulated to the factory and to farm work. Today, the track system is still in place, but I feel that it is more corrosive to society than ever.

A dark deal: The idea was to insure that only the best, education wise, got into positions of power. This however left many other students to be subject to substandard education. As a result, education for the remaining 80% is stagnant. To make matters worse, the track system is still used with the hope of obtaining similar results with that bottom 80% doing the menial jobs in society. It is the opinion of this writer that this is purposeful.

My opinion: I believe they have kept the track system to insure that the majority of the populace remains, in general, uniformed save for what jobs they obtain. It inherently segments a society if your main source of education is what you are told by media, and taught in the work place. But that is exactly what is happening. By preventing the majority from having a coherent education with the ability to think for themselves the elites get a leg up in manipulating the masses into telling them what they can and cannot do. Not only that, the elite's get to decide what an individual needs and does not need. Before the track system, education was earned. If you search for test questions back prior to the industrial revolution you may find questions asking you to list all the kings and queens of the world, what countries they are from and their capitols. Yes, that is one whole question and there was no multiple choice. Students were at that time challenged by the education system so that they would be the most informed and educated in the world.

My other opinion is that the reason the track system is kept is due to the supply and demand principles of the job market. Just like goods and services, a person’s salary is determined by the demand for that person filling that job, and the supply of available people to choose from to fill it. Obviously the less people there are to choose from, the greater the pay. Lawyers and doctors (through various lobbying groups) already do this by making their degrees require a masters and a doctorate degree even if you can get the same quality of each profession if it was allowed to be studied as an undergraduate degree. The track system becomes another reassurance that most people do not make it to the intelligence level to be even able to be accepted into such programs. In essence the system is rigged against the remaining 80% so as to insure that the majority who cannot overcome the education (let alone financial) gap ever reach the higher level positions. As such, it again insures that only the elite not only gets those positions, but also that the pay remains high.

Conclusion: So basically, the track system tries to insure that a good portion of the American public stays below a certain education level. Education in America is so stagnant that test scores have not increased since the creation of the Department of Education in the Jimmy Carter Administration. But what you are not being told is that the tests have been continually dumbed down each and every year just to maintain the look of our nation maintaining its current level of smarts. I would bet anything that if you give a student a test from back in the 70s, let alone the late 1800s, they would fail miserably. Our students are being prepared to be mindless drones for employers to do with as they please, and for politicians to manipulate with ease. It is time to abandon the track system and give everyone a fair shot at the education they deserve.