blogpost 8

In class on Wednesday we had the opportunity to participate in a debate between the seed people and human capitals, in which the human capitals were declared the winners. As a member of this team, each member worked together to find different aspects of research in regards to our argument. The Human Capital Theory is the idea of educating for economic growth, which relates to the educational aspects of reducing poverty, raising personal income, improving the quality of working and increase the overall wealth of the community. This theory also includes a national standardization of the curriculum and standardized testing, as the performance evaluation of teaching is based on standardized testing of the students.

The argument presented by the Seed People places an emphasis on wanting to treat all students equally. They believe that test scores should not determine how well off a student is while explaining how crucial it is to use creativity in the classroom. Teachers should be able to teach for the sake of teaching, not for standardized test prepping.

Although this is not an argument that I agree with, my group was still able to win the debate. According to the judges we provided valid facts that arose from valid sources and were able to discuss it in a persuading manner. Listed below one could find the information and notes we used to prepare. We also spent time outside of the classroom preparing our argument and going over the parts we were assigned and I believe that our preparation played a role in our achievement. All in all I found this to be an interesting class activity and was able to support an argument that  I would not necessarily do in the real world, but it was neat to see the other side of Human Capitalists.

HUMAN CAPITAL DEBATE

Meet at 3pm in dolan atrium on Wednesday

1AC : Erin March, define terms and give overview (look historical aspects of this pedagogy, how long it been around?)

2 AC : Lindsay Rabaut (world-wide use? Positive attributes in other cultures)

AR : CJ(research seed people side)

ACL : Chloe Backman (negatives on human capital)

NOTES : Janice Marinaro

1AC - define key terms, give overview on topic, mention our main points

What is human capital theory?

• HCT is the idea of educating for economic growth. Since early nineteenth century, politicians and school leaders have justified schools as necessary for economic development. HCT relates to the educational aspects of: growing the economy, reducing poverty, raising personal income, and much more. It is said that human capital theory will improve the quality of workers and, consequently, increase the wealth of community. The value of education is measured by economic growth. Along with that comes the national standardization of the curriculum, standardized testing for promotion, entrance, and exiting from different levels of schooling. It is important to remember that performance evaluation of teaching is based on standardized testing of the students.

“school budgets to discipline policies, we cover some of the most controversial issues affecting public schools today” (publicschoolreview.com)

• Horace Mann was an American educational activist and a politician who dedicated to promoting public education. He served in the Massachusetts State legislature from 1827 to 1837. *Some kids do not know where they stand intellectually unless they visually see it in test score*

Public school policies:

Public school curriculum: Looking at Akron Public Schools, their main The department of Curriculum and Instruction provides teachers and administrators with cutting-edge tools to ensure the greatest impact on students’ academic achievement, including: the latest research, Technology, Up-to-date information, Staff development opportunities

The school focuses on identifying ways for students to demonstrate improvement in academic achievement and encourage child-centered environments that utilize active, cooperative and real-life learning experiences.

methods of instruction: Looking at teaching method, we look at how this refers to the general principles, pedagogy and management strategies used for classroom instruction.

But why should testing be determined by human capital arguments?

and testing should be determined by human capital arguments and the economic goal of growing the economy and educating students for employment.  Such human capital arguments are currently providing a justification for teacher deskilling, high stakes testing, and the expansion and funding of preschool education to improve children’s chances for employment.

The definition of deskilling is to ‘reduce the level of skill required to carry out (a job)’ and high stakes testing is any test used to make important decisions about students, educators, schools, or districts, most commonly for the purpose of accountability. (edglossary.org)

Downside of lack of education; wind up in jail, low quality of life, low level of income, low level of education and knowledge.

*Perry Preschool Study*

The study began with 123 African American children from low-income families who were considered at risk for school failure.

2 AC:

As stated in our first AC “human capital theory is the idea of educating for economic growth. Since early nineteenth century, politicians and school leaders have justified schools as necessary for economic development. HCT relates to the educational aspects of: growing the economy, reducing poverty, raising personal income, and much more. It is said that human capital theory will improve the quality of workers and, consequently, increase the wealth of community. The value of education is measured by economic growth. Along with that comes the national standardization of the curriculum, standardized testing for promotion, entrance, and exiting from different levels of schooling.

Strengths of the Human Capital Theory

    Helps policymakers and researchers evaluate the relationships between education, training, economic and social benefits.

·      Provides a useful lens for understanding how policy can be developed to individuals’ investment in their own education.

·      Policymakers can more effectively develop policies such as student loans and dual enrollment and increase their likelihood of pursuing education.

·      Can be used to answer questions about the optimal levels of individual investments in education, the kinds of investments that are most productive, and when the investments are best made. It is also useful for answering questions about the costs and benefits for individual investments in education and the types of policy interventions that reduce individual costs associated with educational investments.

A major concern associated with the human capital theory is that it does not teach soft skills however,  Pre-school is a very important aspect in regards to the human capital theory because it teaches these soft skills.

James J. Heckman is a Nobel economist whose focus was on soft skills. In the book American Education by Spring, he states that

“Today, human capital economists like Heckman focus on soft skills, such as motivation, self-discipline, stability, dependability, perseverance, self-esteem, optimism, future orientation, and other soft skills that affect learning and job performance. Many researchers argue that there is a strong relation relationship between family background and academic success”

My major support of the Human Capital theory is from an article titled Human Capital and China’s Future Growth by Hongbin Li.

China’s real GDP per capita has increased at a rate of nearly 9 percent annually since the start of its economic reforms in 1978, the fastest rate of growth that any large country has sustained for such a long period of time. Output is equal to the number of workers multiplied by productivity per worker. Thus, China’s dramatic growth can be broken down into the increase of the size of working-age labor force as a proportion of the population and improving labor productivity. In turn, labor productivity can be broken down into factors such as rising human capital and the reallocation of labor to more efficient sectors.

To understand how economic development (or income per capita) is correlated with China’s human capital and labor market development, they compared China’s experience to the rest of the world. Specifically, they used an ordinary regression to examine the simple cross-country correlation between per capita income and education in five specifi. The aata come from UNESCO Institute of Statistics (UIS) and Education Statistics in the World Bank (EdStats) 2014.

The data  showed a clear positive correlation between income and education level of the sample countries for all five years of data. Thus, showing that their is a clear connection between the Human Capital Theory and income levels.  

Overall, it is clear that not only does the Human Capital Theory help society lower its crime rate but also shows that it increases the socioeconomic status of a country and that this method works all over the world and in different environments.