"Areas of National Need"

Racism. Misunderstandings across cultural boundaries. Tolerance (or lack thereof). Adult literacy. Feelings of alienation by good students in college classrooms designed to “weed” them out. Writing and being able to master the language and discourse of mainstream America in order to compete effectively within that culture. These are just a few categories that I believe our nation needs to focus on and improve. And much of this work could be done in education. But then, in search of current information on the number of PhDs granted last year in America, I entered the self-congratulatory stump-site of the Department of Education and open the very distracting Higher Education Fiscal Year 2008 Budget Request.

Thinking this might hold the elusive answer to that original question, I flip through the .pdf pages until the title of one catches my attention: Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need.

Ah ha! I think, maybe there is an opportunity there for me. I envisioned the list to be broad, as our “needs” are many, according to my studies (see above – and add your own issues to the list!). Would you like to know what our hegemonic federal government considers to be “Areas of National Need” to the point that they provide $30,000 three-year fellowships to graduate students of “superior ability and high financial need studying in areas of national need”?

Personally, I think teaching young adults how to negotiate the overwhelming world of written communication in ways that will benefit them in the long run to be serving a vital need. I’ve taught corporate training sessions for execs who can’t write, so don’t try to tell me that good writing skills are not vitally important to the running of this nation’s businesses. And don’t get me started on the inability to think critically…which apparently is a bad idea – how dare we question anything, right?

Anywho – as you can tell, this DOE document has gotten me fairly irritated, focusing as it does unnecessarily on areas that do NOT have the most pressing need for our society’s health. According to the DOE, the way they determine these areas is “by taking into account the extent to which these areas fulfill a compelling national interest.” A compelling national interest. The Department of Education, as representative of our entire government right now, is completely off the mark. The most vital, pressing, and important “Areas of National Need” where graduate students can get extra government funding are as follows: biology, chemistry, computer information sciences, engineering, geological and related sciences, mathematics, physics, and nursing.

And what happens when these highly focused students who are currently undergraduates in these “areas of national need” get into grad school and can’t coherently communicate an idea in writing? This list clearly articulates the blinded, competitive, narrowly-focused agenda of the current administration and all U.S. administrations. The underlying message behind this privileged list is abundantly clear – if you are in one of these fields and care about the issues in these fields, you are valued. If you are not in one of these fields and care about issues outside these fields, you are not valued in this society.

Message received loud and clear. And although my students may not be aware of this document, many of them do feel the pinch of pressure to perform at a higher level than they may be prepared for when in these fields’ classes. Privileging from the top down – the government decrees, the universities obey, the students who are confused or need help are pushed out, and the cycle of intolerance, misunderstanding, and alienation continues. One solution to this egregious list might be to include some of the more humanistic fields like writing, philosophy, art, music, and yes…education.

Independence Day indeed.

The offending document - http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget08/justifications/r-highered.pdf