Learning more and learning better is the only way for Baltimore to prosper. The city's children need to learn problem-solving skills that will enable them to progress as they grow up. The city's young adults need to learn how to be better parents and better workers. The city's voters need to demand better policies and vote for leaders who can solve problems. All of us need to learn how to live healthier, less violent and more contributory lives.
No surprises here. The question is how. The first step is to consider how public money is allocated among different age groups. Many studies show that the younger the recipient the bigger the pay-off; yet this group receives the fewest dollars. Paul Tough reports that children continuously release the hormone cortisol when their mothers are under stress to the detriment of their children's health and learning. As Nobel Prize winner James Heckman has confirmed, improved infant care makes a big difference. Nurse Family Partnerships and programs like Family Tree in Baltimore are helping young single mothers. The children do better in school and in the labor market, and they are healthier. Meanwhile, Johns Hopkins and others are seeking ways to reduce expensive hospital stays for the chronically ill and fragile elderly. Are there beneficial trade-offs between spending on the first year rather than on the last year of life?
Pre-school is already much debated and provided to some at Kennedy Krieger. But school — from the earliest days through college — needs to focus on the skills that will make Baltimore's workers competitive in a global world that will soon be heavily populated by artificially intelligent robots. "What to Learn in College to Stay One Step Ahead of Computers" is a question asked by Nobel Prize winner Robert J. Shiller. Computers can learn in seconds, he notes, much of what is needed to pass high school and college exams. That raises the question of whether the skills currently being emphasized in school reforms are really those that will help the average student earn a solid income over a working life of 40 to 50 years. Maybe some of the esoteric math now emphasized should be replaced with the math students need to manage their own time and money and, if they are entrepreneurial, also do the planning and budgeting for their own companies.
In a recent book, "Creating a Learning Society," Joseph Stiglitz, another Nobel Prize-winning economist, and Bruce Greenwald argue that mindset is what differentiates those who welcome change from others who resist. Cognitive scientists discuss mindset relative to education. A growth mindset believes that any inherent difficulty, say with math, can be overcome by study; a fixed mindset does not. Psychology should earn a place in the high school science curriculum, alongside biology, chemistry and physics so that students face — and maybe change — their mindsets.
The experience of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina and poor women in Wisconsin demonstrate the benefits of a release from poverty. In North Carolina it was a windfall from a new gambling casino; in Wisconsin it was a demonstration program that provided jobs. In both situations, children's emotional problems were reduced along with the mothers' financial stress. In Baltimore, organizations such as the Caroline Center are helping women find jobs. If a way could be found to finance jobs for all family heads this could do a great deal to help the city learn.
Learning is a life-long activity, as is teaching for those who mentor. This interaction occurs outside the schoolhouse as well as inside. Baltimore benefits from formal mentoring programs such as Thread, which is working with at-risk high school students, and community-based organizations such as Wide Angle, which teaches media and other skills.
Mentoring on the job has great potential, whether it be formal or informal apprenticeships such as the state is now encouraging. Peter Senge introduced "The Learning Organization" idea 25 years ago as a way for companies to succeed. He offered a vision of workplaces that are humane because managers' goals include developing their subordinates and helping them master skill sets. Rewards include lower turnover and higher productivity. Training mentors is worthy of expanded government support. So is encouraging life-long learning with badge-awarding courses, whether delivered on–line or more conventionally.
Although providing these programs will be expensive, they will have long-term benefits in higher wages and taxes and less spending for welfare, health and prisons. There is evidence that well-managed efforts yield a relatively high return long-term. Where can the money come from? There are investors sitting on piles of money and seeking investments that are safe and offer higher returns. By Forbes' accounting, big companies are holding about $5 trillion in cash. Standard & Poor's estimate of untaxed foreign earnings alone exceeds $2.1 trillion. So-called impact investing is not new. Eighty years ago, the National Housing Act of 1934 began to insure mortgages made by banks and other private lenders, unleashing funds for a national priority. Seventy years ago, the government increased learning by passing the GI bill. The nation can use these lessons to make us a Learning Society. In the meantime, Baltimore should take what steps it can to make it The City That Learns.
Arnold Packer is the former assistant secretary of labor in the Carter administration and former chief economist of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. His email is arnold.packer@gmail.com.