I suspect the associates degree is largely a waste as it is neither fish nor fowl--it serves only to kill a couple of years while kids mature a bit. We need something different in that slot that actually builds some sort of skills that would be useful to employers.

Jobs at 14 is a curious suggestion as it points to a larger problem--kids no longer have farm chores so they largely don't learn work related responsibility (or skills) until they are older. Apprenticeships might help, but I'd be surprised.

Retirement at 65 is an artifact of a time when life expectancy was considerably less than it is now. Policy makers have never come to terms with changing demographic realities--nor have most people. We continue to save for retirement as if it were going to last no more than a couple of years.

Until people start saving a lot more retirement age needs to go up.

The apprentice idea is more about getting young people over the shock of going to work. All jobs are unpleasant to a greater or lesser degree, and the sooner they grasp that the better. If they learn no job skills at all it is not a big deal. If they learn that life is hard work, that along is a big gain.

Another gain would be the savings of money wasted trying to educate the uneducable. Just put them to work and get it over with. I'd be happy to take half the money spent on public schools and offer it as a subsidy to any business willing to hire teenagers. That will take the sting hiring unskilled labor.

Retirement at 65 is not quite a total artifact. Productivity goes down as people age. We'd get more out of teenagers than seniors, and it would be more politically acceptable. Seniors vote, kids don't.

No argument about the savings thing.

I think I see where you are going with the apprenticeship notion. There certainly is some value to kids learning that work is, well, work. Like I said, no more farm chores for them to learn from.

I think it would also be worth spending some money to re-vocationalize the high schools. I think that there are a lot of skills that can be learned more efficiently in class than on the job. Once students apprentice they should start showing some interest in that sort of training.

I agree that productivity, especially in manual labor, starts dropping past a certain age--getting younger people in to take over the labor is a good idea. But full retirement at 65 is anachronistic. There is no reason that folks shouldn't be doing some sort of work when they have a good 10 - 15 years of life expectancy left.

We need a change in mindset though. A partial pension at 50 or 55 would allow a person to start a second career at a lower salary, with lower productivity expectations. Preferable accompanied by more job/life satisfaction. But that's not how we are acculturated--we have no interest in taking pay cuts unless it is for full retirement.

Yes, that's part of the apprenticeship notion. Young people will never learn anything in class until they learn that it reduces pain the real world. Nothing teaches the value of knowing how to multiply and calculate percentages like finding out your paycheck is less because of taxes.

Productivity drops with age in everything, regardless. Look at Korchnoi! Why, that 80 year old man is now just a mere 2500 player. Joking aside, I think it is a big mistake to think we can solve any retirement crisis by postponing retirement. I wouldn't call the years from 65-80 'good'. Certainly not as productive as younger people.

Right now we encourage young people to postpone joining the workforce until they are 18, or 22, or later. We keep thinking that more education means more productivity, which is clearly too broad a generalization. We should encourage as many young people to quit high school as soon as possible and go to work. Everyone would benefit.

Not exactly education, but this site can lead to educating yourself. The link takes you to a downloadable guide to making sense of statistics.

Other publications can be found here. Should be something of interest for everyone at Sense about Science: Equipping people to make sense of science and evidence.

Thanks for the links Ken. Some useful stuff.

Khan Academy. Short videos on thousands of different subjects. I've watched a few, pretty good, although in one he went on a tangent from Euclid and geometry to Abraham Lincoln.

Khan Academy is good. I send students to him all the time.

But are students learning anything at/from Khan?

There is clearly an overwhelming fascination with this Khan Academy model, mostly by folks who seem to misunderstand it. But even among those who understand it I've yet to see anything resembling a evaluation of effectiveness.

I certainly can't say; his stuff is mostly outside my expertise. I would like to see a serious, controlled study of Khan. I send students there because getting tutors is almost impossible in Tucson. Quality tutoring is a fantasy.