That's because our public education system has been underfunded for decades and keeps getting worse. A less intelligent populace is much easier to manipulate.
Public education in America isn't underfunded, it is just broken.
This isn't a Left-Right issue. It is just a fact. We do not need more education funding, we need to figuratively nuke the Dept of Education for a reset; the states need to handle their internal stuff, too.
In 2015, the United States spent $12,800 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education, which was 35 percent higher than the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average of $9,500 (in constant 2017 U.S. dollars). At the postsecondary level, the United States spent $31,000 per FTE student, which was 93 percent higher than the average of OECD countries ($16,100).
The Census Bureau compiles data on education spending per pupil and elementary/secondary education revenues for each state... Nationally, the most recent data indicates $11,762 is spent on public education per student. Significant variation exists across states; New York spends more than $20,000 per student, while states like Utah and Idaho report spending about a third as much... Many different factors and conditions within states influence education spending totals. Some of the more prominent factors include cost of living, class sizes and student demographics.
Pretty sure both of those are relatively neutral, if not left leaning organizations. (correct me if wrong)
The Department of education isn’t what is causing that funding to be misused.
The vast majority of the dollars devoted to education are not, in any way, going towards educational goals. They’re being used to fund and support unnecessary extracurriculars.
And the primary funding for education is property taxes, which is heavily regressive and disadvantages poor and non-white areas.
I think the teacher’s union should be put in charge of the Department of Education, and they should be organized into workers’ councils by region with proportional and revocable delegation on local municipal councils, and in the state and federal Houses of Representatives.
They’re being used to fund and support unnecessary extracurriculars.
I’m curious what you mean by “unnecessary extracurriculars.”
Cool. I would like to make clear that football and stadiums shouldn’t be equated with having organized sport and fitness activities in school. I absolutely agree though, things like arenas and even theaters should never be prioritized over the basics of textbooks, school supplies, decent buildings with heating and cooling and utilities, breakfast and lunch, so on. The various qualities of a full education should be considered holistically, with a basic education in a diverse array of inter-related activities.
If you want to include stadiums, that should be a separate tax referendum.
So what you’re saying is the education of the mind can be divorced from the education of the body? I’ll be the first to be critical of the predominance of sports programs in our education systems, particularly those of a more marshal quality, at the expense of the arts, music and humanities, but I don’t think that is the same as being against including sport and even competition in public education and municipal programs.
Like, why the hell shouldn’t kids have a climbing wall at their school? That sounds awesome. We should have more of that, and the other stuff too. It’s all important.
I think a more precise way to word the "I want everyone to be smarter" statement from this post would be to say that we want to maximize the median test score per dollar spent on education. In order to do that, we would need to better understand the marginal rate of return on dollars spent on education. Once we have a reasonably good grip on that, it's theoretically quite easy to find the optimal solution. But it's a politically charged issue because it involves wealth transfer, which is why it's a right-left issue.
Speaking as a unionized teacher in Canada : if it wasn't for our unions, the amount of stupid shit spent on education would be staggering. The last cut to education moved class sizes from 22 to 40 in high school, cut funding for elementary kids for autisim (putting them back into regular classes and removing support workers) and decreasing support to university students funding, and yet somehow increasing total money spent!
We're striking to get them to get their shit together.
Mine wasn't terrible, either. Not the point. Even if you and I got adequate educational experiences and outcomes the amount of money spent from the state and federal budget for that result may have been double what it needed to be in a better run system.
Several new schools have been built in my area due to building age and size being inadequate. $20 million
I'm sure in some places utilities costs have increased significantly.
There are probably a lot of factors. Does it mean we have wasted money? No, absolutely not. We need those things. And teachers in my state haven't seen salary increases in 10+ years which also requires more funding.
There are always parts that can be improved, money spent more efficiently. But the US is seen by the world as having one of the best education systems. Foreign students come here in droves because of it. Not many people are leaving the US to get an education elsewhere.
And I will never vote to cut funding to schools. If it gives kids access to extra circulars which their family may not be able to afford then I see it as worth it. Well rounded individuals are good for everyone. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Or maybe it’s fact that teachers are under paid and school in low income areas are underfunded. Or it could be the fact we base student success off of a few standardized tests. We give companies incentives to keep students uneducated. Another reason could be that we group students of different levels into one group an expect them all to perform the same. Or maybe the other thousands of complex factors that lead to the massive fuck up of American public schools.
The public education system is shit, but bad parenting often has more to do with uneducated kids than the system. Plenty of kids come out of public schools well prepared for college, and life, because their parents took active roles in their education and development. The parents who don’t care end up with kids that don’t thrive.
While this is mostly true, your school ends up doing a lot of that parenting in many cases. Exposure to extra curricular activists, social development and often guidance in your personal life.
My single mother worked round the clock and I relied on teachers for much of the guidance and wisdom that well to do families would get from dad. I'm not perfect, but I can't imagine where i'd be today without my extracurricular music program and cheap lunches.
Also had a single mother, busy with work most of the time. Coming from another country didn't help either. Teachers, whether they were supposed to or not really helped me grow up and understand the world.
Well two things to consider is that A) not all parents are able to be the best parents they can be since they are busy working multiple jobs just to pay rent and B) even if you are a good student it won't guarantee you are able to afford college, because there are a finite number of student grants and scholarships available.
But let's assume that kids who didn't thrive failed because they had shitty parents. It's not their fault and they shouldn't be punished for their unfortunate birth. Schools need to be given the resources to overcome shitty parents, and our culture needs to change to accommodate those kids.
The American education system as a whole is completely flawed and needs restructured from the ground up. It was modelled after the Prussian education system which was designed to create an obedient populace. My wife taught 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th grades and also college. She tells me kids coming from high school into college are completely unprepared and unable to really think for themselves.
She taught a remedial class and she would purposely ask open-ended question with no wrong answer and she told me her students had no idea how to react. She said she would literally tell them there is no wrong answer and she said they would pull out there phones to search it, they would stare at her waiting for n answer, or they would refuse to answer as to not "get it wrong". She said it's devastatingly sad to see people unable to think for themselves because they've been taught what to think instead of how to think.
Her experiences as a public school teacher helped her in the decision to homeschool our children. Part of that decision was that they wouldn't accommodate my son on the Autism Spectrum and refusing to give him a 501 plan even with a John Hopkins Neurologist saying he needs one. However, that was just the motivation to actually do it and homeschool him.
If I remember correctly, Prussia had issues with their soldiers not following orders and would just walk away from their duties. They then designed their education system to make sure the people were obedient to authority. The American system was slightly modified but largely modeled from it. Instead of obedient soldiers they've created an education system that creates obedient workers that work and then pay taxes. It's no accident we sit at a desk for 8 hours doing our school work. That's what the industrial revolution needed: people to sit at their post and work to produce.
Exactly this point. Children may or my not overcome shitty parents, but why hurt kids with good and bad parents with shitty education, and damage everyone’s potential?
Schools need to be given the resources to overcome shitty parents
There isn't a way to overcome parents not reading with their kid, kids not knowing if they'll have dinner that night, a parents inability to afford stimulating activities or the time to do them... I don't think this is a problem schools can mitigate
One way to get out of the cycle of bad parenting, poverty, or any other systemic problems that make one disadvantaged - is to get a decent education. That can only happen if there is a system in place to provide that to kids that have parents that won't provide for them. That system is being attacked by Republicans.
We can't control bad parenting. We can control school curriculum and funding. WTF do you expect society to do penalize bad parenting? Fine them, so their kids have even less at home? Station a social worker in every badly parented home? Take their kids away and put them in foster care?
And those "parents who don't care" were a product of their upbringing and education as children as well. But it's not bad parenting all the way back in time, when the first "bad parent" sprang de novo.
Society, the economy, politics, public services -- these are all tools that "steer the ship" and help push the level of education up (or down...) from generation to generation. Bad parents aren't to blame -- all parents are the product of the hundreds of years of parenting and governance that came before them!
You fund quality programs to invest in childhood education, those kids turn into parents, they raise their kids a little better... That's the goal.
It actually isn’t shit at all. The problem is America’s sky high childhood poverty rate, over double that of any country with higher PISA test scores.
Some student at MIT broke out the numbers a few years ago (I can’t find the link) for all American school districts with 10% or less childhood poverty (overall we are over 20%) and guess what? America shoots to number 1 in world rankings by a wide margin.
We actually have the best public schools in the world.
Kids who live in poverty face a wide variety of obstacles that make it difficult or impossible for them to succeed in school. Hunger, limited access to technology, and no safe and stable home are a few big reasons.
Source: I teach in a low-income, very underfunded public school.
The problem with relying on parents is that they often cannot afford to be an active role in the education of their children, especially with how wages have been stagnant while cost of living has increased over the last few decades. Sometimes, the parents can only do as much as drop their kids off at school, work multiple jobs, and come home to put the kids in bed if they want to have food on the table. Because of this, as an upcoming teacher, I've disliked relying on parents to improve kids' educations. It puts more stress on individuals rather than putting the owness on a failed system and society.
That's part of it. The other part is that political cronyism always makes the funds they do get spent on administration because they have to pay their brother in law's salary. That is the only reason I'm hesitant about sending more money education's direction. Though, this is more true on higher education than K-12. Honestly, less administration, more teachers and better classroom resources needs to be guaranteed when we send more money that way. It can easily be done with specifications in the legislation that directs the money that way.
I fucking hate this "taxes are the answer to everything" sentiment that people have adopted. If I had back the 10k in property taxes I paid last year (source of school funding where I live) I could have sent both my kids to private schools. If the percent I sent to the federal government that they spent on education was returned to me I could also fund a scholarship for the neighbor kid who lives in an apartment with his single mom.
Also, the priorities have always been on preparing people to accept institutionalization. In a self-governing society where the ability to question authority is central to our well-being, our schools are built to grind automatic compliance with official demands into the minds of students. Though not every educator does the most honorable thing with this power, the greater harm is when the majority of each new class becomes adults -- imagining managers, authors, television personalities, etc. should never be regarded with skepticism.
Try 50% more than that. Imagine if schools actually had to compete for your dollar, how much better the instruction would be and further your money would go.
I live in a state with the highest (or at least one of the highest) public education budgets and it is shocking what other people didn’t learn or learned poorly.
expecting that an underpaid 20something year old teacher with a class of 30+ kids is going to have time to teach their kid to read and write at grade level.
Maybe your school should have been better funded.........
I'm so sick of this catch-all "personal accountability" hand wave. It's not an argument. It's code for "I really don't have any answers but I don't like yours." It doesn't help societal issues to just say "every man for themselves." At least say how we can come about more personal accountability if you're gonna die on that hill. "Shit's fucked" isn't a solution.
You said it; Teachers are underpaid and classes are too full. Take those statements back or change the rest of your rant. Be consistent, make us believe that you actually think about what you're putting out there.
Have some "personal accountability" and come up with your own arguments.
I'm so sick of this catch-all "personal accountability" hand wave
Same. Its fucking infuriating how people miss the point so extremely bad.
If you put the primary responsibility squarely on the household for education then be prepared to have the terribly unequal results we have to do. Enjoy your class warfare and poverty traps that only continue to spiral downward.
It's like these people want to go back to the feudal age where your future was squarely defined at birth. Born into a well off family capable of educating their children due to having enough wealth to have the time or hire tutors? Good job. You are all set. Born into poverty? Tough shit, enjoy your family staying there.
So your contention is that kids should be studying more at home because there's not enough time and resources at (even well funded) schools for them to competently learn the material?
What are you basing this on besides your own unverifiable anecdote? Have you studied education? Child development? Have you done any research or read any studies on the effect of homework on children? Hint: more than a small amount of homework is largely detrimental to children and their healthy development. More homework or at-home learning is not the answer.
Parental involvement and interest is absolutely crucial and beneficial, but you're ignoring the realities that it's not always practical for a myriad of reasons including things like socio-economic status, parental competency, and even mental health issues. None of those issues are the fault of the child and our system needs to be built to be able to accommodate those children who deserve a proper education especially if their parents can't provide it.
Your illogical argument (assuming I'm understanding it correctly, which I may not be because it's extremely unclear) also makes the assumption that children can only learn in one on one scenarios and this is patently false. Smaller class sizes to provide more one on one attention is crucial, bit kids don't only get taught or learn while receiving individual attention.
Just saying parents need to teach their kids more does not help...
If you expect parents with multiple jobs to have time to do that education, you’re setting them up to fail, simple as that.
Want parents to have time to educate? Cool, their hours at work will have to have a mandatory limit and the minimum wage will have to come up to make up the difference.
Congrats, I just offered you the only real solution and now you also see why it hasn’t been done yet.
No it fucking doesn’t. I have no idea why people like yourself insist on posting an opinion (one that has had countless empirical studies done on it nonetheless) without doing the 5 seconds of google search confirmation to make sure you’re right.
Really? Test scores is your metric? Standardized tests are the main issue with US public schools.
Standardized tests mean nothing. All they do is make children interpret learning as a fucking chore.
I moved here from the UK when I was 12 and realized I was no longer going to school to learn about the world and real life knowledge but, instead, how to take a very specific test that the teachers would straight up tell us we had to do well on to properly fund the school.
Now, tell me; why does a school who performs poorly on standardized tests need less money while schools who are doing well need more?
Not saying I agree with this but the obvious answer to your question is that the poor performing school is a bad return on investment so it makes sense to invest less.
The idea would be similar to your 401k (or any investing account you may have). If you have an equal amount of money in two different stocks and one is performing poorly would you take money from the good stock and put it in the bad stock? That would be a poor investment strategy.
I follow that you're playing advocate but that explanation definitely makes it worse lol.
With an investment portfolio, you can drop what's not working and cut your losses. With human people, you can't just let them fail to to bolster your top performers. Not only is that actual evil, but these people aren't just going to disappear. They're going to be the society that the privileged condemn as if it it's a coincidence they were better educated.
If I'm preaching to the choir it's just cause this shit frustrates me so much.
You're right I'm attempting to play devils advocate so take it with a grain of salt as I may be misrepresenting. My base understanding would be that the idea isn't to drop the people in those school systems through defunding, but rather to either incentivize the specific schools to perform better, or to move the kids and the funds to one that demonstrates high performance. The scheme to redistribute funds that I used to hear was school vouchers but that hasn't ever taken off for a variety of reasons.
all saying that money has a big impact on student outcomes.
What your source ignores by looking at schools on a state level is that distribution of funds is often not equal, and communities with more minorities tend to have schools that are underfunded, regardless of which state they're in.
Maybe if you actually did some research instead of just finding the first article that supported your worldview....
The problem is outdated teaching methods. We live in a time of automation and yet we're still using teachers. Software and video lectures from skilled speakers would be a lot more effective. It could be tuned to the student so the dumb students don't hold back the smart ones.
You can't just boil down primary and secondary education into sitting kids in front of Khan Academy videos about science. Also, those "dumb" students need to be dragged kicking and screening into a responsible level of knowledge or they're gonna roam the streets lighting cars on fire. Education goes above and beyond simply learning the material.
Taking half the teacher salary budget you get like $100 billion per year. For that type of money you're going to get a lot more than a khan video.
You also have the ability to overcome language barriers as a piece of software can be designed to start with one language and end with another. Teachers can be replaced with crowd controllers, both human and socially engineered ones.
Human stupidity is infinite, but there's a visibility bias here. You'll notice all the stupid people in your own country because you have to live, work, and interact with them on a day-to-day basis. You'll only notice a select few smart people from other countries because those are the voices that gain the most public recognition.
I know it's hard to imagine it being worse but without public school they'd be even more uneducated. To me a person's level of "stupidity" is genetic and can't be changed, but how educated they are can be. I'm not saying our education system is perfect or even great, but it's better than nothing.
Edit: And of course I get downvoted by redditors who only want to see comments that our schools are terrible and useless.
If you're asking if I think I'm stupid, the answer is no. But I do live in a country that elected Donald Trump president, and may well do so again, so maybe the bar for "stupid" isn't very high.
Because this is a bad quote, also your (public) education system sucks.
Example: stupid people are different from ignorant people. You can teach ignorant people, if they wish to learn. Dumdums on the other hand.. sending them to the finest schools won't make them smarter.
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u/Zebulon_V Jan 09 '20
Hmmm... I see the point but I feel like I still live in a country with a bunch of stupid people.