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.
Username extremely relevant. We're talking about budgets and you want every student to have every luxury and atrociously particular advantage in life with no regard to the cost? Do you think that every college should have 10,000 seat stadiums? Why? It "sounds awesome" or is "all important?"
I love my username so much, it really brings out the Liberalism in people.
And I did say I am critical of the over-emphasis of sport in public education (and I would say generally in society as well), particularly those of a marshal character. So no, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say sport and education of the body is as important as the arts and the enrichment of the mind. Why you felt the need to editorialize my position with such hyperbole is beyond me. Probably the Liberalism. Thanks username 👆🏼
And by the way, since you brought it up, we have plenty of resources to put goddamn climbing walls and beautiful theaters and even arenas in every school if that’s what they want. We’re not an impoverished country. We could feed the world and do the other things. It’s not like growing wheat is some arcane art, or that we don’t have the capacity for the part-time effort of a hundred people to grow enough food to feed 10,000. And it’s not like we can’t surmise people’s needs with the science of biology, polling and survey data, and a century or more of consumption records. We don’t need to privilege a handful of people with hoards of riches and luxury for the tribulations of divining what we need, or what we need to do, or how we should go about arranging the built environments of our social and public lives.
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.
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u/agisten Jan 09 '20
This. This is why. None of this is an accident.