Llarry52 commented on one of my “story” posts, saying:
There’s another argument – or story – with respect to this. It is that the U.S. does see education as an investment and is simply asking what are we getting for that investment.
Llarry52 is a master of the data, and with it, he makes a compelling case. I responded to his comment, but I had such a fun time (It’s the most fun you can have alone in a hotel room on Friday night, without getting in to trouble) writing this over-the-top piece, that I had to share it out here.
Larry, and I hope I can call you Larry, you are obviously well read in the data on education expenditure and results collection, and the data does make a compelling case for an education system that is craving for money, yet willing to do no more than just site around and waste it. I suspect that I sound like the “Feeeeeed Me” monster in Little Shop of Horrors.
I submit, however, that education, in its intent to take each child, each class, each school, and prepare a society of skilled, innovative, resorceful, and happily adaptive citizens is far more than the laboratory that your data makes it out to be. It is far more complex, rich, and exciting than simply counting out dollar bills, pumping in the teachers you’ve payed for, the curriculum you’ve paid for, the textbooks, art supplies, a compter here and there, and then watching shinning new adults marching enthusiastically into their futures.
I maintain that investment must increase dramatically because we do not live in the 1950s, we’re not teaching Theodore Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver), and thirty-year careers are a relic of more secure and far less interesting times. Teachers are not technicians applying prescribed, laboratory-tested strategies. They are artisans who fill their classrooms and the lives of their children as human beings.
I’m not just talking about money, though just about everything I am talking about will cost. We must invest in new definitions of what it means to be educated today, the roles of teachers, and what students do in their classrooms. We must restructure our schools of education, and invent a system of sustained, casual, professional development, where all teachers are, above all other things, life-long learners. We must invest time in our educators so that they can research, collaborate, assess, reflect, invent and reinvent, so that every class session is so exciting that children have no resistance to learning.
I know I’m ranting pie in the sky. But shouldn’t the sky be what we aim for for our children, their future, and our future?
Finally, I suspect that teaching a child in a small town in India, with scarce access to telephones, television, and the Internet, would probably be a little cheaper than successfully teaching a child with daily access in their bedrooms to the world wide web, gaming team members from around the world, a network of friends and collaborators, and the tools they need to invent to play and play to invent.
Two more cents worth!
I would also ask Larry to look up graduation statistics for the last one hundred years. What percetage of U.S. high school age kids graduated from high school one hundred years ago? 95%? 80%? 50%? Try 6% … that’s right 6%. Even 40 years ago the most hard core students – discipline problems, students with various health issues, language issues – many kids just didn’t go to school past 10th grade or so. My Dad was an executive and his big education claim on his resume was that he went to college for almost 2 years – no degree, just took classes. Now we expect to graduate EVERYONE from high school – and we should. But it means that we have to deal with issues that we didn’t have to deal with before. A “One Size Fits All†education model isn’t going to work when you have to deal with every “Size†of student issues – you need more of a “Custom†fit and that is more expensive.
Things have changed – business puts way more money into infrastructure than ever – but for some reason schools are wasters if they need to do the same. Businesses dump money into research and development, would any of us want drug companies to drop their R&D to save money? – maybe we have all the drugs we need already? But – schools are bad if they think of doing the same. Yes schools need to watch the pennies – but what great investment would we have made if the next generation of American students, with all our diversity, were the most educationally ready generation ever? What if many of those recieving assistance were paying taxes?
Learning is messy!
What a long list we have of agencies that are under the gun for essential doing their job and doing it well: health care, education, social workers, NASA, Amtrac, public media–the list goes on. I appreciate your and John Daly’s point that the emphasis in the discussion on education should be on what wonders we could accomplish if we all worked together. This means that EVER child should have not only a good education but is well fed and cared for.
I couldn’t help but remember my father-in-law’s joke in NASA’s fading days of glory as the country began yawning at its engineering wonders. He wondered what the astronauts thought of the process of buying from the lowest bidders. As poor a joke as it was, I still don’t think many of us go to doctors or hospitals that are the cheapest. As a matter of fact, expense might be one of the better indicators when you think about it.
The question we should ask is whether we are spending enough, whether we are generous enough. One of the reasons that I work hard is not for wealth (most studies do not find good coorelations between wealth and happiness [Forbes 2/11/06]) rather I hope that I continue to support others who do society’s tasks and to take care of myself and not burden others. I don’t think that one necessarily has to be a kind or caring person to realize that the chain that ties us together is only as strong as its weakest link.
Hi David,
Longtime reader, first time commenter.
There’s a tidbit in Larry’s data that actually makes the education system look pretty good, although of course he didn’t intend it that way.
He stated: “Looking at the picture historically isn’t much better. Spending per student has nearly doubled in the last 30 years, but nearly any measure of effectiveness – from test scores, to graduation rates, to number of students who need remedial education in college – has seen no significant improvement.”
Spending per student has doubled in the last thirty years? That’s fantastic, and I mean that sincerely. He says that we have had a 100% increase in spending and basically have the same (or similar) success rate as thirty years ago.
What is fantastic about that financial picture is that during the thirty year time period there was a general inflation rate of 256%. You can use the inflation calculator (I compared Jan 2006 with Jan 1976) at: http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/InflationCalculator.asp
In other words, the cost of most things (or the “average thing”) went up much more than the doubling in spending in education. Therefore, the funding for (and of course, the spending in) the education system has not kept pace with inflation, yet the student achievement hasn’t fallen off according to Larry’s observations.
That’s a pretty good statement about the education system being efficient and getting results with fewer and fewer real dollars as compared to thirty years ago. Thanks Larry, I actually feel a whole lot better about this whole thing.
BTW David, I look forward to hearing you speak at the Minnesota E-Learning Summit next month. Barry
barrydahl said: What is fantastic about that financial picture is that during the thirty year time period there was a general inflation rate of 256%.
Barry – my mistake, I should have said that I was using inflation adjusted dollars. The data set is here: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_167.asp You can see that in constant 01-02 dollars, per pupil spending has increased 118% from $3,544 in 1969 to $7,727 in 01-02.
David said: I submit, however, that education, in its intent to take each child, each class, each school, and prepare a society of skilled, innovative, resorceful, and happily adaptive citizens is far more than the laboratory that your data makes it out to be. It is far more complex, rich, and exciting than simply counting out dollar bills, pumping in the teachers you’ve payed for, the curriculum you’ve paid for, the textbooks, art supplies, a compter here and there, and then watching shinning new adults marching enthusiastically into their futures.
I don’t disagree. My original comment was responding to the quote you used about the US seeing education as a “cost” not an “investment.” All I was trying to say is that “investors” – no matter if they are venture capitalists, philanthropists, or governments – want to see some form of return on their investment.
I know many do not believe test scores are a good indicator for that return. So what is a better indicator? Graduation rates haven’t improved. More than 25% of students who attend college need to take remedial courses – meaning that those who didn’t drop out and made it to college need to retake high-school level english and math courses.
I point this out only because I think a “story” that is gaining traction among tax payers, business leaders, state/local/federal government, democrats, and republicans is “what are we getting for our investment?” What should we expect if we increase that investment?
I maintain that investment must increase dramatically because we do not live in the 1950s, we’re not teaching Theodore Cleaver (Leave it to Beaver), and thirty-year careers are a relic of more secure and far less interesting times.
I agree that we live in far more interesting and complex times. But again, if you want funders – particularly governors and Congress – to increase their investment in education, you have to be able to tell them what they can expect in way of a return. The challenge is that despite dramatic increases in funding over the last several decades, we haven’t seem similar increases in performance.
Let’s say that we take your statement at face value. Let’s say that Congress and all the state Legislatures increase funding so that per pupil funding goes from $7,800 to $11,000. What should funders expect to see in terms of “achievement?” How do you convince them that this increase will deliver more than the previous increases?
Larry,
Thanks again for the continuing conversation. I have suspected all along that we are very much on the same vein with education. I was honestly reluctant to submit that post, because I did believe that although we were speaking from opposite sides of the fence, we are probably sitting fairly close to each other.
I do believe that testing is important and that it is essential that we assure that all children know how to read, perform math, and write. I think, also, that there are other levels of learning that we need to assure, that can not be measured by standardized tests. We need to start having confidence again in our teachers to be able to teach and evaluate learning in these higher order competencies.
But the bottom line measure happens ten, twenty, and thirty years from now. Will the children who are in our classrooms now, be economically viable and personally successful in their adulthood, and able to support us oldsters as we have retired? That’s the question and that’s the goal. I believe that at this point, we need to be rewriting our curriculums with an unpredictable future in mind, figure out how to teach that curriculum, and then figure out how to measure its learning.
Again, I honestly thank you for this conversation. As you indicate, there is probably very little that either of us have said that both of us do not believe.