We have enacted stimulus packages to help banks that are “too big to fail”, yet it seems that our schools are just the right size to fail.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35819848/ns/us_news-education/
Things that make me go hmmm….
1. I find it interesting that we are willing to spend goo gobs of money on defense and creating opportunities for investment, but the one thing that matters more than anything else is often the first to get cut
2. That we all scream for more funding for education, but the minute any government official proposes a tax increase, we are all up in arms. Society is made up of people, and in a capitalistic society people must spend on what is important. Did you know…As of 2007, there were about 138 million taxpayers in the United States. Let’s drop it to 120 million now. With the largest group of people making between 36,000 and 58,000 per year, let’s just say the average American makes 30,000. Did you know that a .5% (that’s right, a half of a percent) increase in federal tax) would create a windfall of…drum roll please…$21.6 billion. The cost per year to this average American? $180.00. When I discuss this with people, there is this visceral reaction to “raising taxes”. Would you pay $180.00 per year to make sure our schools were funded? I would.
3. I know, I know…the schools are terrible right, just let them fail? What’s the alternative? Private schools and vouchers? Please. This will just be an excuse to skew schools toward the rich and many times put the control under religious institutions. This will result in a need for…you guessed it – public schools. We will always have this need. Is cutting funding a way to improve education, or just make it even more inaccessible and teachers more stressed and disillusioned? You decide. Cut public schools and…caste system here we come!
4. If we create more funding for the schools, what do we use it for? This is just as important as finding the money.
A. Teacher training. Teaching is a skill that takes years to hone. Yes, there is a talent component, some have a gift for it. But as with any gift, it must be developed. Check my friend JR Stratton’s blog for a discussion on Doug Lemov’s views and efforts http://playthink.wordpress.com/2010/03/11/teaching-taxonomy/. My view: We put increasingly less capable and less experienced teachers in classrooms and overcompensate with accountability measures and meaningless standardizations. To boot, we give them ever increasing class sizes.
B. Programs to make parental involvement something we reinvest in. This is huge, because it has a lot to do with the view of education in our tribe / society. We have a skewed view of education and knowledge in our society, because it’s not something we value or truly think is attainable. I can see evidence of this by the way people react to my own educational accomplishments. It ranges from astonishment to disdain, but never do I get an “of course you did that because you found something interesting”. Parents must teach children through what they show that education and wisdom are valued things. Otherwise, we grow up to be ignorant money chasers who think schools get better solely through accountability measures and witholding funding.
Well, that’s my view. What do you think?
[Via http://drkwamebrown.wordpress.com]
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