The CATO Institute has just published a very revealing report on state education trends, emphasizing the fact that while more and more money is being spent on education, it's generally producing no improvement whatsoever in student performance. You can read a news article about the survey here, and the full report here (link is to an Adobe Acrobat document in .PDF format).
As a quick illustration of the trends, here are the numbers for Washington state in two graphs. You can see larger versions of them here.
Einstein defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results". Those who keep pouring money down the education drain-hole without result might do well to re-examine their actions in the light of that definition . . .
Peter
That's a measurement error. Most people think that pouring more money into the schools is to benefit the students. Actually, it's to preserve union jobs for teachers and administrators. Once you realize what the true standards are, you see that the money is having exactly the results desired, so there's every reason to keep doing it (as far as the people in power are concerned).
ReplyDeleteMy mother taught elementary school in the USA for several decades. Based on her experiences, I can't think of anything that would lure me into that field. Let's just say that I have quite an unflattering opinion of school administrators, school boards, and, frankly, teachers' colleges. Every one of those groups is more concerned with advancing its own tribal agenda than with actually educating children.
ReplyDeleteI lean strongly towards the view that education is too important to be trusted to professional 'educators'.
And, as Thomas Sowell has pointed out many times, the average SAT score of college students pursuing a degree in education is lower than the overall average SAT score of all college students. Just as you cannot improve your game, in whatever sport, by consistently playing opponents below your skill/talent level, having teachers of below-average ability cannot hope to produce improvement in the alleged (but not actual, as Roger Ritter notes) mission of state-run schools.
ReplyDeleteTrue, Chris, but sub-par teachers need the union much more than good teachers. So from the unions' point of view, it's all good.
ReplyDeleteJust wait until the Common Core standards are implemented. The scores will plummet.
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