Does our education system add up?

 

 

"In this state, when we fund education, we don't add on to last years number - we multiply it..."

First I would like to apologize. Seems I started a bit of a firestorm yesterday. On a Sunday. Okay - I bad. All I did was post the article which showed our "fiscally minded" Republican House proposing an INCREASE to our already BLOATED education system of over $150M. And that - is when the fun started.

My only point (and it was a trivial one indeed), is WHY IN THE SAM HILL ARE WE CONTINUING TO INCREASE OUR FUNDING TO A BROKEN EDUCATION SYSTEM??? Well, for that I received an online spanking. I did not understand how the formulas work. How our funding works. This Rubik's Cube mess of Federal and state funding mushed together. The political ramifications. I will accept that criticism. I don't have a master's degree in thinkology on this topic. I do however, understand results as well as return on investment.

First some numbers. Does Minnesota spend more on education that any other state or location? Not hardly. Washington DC is the champion in that race. And to show the amazing lack of correlation between money spent and results obtained consider the following. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics (a bit dated now), the funding per pupil in the 2010-20122 school year in the Washington DC public schools was $29,349 per student. It must to be over $30,000 per student by now. In 2013 the 8th graders in the Washington DC school district showed amazing results after receiving all that cash to educate the youth. What was it? Over 80% of them were not proficient in reading nor math.

Private schools, some charter schools, and some home schools have shown time and time again they can be education iconoclasts. They can "do" education for less money than public schools and get much, much better results. How can that be? Simple - they broke the mold. They are refusing to follow the "formulas" the public schools use. And those formulas are very, very complicated. With the tentacles of the Federal and state government in every nook and cranny, school districts struggle just to stay "compliant". They have to hire extra staff just to do so. And that cost a wad of dollars. Meanwhile, back on the farm, kids are graduating without knowing a lot. Many of the graduates end up in remedial classes at colleges just to bring them up to baseline.

The above pertains only to kids who graduate from high school. In the United States today, only about 72% graduate from high school. In Washington DC the number is about 56%. For kids of color in Washington DC, it is even lower. In Minneapolis, the latest statistics show a graduation rate of almost 60%. That is the good news. Now the bad news. For African Americans it is under 50%. For American Indians, it is under 30%. And those results were gained by spending over $23k per pupil every year.

My opinion on education in this country is quite simple, as I am a simple man. When you find yourself driving in the ditch, your need to stop driving. In other words, the system is broken, and has been broken for years. And yet, we keep throwing money at it. Good money after bad. Meanwhile, much of our seed corn, our youth, continue to drop out of school before graduation. Many who do graduate don't know as much as their grandparents did who graduated in the 60's. And back then there was no Google, internet or smart phones. 

I know I might be shouting into an empty box. Before June, the House, Senate and Governor will compromise on a number which will be huge. It will be a huge number added onto an already much bigger number. And kids will keep dropping out. Futures ruined. Dreams spoiled. And many of our kids will continue to graduate thinking we have 57 states, a President for life, and Lincoln is only a car.