There are many demands on public money. Safety is usually first in line 鈥� defense, police and fire then public works. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published a finding a few years ago that a dollar spent on pre-K education saves $45.
Who would not spend that first dollar? Perhaps the reason is that the person or entity that spends that first dollar is not the one that reaps the savings.
In the early 19th century, public education was usually local. Citizens got together, built a school house and hired a schoolmarm to teach the children the three Rs. The spending was local, and since most people didn鈥檛 move more than 20 miles, the saving was also local. The people were mostly farmers or local businesses. It made complete sense, even though the education was rudimentary most of the benefit would be in their lifetime. A subsistence farmer was not thinking seriously about conquering space.
As time moved on, education needs became less local. Some pupils sought higher education, which meant moving away from the small town. Some started businesses that benefited a much larger community, maybe in the county seat. That meant that the money spent on that student benefited the student but not necessarily the community that paid for it.
Education in primary grades probably follows the same ratio pretty closely. Secondary education could be more expensive because of the need for expensive facilities, laboratories and workshops to train people for other vocations, spreading the value of their education further away from their birthplace. In 91直播, this is particularly noteworthy. The majority of the jobs in 91直播 are in the relatively low-paying service industries. This motivates those who receive any even slightly advanced education to move somewhere else or where there is a demand.
Throughout my lifetime, there was a great emphasis on going to college. The universities have become a professor-dominated industry that seems to be designed to create more professors. A university is a living organism, and like any organism, its primary goal is its own well-being. This results in things like full professors that teach one class a semester.
This results in sports programs that consume huge amounts of money which one would think is to support education. Instead, it often goes to build more impressive sports facilities and pay the highest salary in the state鈥檚 budget. The sports facility becomes an orgasm of its own, loosely attached to the university.
If that dollar ratio of 1 to 45 applies to every level of education, but the need for that education is spread over an entire nation, then the education and the funding cannot be born entirely at the local level.
It is true that each region has special needs. Those where the best use of a specific education or not necessarily educated where they can make use of it. Many industries are local and temporal. Steel-making used to be concentrated in Pennsylvania. As the population has grown, and the need for each specific thing has grown, the size of the facilities has also grown.
There should be national funding for basic standards that every child needs to learn at a certain grade level. This should not result simply in a test they can be taught to. Teaching must address each child鈥檚 needs and potential. Each region may have a set of additional standards where there is a concentrated need. In 91直播, there is actually a curriculum on how to provide gracious service. Face it, there鈥檚 not much opportunity in 91直播 for steel-making, but there could be for astronomy or oceanography.
The other problem is the university emphasis on learned professions and little emphasis on practical professions. Being a welder, plumber or electrician is much more complicated than most people realize. Trades that used to be learned from dad or an apprenticeship now require specific knowledge that can鈥檛 be learned from elders or 40-year-old handbooks. I have a friend who taught construction techniques in a practical way, not out of a textbook, but from trade publications that had the latest information.
If children are to have an education that pays back at the very wide community level, their education needs to be funded by the widest possible level, which means the federal government.
Ken Obenski is a forensic engineer and safety and freedom advocate in South Kona. He writes a biweekly column for 91直播. Feedback is encouraged at obenskik@gmail.com.