With the help a few deep breaths and some quality coffee I sat down to watch “Waiting For Superman” this past weekend. This was a complex task, on one hand, a number of the points raised in this movie were correct, relevant, and detrimental to public education. On the other side of this coin were contradictions, flawed logic, and structured logic that was not followed through to find a concrete solution to our problems in education.
Out of all of the thoughts and ideas running through my head, one has stuck out the most. Here’s what the movie had to say:
Our educational spending over the last 50 years has risen from roughly $4,500 per student, per year, spending to almost $9,000; yet our test scores have virtually flat lined. (We must keep in mind that this financial data has been adjusted for inflation but I remain skeptical that exam content has not gotten harder over the years…)
A few minutes later the movie discusses “Dropout Factories” – schools that have a dropout rate over 40%; the movie claims that these schools are littered across the United States. From here, the movie discusses the percentage of high-school dropouts who end up in prison, costing tax-payers $33,000 per prisoner, per year. This cost reflects food, shelter, medical costs, recreation, etc.
While the movie does not connect these dots, I feel a need to. Our tax payers are paying an estimated $9,000 per student, per year and an estimated $33,000 per inmate, per year. This is so absurd that even Gov. Scott Walker could figure this one out.
So what would happen if we tripled “per student funding”? (a $6,000 per individual/per year decrease compared to our average inmates) What if we actually had a well-fed education system in this country rather than a system that is starving off of table scraps? What if that $27,000 offered basic Medicare for our low-income students and 3 meals a day for our latchkey kids? What would education look like?
As for where the money would come from... I have a few ideas...
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