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Why is the assumption that throwing money at the problem can fix it? The US already spends more than almost any other nation else on education. And the few plac

Why is the assumption that throwing money at the problem can fix it? The US already spends more than almost any other nation else on education. And the few places that spend more than us, Austria/Luxembourg/Norway/Switzerland aren't the ones rocking amazing educational outputs. This [1] page offers a raw table with PISA, a standardized educational performance test, results across nations. We're now losing to places like Vietnam in Math/Science. This article mentions we spend about $11,000 per student on education. The per capita GDP of Vietnam is $2,305. Their per child spending is, in turn, going to likely be some fraction of that. It's getting quite silly. This [2] is an interactive page allowing you to compare nations' performance based on OECD PISA scores across the world using a wide array of metrics - click on a country to get details and the ability to compare that country to others. The US problem is not with how much money schools get. It's not even with how much money teachers' get. You can find data on that here [3]. The problem is not money. So what is the problem? I think that's why people like to just blame money, or the lack thereof. It's easy. Trying to figure out what the actual problem is is going to be extremely difficult. And as political correctness is such a hot trend in the US, some factors cannot even be considered which isn't exactly productive for trying to figure out the most effective solution. [1] - http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-math-science-reading-skills-2016-12 http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-mat... [2] - https://www.oecd.org/pisa/ https://www.oecd.org/pisa/ [3] - https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/teachers-salaries.htm https://data.oecd.org/eduresource/teachers-salaries.htm

deleted 9y ago
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pnutjam 9y ago
There's alot of evidence that he disparity between schools and lack of equality in opportunity are the problem. This article is trying to address this. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2008/06/10/4567/ensuring-equal-opportunity-in-public-education/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/repor...
- indubitable 9y ago
  Where is the evidence? That article again simply seems to have assumed its conclusion. For fear of just repeating myself, we already spend substantially more public funds, than nearly everywhere in the world, on our children's educations. Even the less well funded districts are receiving far more money per child than the children in numerous nations that are outperforming us. To be more clear, finding that wealthier school districts perform better than poorer school districts does not immediately imply that the problem is money. I've yet to see compelling evidence suggesting that it is, and I think I've provided reasonably compelling evidence suggesting that it is not. To make this even clearer, let's use the same logic to make an absurdly false argument. 'Poor countries tend to do better than rich countries when it comes to training world class runners. Therefore, the problem for the richer countries is that they have too much money to train world class runners.' The statement is so illogical it reads nonsensically, yet if the reverse were true and that richer countries did a better job of producing world class runners, you might have been inclined to agree with that exact same fallacious logic!
  - danans 9y ago
    > Even the less well funded districts are receiving far more money per child than the children in numerous nations that are outperforming us. Without some citable international performance numbers that are adjusted for 1) purchasing power parity, 2) class parity 3) social services and infrastructure availability and quality (i.e Sweden vs US) 4) education accessibility, this is a suspect claim,and on it's face it is very overgeneralized. Countries and their students are not monoliths.
    - indubitable 9y ago
      And I've already provided these data. Vietnam being my favorite example as a nation now pulling far ahead of us. The reason I mention that country is because I'm quite familiar with it, and even Houdini level mental gymnastics are not going to spin them ahead of us socially or economically in any way whatsoever. And they're not cherry picked. We rank 40th internationally in math now, far below even the OECD average. There are plenty of other examples to demonstrate that our problem is not money.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pnutjam 9y ago

There's alot of evidence that he disparity between schools and lack of equality in opportunity are the problem. This article is trying to address this. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/reports/2008/06/10/4567/ensuring-equal-opportunity-in-public-education/ https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-k-12/repor...

indubitable 9y ago
Where is the evidence? That article again simply seems to have assumed its conclusion. For fear of just repeating myself, we already spend substantially more public funds, than nearly everywhere in the world, on our children's educations. Even the less well funded districts are receiving far more money per child than the children in numerous nations that are outperforming us. To be more clear, finding that wealthier school districts perform better than poorer school districts does not immediately imply that the problem is money. I've yet to see compelling evidence suggesting that it is, and I think I've provided reasonably compelling evidence suggesting that it is not. To make this even clearer, let's use the same logic to make an absurdly false argument. 'Poor countries tend to do better than rich countries when it comes to training world class runners. Therefore, the problem for the richer countries is that they have too much money to train world class runners.' The statement is so illogical it reads nonsensically, yet if the reverse were true and that richer countries did a better job of producing world class runners, you might have been inclined to agree with that exact same fallacious logic!
- danans 9y ago
  > Even the less well funded districts are receiving far more money per child than the children in numerous nations that are outperforming us. Without some citable international performance numbers that are adjusted for 1) purchasing power parity, 2) class parity 3) social services and infrastructure availability and quality (i.e Sweden vs US) 4) education accessibility, this is a suspect claim,and on it's face it is very overgeneralized. Countries and their students are not monoliths.
  - indubitable 9y ago
    And I've already provided these data. Vietnam being my favorite example as a nation now pulling far ahead of us. The reason I mention that country is because I'm quite familiar with it, and even Houdini level mental gymnastics are not going to spin them ahead of us socially or economically in any way whatsoever. And they're not cherry picked. We rank 40th internationally in math now, far below even the OECD average. There are plenty of other examples to demonstrate that our problem is not money.