The latest dispatch from the field by libertarian correspondent Mike Sylvester:
Last year I decided to research the annual average cost per student for K-12 education in Indiana. I used two sources for all of my statistics -- Stats Indiana and The National Teachers Association. Below is a summary of the average cost for 2004:
Expenses per student (not counting capital outlays or debt service) = $8,592 per year.
Capital expense per student (new buildings and large projects) = $1,026 per year.
Interest expense per student (interest on school bonds) = $836 per year.
So, last year, the cost to educate the average student in Indiana was $10,454. This cost is paid each year K-12. This money comes from a variety of sources. Some is from federal taxes; some is from state taxes; the majority comes from property taxes.
Real spending (adjusted for inflation) on education has tripled in the last 40 years. Forty years ago, we had the best education system in the world. Today, our education system is mediocre. We need to fix our education system, and spending more money is not the way to do it. If spending more money on education were the answer, our system today would be three times as good as it was 40 years ago.
Comments
I can't figure out where we really are on education. I realize many educators resent the "No Child Left Behind" program, but it wasn't that long ago that we had the "Why Johnny Can't Read" campaign. You'd think educators would be happy that, at least now, most Johnnies can read.
Back when I graduated from high school, Indiana had some of the finest public schools in the nation, and those in our area produced students that were eminently ready for college. If you were in a "college prep" program, you were able to segue into calculus, for example, with little difficulty.
So I was feeling pretty smug for a while in criticizing the sorry state of schools these days compared to what we were privvy to.
Now I don't know. My sister maintains that kids have to learn so much more now that while they are better trained than we were, they are still ignorant. That's possible, but hard to believe. Or hard to believe the current problem is that simplistic.
I wish some non-partisan entity would educate us on the real status of the situation in a way that those of us with a little influence could quantify and address.
Well said John!
I am currently a student at IPFW. I am 38 years old and spent 20 years working in various industries and spent 6 of those years in the navy.
I went back to Ivy Tech in 2001, and then started going to IPFW in 2004.
Did you know that about 30-40% (Depending on which study you believe) of students who now attend college need to take a remedial course in their Freshman year in either Math or English?
This is because the public school system has failed to teach these kids enough math and English to succeed at The Freshamn level in college.
If the kids are learning more; it does not seem to be in math or English...
Am I hopelessly old-fashioned to believe that there's no great secret to education and that all it takes is a good teacher standing in front of a willing class?
I went through the first six and a half grades in rural Kentucky. It was a three-room schoolhouse. The first and second grades were in the same room with the same teacher; third, fourth and fifth grades shared a room and teacher; and sixth, seventh and eighth grades were together.
When the teacher was dealing with one class, those in the other classes read or did homework. When we moved to Indiana, I went to a "real" elementary school here, starting halfway through the seventh grade. They started me out in the middle of the pack at y-1(we were "laned" back then; x-1, x-2, y-1, y-2 and z), then quickly moved me to x-1 because I was so far ahead of the kids here.
And there was no mystery about why -- at least to me. I had spent a great part of a year and a half doing sixth- and seventh-grade stuff but also listening to the teacher working with the eighth-grade class.
Our public schools have spent far too much money while doing an ever worse job in educating our students. Public school education has become incredibly watered down, and it doesn't surprise me at all that so many students need remedial math and reading classes in college. And yet the schools have the nerve to come to the taxpayers and demand ever more money for their failing system.
I've seen a lot of schools, a lot of methods, and a lot of students for which different methods work. If a school can't try a certain method there is no way to really find out what works, and not all students will thrive under that method. Either allowing schools to experiment with styles while adhering to the same list of skills that must be taught, while allowing parents to select schools is the way to find out what to do. Of course, this exists in private schools. Why not give tax refunds to private schoolers in the amount that their taxes would have been spent on public schooling?