How we decide what education should cost in the US is a many sided conundrum.
Even the most apparently obvious of axioms, such as “good education leads to a strong economy” need clarification. What if one has a good education, but one’s “job” is replaced with AI running automation? So we need to do a LOT of thinking about what sort of education makes for what sort of economy, now, and in the future.
Education is, to restate a really important fact, a huge part of the US economy, and we spend a great deal of funding on it. But do we spend it the right way? Do we spend it equitably for all students whether they live in poor or wealthy neighborhoods? Are teachers paid enough, and do we have enough of them working in our schools, and are the teacher’s themselves trained appropriately, and managed by administrations in the best way possible?
And perhaps most importantly of all, is education even on the right track in the US given the advances in mobile and learning technology already present, and coming soon? Is our present educational bureaucracy capable of leading change, or is it by definition that which is in the way of change and has kept the status quo in place over decades of reform attempts going back 50 years at least?
Here’s a take on the value of state of funding for education in NM, which is a very complex topic by itself; currently a case is before a judge as to what form and amount of funding per student is constitutional in NM.
[gview file=”https://publicservicesalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Investing-in-ed-success-2-1.pdf”]