bigrob1

its the little things

Why is it in the English speaking world that the more that is spent on education, the less well they perform internationally? Out of the US, Ireland, UK, Australia and New Zealand, America spends the most by a significant amount.

Spending per student is 1. US 2. Ireland 3. UK 4. Australia 5. NZ source

and yet performance is the exact opposite, 1. NZ 2. Australia 3. UK 4. Ireland 5. US

NZ spends about $7,000 a year per student. This number is similar to other high performing PISA countries.

My question is this. Why is the solution to poor education standards to throw more money at the problem when that clearly seems to do more harm than good. Does it have to do with the way tax income is used to raise funds for education? Being so dependent on locally raised funds? Does it simply remove any guilt we feel towards failing schools? How can we fix this? What is the US doing wrong? What are other countries doing right?

Ill leave you with a quote I learned from one of my favorite teachers. "Those who teach can, those who cant do everything else". Thank you for teaching and representing teachers. While I may be right of centre I can fully support that good teachers are one of a nation's greatest assets and deserve to be looked after.

edit: also what do you think of Sir Ken Robinson. His Ted speeches are electrifying and seem to motivate tons of people. It seems though that what he would suggest would be responded to in a hostile manner by entrenched teachers and unions.

It seems to me that vouchers is a nice compromise. It keeps the issue out of public school and doesnt make parents that want to send their children to a private school pay twice for their education. Im curious just how large these vouchers are as a percentage of the average annual cost of a Louisiana student. I agree that the founding fathers did not want religion and state mixed. However their definition of state is so much different than the one used today, and simply doesnt apply.

It is a miscarriage of history and understanding of the constitution to use the first amendment against this.

Why does this issue need to be portrayed as a religious or lack there of issue, which is, I grant, what is specifically, rather than what it is generally, which is an issue on self determination? Isnt this thinking of 'we know whats right and what wrong' a dangerous path to go down? And doesnt it seem like that those who would advocate your position on the left reject these sort of authoritarian line of arguments when it comes down to 'we know whats good for you'? Arent these lines of arguments rejected by liberals thinkers, and Im not using that term pejoratively, when it comes to Iraq and Afghanistan or dealing with indigenous people anywhere? Dont these type of arguments actually undermine democracy and are rightly rejected as paternalistic and almost intellectually imperialistic?