- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
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US education problems aren’t funding related, at least on the education itself. The US has focused almost exclusively on raising the floor of education since no child left behind, which has been an absolute failure. It’s gotten to the point now that some districts are removing gifted classes because it’s viewed as not fair to the lower achieving students.
Funding also is largely irrelevant to student performance, beyond a floor level. The biggest problem is parent apathy, which isn’t solved with money. Other problems like food insecurity and lack of housing are problems that aren’t education funding related. A free lunch can help a kid pay attention in class, but it’s not going to solve home life or not doing homework.
There’s a deeper underlying issue of the destruction of America’s industrial base. Closing factories reflect an underlying shift in the nature of the economy and, consequently, our societal priorities. A telling symptom of this shift is that only 192,474 of American students pursue engineering degrees our of 3 million total degrees, a mere 6.4%. Not only that, but only 37% of those begin an engineering career after completing a degree. There is little incentive for students to pursue degrees in STEM when they’re unlikely to get jobs in the field.
The population of the USA was dragged kicking and screaming into having more education the last few generations, and will gladly receive less.
There will always be a minority who actually want more, most less
