The following letter to the editor comes from Richard Gideon, publisher/editor of American Vexillumtm magazine - ISSN 1544-5984
Ms. Gillen:
Ms. Gillen:
A recent article published in Reason magazine sheds some interesting light on the issue of public spending for education. The US spends more money per student than any other country in the world except Switzerland. What we get for this money is mediocre science and math test scores, on a national basis. The student-teacher ratio has fallen and teacher pay has increased dramatically, but compared to countries in the Far East, Scandinavia, and other places in the world, American kids are left in the dust.
As a former post-secondary teacher (for 23 years), I had to deal with the products of the public schools. Without exception, it was the "degree of motivation" that was a better indicator of an individual's success than the district from which he or she came (with the exception that kids from private schools, or home-schooled kids, were nearly always in the top of their classes); and this included kids from the "better" districts, such as Mt. Lebanon or Upper St. Clair.
In the end, quality education is a mix of teacher skill and viable raw material, not an impressive brick and mortar structure.
The Reason article may be viewed on-line here: http://reason.com/archives/2011/02/22/losing-the-brains-race.
Best Wishes,
Richard R. Gideon
Richard R. Gideon
2 comments:
Holy cow ! Obama will love us...against a national average of $91,000 for 9 years of public education in the US....SECOND HIGHEST....Lebo at now $15,500 per average student per year is spending just under $140,000 !
But just throw lots and lots more tax $ into the spending pot and watch what happened here, Mr. President....the SAT & ACT test result measurables don't increase more than a smidgen over 10 years, while the rest of the world sails merrily by us in education achievement.
When is the Americaqn public and this community going to wake up ?
Bill Lewis
Bill,
We won't wake up as long as parents fail to understand that teachers' unions are more interested in protecting incompetent (adult) teachers than they are in educating children.
For this protection teachers receive spiked salaries and spiked pensions after 16.5 steps plus expensive healthcare.
The top pay, the pensions and the healthcare are all out of parity with the ML residents income levels. Yet, we are told, "It's for the children."
The achievement levels of children failed to reach the 95% goals set by our Strategic Plan over five years ago.
Tell me again, what is for the children?
John Ewing
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