One of the biggest myths in this country is that we don't spend enough on education. If anything, we spend way too much in relation to what we get in return. Countries like Japan, Singapore, and South Korea do much, much better than we do on international tests of math and science, and spend much less per pupil. In the case of Singapore, it's less than half.

But I fear this is a losing battle. The mindset in the U.S. seems to be that we can never spend too much on education.

not fair to post only one year's worth of math score and said the increased in education is ineffective. what has been the recent trend between the two?

Don't forget how much is spent on education even without federal spending.

We don't need radical new ideas.

We need to return to the old idea of a classic liberal arts education with strict graduation requirements. Cheaper, straightforward, and effective.

Get rid of any programs that have the word "studies" after them. You know the ones-- Black Studies, Women's Studies, Urban Studies, etc, etc. They're a huge money drain on the system that produces zero serious education.

Return schools to local control, so parents have a say over what their kids are learning.

My wife is a high school teacher and my company consults wth school districts. In my mind teacher pay (and hence educational spending) is an issue but for a different reason.

My wife has taught for 30 years. When she started, teachers weren't paid well at all. A person became a teacher as a calling. She wanted to educate kids. Now, being a teacher pays enough that it has begun attracting people who view it as a job not a calling. They show up to draw a paycheck and whine and moan and complain all day long. The student's education is the last thing on their minds.

Here in our little school district (we aren't a rich state and we have a decent cost of living,) a starting teacher fresh out of college at age 22 makes $31,956.00 for 190 days of work; a daily rate of $168.19. This district has a policy that states that teachers are required to be at school for 7 hours and 40 minutes a day measured from whatever time they are required to report in the morning. For instance, if their day starts at 8:00, they can leave at 3:40. Now, by law, 30 minutes of that 7:40 is set aside for lunch. They cannot be asked to do anything during their lunch period without additional compensation. Another 40 mintues of the 7:40 is what is known as "planning time." Again, this is time where the teacher has no students and the school is not allowed to ask the teacher to do anything. All this means that the effective teaching time for a teacher is 6 hours and 30 minutes a day. This makes the effective teacher's pay fr a starting teacher $25.88 an hour.

Now, the argument can be made that teachers also have to do work at home in the form of grading papers which is a valid argument. If you add an additional 1.5 hours a day for grading and bring the number to an even 8 hours a day, you find that the pay is still $21.02 an hour, and remember, this is for a brand new teacher with no experience.

I'm sorry. People can makes lots of arguments about lots of things regarding education, but teacher pay isn't one that will fly with me.

Lugnut,

Those are great ideas. And they are also radical ideas to the "education establishment" in this country.

Too many years of social promotion and political correctness at the expense of basic education has led US to this point. Unfortunately until America's education elites can pass a simple test like the 8th Grade Final Exam from Salina, KS in 1895 we're not likely to make any progress. I think it's fair to say 8th graders a century ago were better educated than most, if not all, of today's college graduates for nowhere near the kind of money we spend today. Perhaps we need this sort of standardized testing for our academic professional certification.

ref: http://people.moreheadstate.edu/fs/w.willis/eighthgrade.html

jonny

jonny