This chart compares student achievement to money “invested” in education. The blue line clearly shows what’s wrong with America’s school systems.
BigGovernment.com spells out the details:
Student achievement at the end of high school has been flat for as long as we’ve been keeping track—all the way back to 1970. But we did get something in return for all that hiring: a great, big, fat, BILL.
If you graduated from high school in 1980, your entire k-12 education cost your fellow taxpayers about $75,000, in 2009 dollars. But the graduating class of 2009 had roughly twice that amount lavished on their public school careers. The extra $75,000 we’re now spending has done wonders for public school employee union membership, dues revenue, and political clout. It’s done a whole lotta nothin’ for student learning.
In the immortal words of Pink Floyd, “We don’t need no education.”
In the immortal words of IHateTheMedia.com, “We don’t need no teachers’ unions.”
Source: BigGovernment.com
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
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Yeah, but where the h*ll is Arizona again?
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Daughter is a teacher in AZ – no union.
Rated Awesome! What do you think?
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This amkes a strong arguement for the privatization of the education system. I see no reason why turning education over to the free market would not be the best thing for our children.
Rated Awesome! What do you think?
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“We don’t need no teachers’ unions.” Amen, amen, AMEN! – you should also add the word stinking before teacher’s.
BTW. lest you all think me a hypocrite, I am not a union member. I got out years ago and have never regretted it.
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I Take issue with this evaluation. I graduated in 1969, and I was and am FAR better prepared for life, college, adulthood, etc than were my children who graduated in 1999, 2001 and 2004. Well, my kids were pretty well prepared for life because I saw to it, but you understand what I mean. THe standards required were far lower than ours, kids got credit for homework across the board (no one even checked to see if they did it right) and God forbid they should miss a day for anything. We had assignments over weekends, over holidays, over summers (the kids were all in band). They were required to take worthless courses they did not need or want, and could not get into classes they needed. And to add insult to injury, if you were not in honors classes, the expectations were like to write your name. Not even legibly. So I don’t think the graph should be flat-it should be way down!
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Ms. Deb,
You are correct. I have a daughter that is a teacher. What the NEA and our wonderful US Government has done is to continue to lower the standards. Therefore, the graph looks like flat where it should show a decline, a steep decline. I would guess the results are inversely proportional. Thank you Jimmy Carter.
1969 huh – our motto was “Sin, sex, beer & wine, senior class of ’69″.
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You think the results are inversely proportional? So once no money is spent on education people will achieve more? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….that’s funny…
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That seems to be the operational theory!
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Strange how most poor nations aren’t well educated. Using your measures you would think they would be geniuses.
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No, Sam. I don’t subscribe to that theory. I am just stating a fact; it is clear educational success had decreased over the last half century, and yet enormous amounts of money have been plowed into the system to improve that success. And I have done some research-some of the most successful scholls are in small, semi rural areas, with limited resources. Yet they turnout great kids, with hifh scores and high percentabes of colle attendees and graduates/ READ THE POST nex time.
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Come on now.
Don’t you guys realize that it is so much more effective to just throw money into a hole than it is to raise the expectations on what is expected from people?
Look at how well the War on Poverty has gone over the past 40 years…..Gee Whiz! Give your government a break!
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Yeah! You mean conservatives and your mean-spirited expecting of results and stuff! Under Promise, Under Deliver! Love live mediocrity!! Leave Sam I Am alone and let him stare at that graph for a while. He’ll figure it out sooner or later.
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I dont understand this comment/ Who is sam I am? And who is a conservative being mean sprited because they want results? Is this sarcasm and I missed it?
(
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Sorry Deb. Yes – I was being sarcastic. I thought wouldn’t it be fun to comment like a liberal and see how silly it sounds. I guess it worked.
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Thanks. I was questioning what little sanity I have left! LOL
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So I guess we all agree that we should stop all spending on education.
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No, I think we all agree that we should stop WASTING money on educational theories and techniques that do not work. The proof is in the pudding-and clearly the result is not what we need or expect.
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What are the theories and techniques that work?
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Parents must be involved. Teach the subject matter, and promote problem solving and pulling together information from disparate venues to reach a conclusion or answer. Reinstitute recess, especially in the younger grades. Even jobs generally offer a 15 min break twice a shift, in adition to lunch. Keep order, but be reasonable. Memorization works for some things like spelling and and times tables, etc. Use it. Bring back phonics. Even if a new word doesn’t follow the rule, they will have a starting point. Write write write, but encourage proper spelling and grammar. Teach history contextually, not just in dry dates and facts. Encourage sentence diagraming. It helps with grammar, and can be applied in foreign languages where the use of different words for subjective and objective nouns are more common, and the need to differentiate adjectives from adverbs, who modifies who, subject verb agreement, etc. Teach them how to use a library as well as a computer. Teach older children how to research (like the dreaded research paper) and make it a real assignment. Test in more than multiple guess formats. Just a start. . .
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Stop “mainstreaming” those that should be handled differently. (Yes, I have special needs kids in my family).
Stop coddling, thereby rewarding, pregnant teens.
Remove discipline problems from the classroom and school – for good (sweet apples do not help rotten apples).
Eliminate tenure from all levels of education.
Test the TEACHERS. Fire the ignorant, stupid or just plain lazy.
Require teachers to be available some evenings for P/T conferences.
Require EVERY SINGLE education bureaucrat to teach at least one class per day. Close the glass & ivory towers – everybody works at a school so they do not forget what the process is about.
Teach the reality of life – not everyone is a winner. YES, instill self-worth, but not at the expense of reality.
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Oh absolutely thumbs up to you!!
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Since this administration would like to model our health care after other countries, I say we model our education system in the shadows of Japan’s or South Korea’s. But of course, we would then actually require accountability from those said administators.
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