What is the Money For?

The amount of money spent on education, on a per student basis, the United States is third in the world. The first two are Switzerland and Austria.

If the money is being spent, where is the education?

It has long been known that the United States did not have the best education results in the world but now, despite extra expense, the statistics are getting worse.

In a recent study the US was placed behind 31 other countries in Math and 16 other countries in reading, yet third in expenditure.

It isn’t that the kids are not born as smart as the rest of the world, they are. It is the education system itself that brings them down. In a recent study carried out between 26 countries, at 4^th grade US students were placed in the middle of the field, at 8^th grade the US students were in the bottom third and on finishing school, the US students were placed last. Yet the money is being spent.

Now there is talk that Mrs. Obama would like to see salad bars in all schools.

The thought of better nutrition for the kids is a noble one but surely the best way to get people to eat healthier, is education. If you can’t teach the kids to read what’s on the menu, how do you expect them to take advantage of it? If the kids can read but can’t learn what is healthier for them, why would they eat salad?

The world’s greatest concentration of PhDs is South Korea, which most US students couldn’t even find on a map. Do their schools have salad bars? I didn’t see their name in the top three for expenditure per student.

Teachers have a hard job and a heavy responsibility and deserve a good wage to do their job. However, they must do their job. I do not blame the average teacher, who probably does their best but somewhere something isn’t working. Yet the money is being spent.

I believe that the problem lies at the top of the chain.

When businesses need minimum education standards and they cannot be filled by Americans, foreigners have to be brought in. This is bad for the country but supposedly it is more important that it makes the politicians look bad. To stop this, the politicians lower the standards for passing tests. When educators object, their salaries are raised and the objections fade.

Today in the United States, the ability to finish school has been placed ahead of what is actually learned in school. A high school diploma is not what it once was. Once it represented what you had learned; now it just means you attended the allotted number of classes.

I know, people will say that if the American education is so bad, why do so many pay to go to the States for their education?

News flash, it is not because it is the best or the cheapest.

It is because the degrees are recognized by US companies and that perhaps they are easier, or at least less intense than they are elsewhere.

Is the progression of other countries educational standards mirrored by their ability to create successful businesses and is it the opposite that is happening in the US.

Isn’t it time that the United States politicians stopped taking the easy way out, to try and look good in the short term and started to make hard decisions that would bring the jobs back to the US. They should start with education and for the sake of the children, stop teaching them that they are the best and start teaching them to be the best.

They could start by teaching the students that just because you pay the most for something; it doesn’t mean that it is the best.