The most dysfunctional aspects of public education have less to do with the education and more to do with the home lives of the children we are trying to educate.
In my town, most of the cost of education is just paying teachers. The school system is expensive because paying a lot of teachers is expensive, as is maintaining school buildings. And guess what? Teachers still don't make that much, especially because the union typically has to fight hard for the even basic cost-of-living raises, classroom materials are often not reimbursed by the school, and teachers have hours of unpaid non-overtime overtime work.
And the funny thing about the cost of living raises? The costs are going up because of things like housing, food, and energy for heating. Corporate profits are at generational highs and wealth inequality is growing. So teachers, just like the rest of us, are subject to greater and greater consumer surplus extraction, effectively sucking wealth out of the towns where they live and work. And then taxpayers in those towns need to keep paying for their raises, but those same taxpayers are subject to the same consumer surplus extraction.
Families with two working parents, families struggling to pay for rent and heat and food, families where everyone is addicted to social media... none of that is conducive to kids showing up and being ready to spend 8 hours learning stuff, not to mention drilling and retaining and developing an understanding of what they learned.
Everything is politics and everything is economics. Society is a deeply interconnected ecosystem. School is dysfunctional because families are dysfunctional, suffering from degradation of social structures and severe economic pressure. School is expensive teachers are expensive, and teachers are expensive because they are suffering from the same economic pressure as the families who send their kids to school.
Every household is a little capillary in a great circulatory system of money. Income goes in one end and spending goes out the other end. What's happening now is that most capillaries are receiving smaller and smaller shares of the total flow, while some special ones are swollen larger than we have ever seen before. When people say that the system is rigged, this is what they mean. Is it any surprise that the people with the power to change where the money flows are using that power to make sure more of it flows to themselves?
In my town, most of the cost of education is just paying teachers. The school system is expensive because paying a lot of teachers is expensive, as is maintaining school buildings. And guess what? Teachers still don't make that much, especially because the union typically has to fight hard for the even basic cost-of-living raises, classroom materials are often not reimbursed by the school, and teachers have hours of unpaid non-overtime overtime work.
And the funny thing about the cost of living raises? The costs are going up because of things like housing, food, and energy for heating. Corporate profits are at generational highs and wealth inequality is growing. So teachers, just like the rest of us, are subject to greater and greater consumer surplus extraction, effectively sucking wealth out of the towns where they live and work. And then taxpayers in those towns need to keep paying for their raises, but those same taxpayers are subject to the same consumer surplus extraction.
Families with two working parents, families struggling to pay for rent and heat and food, families where everyone is addicted to social media... none of that is conducive to kids showing up and being ready to spend 8 hours learning stuff, not to mention drilling and retaining and developing an understanding of what they learned.
Everything is politics and everything is economics. Society is a deeply interconnected ecosystem. School is dysfunctional because families are dysfunctional, suffering from degradation of social structures and severe economic pressure. School is expensive teachers are expensive, and teachers are expensive because they are suffering from the same economic pressure as the families who send their kids to school.
Every household is a little capillary in a great circulatory system of money. Income goes in one end and spending goes out the other end. What's happening now is that most capillaries are receiving smaller and smaller shares of the total flow, while some special ones are swollen larger than we have ever seen before. When people say that the system is rigged, this is what they mean. Is it any surprise that the people with the power to change where the money flows are using that power to make sure more of it flows to themselves?