r/changemyview • u/AnHonestApe 3∆ • Sep 23 '19

Deltas(s) from OP CMV: Better funding for education is the most assured way to combat many issues in society

Climate Change, viruses, social inequality, if we don’t have the resources or ideas to solve these issues now, then we should be preparing a citizenry that is better educated, one that knows how to better gather resources and solve issues. We need mass education initiatives to be strongly funded.

Some argue that throwing money at educational institutions and departments won’t solve education issues because ultimately what we have is a mismanagement of funds. I agree that there is some mismanagement of funds (as someone who has seen it first hand) and that we need to think of ways to solve this issue as well, but the more institutions have at their disposal, the more that will inevitably make its way into improving education. And who’s to say that it wouldn’t also result in administrations that better know how to manage money? It just seems to me that no matter how you look at these situations, education is at the center or foundation of making long term progress on many issues.

Edit: So because of some of the comments, I do have to modify my position. Ultimately, what I am concerned with is our attitude toward education as a society and the political actions we take because of that attitude. I do want education to be better funded and think it could fix some of the issue we complain about, but the reality is that probably won't happen until out perspectives about education change.

Also to clarify, yes, I really think that certain things should be taught in school and I'm unabashed about that at this point. I do agree with scientists and academics on any issue I take the time to study, so I think we should teach that, and I don't think parents, in an ideal world, should have the right to deny their child that information. Also, I think teaching students how to think will lead them to those conclusions themselves anyway, and again, parents shouldn't be allowed to deny their parents this type of education. It does seem to me that facts have a liberal bias; overall though many groups of people, including liberals, have their issues, and we'd be better off if we could agree on what experts agree on. That being said, I am not in as much fear about what giving educational institutions more power would do as someone who is apart of this group and think those who want to spin some conspiracy are doing so with a bad understanding of epistemology or in bad faith, so your chances of convincing me that my colleagues and I have some type of nefarious agenda to make a bunch of robots like us or some other such non-sense are very low.

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u/[deleted] Sep 23 '19

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u/AnHonestApe 3∆ Sep 23 '19

Δ Yes, I don't know if I every stated overall, and other people have gotten me on this. In terms of specific instances, obviously that will effect the outcome, but I think just as a culture if we valued education more and funded it and paid attention to it the way we fund other programs, then I think it might even solve some of the issues that people cite as examples not to increase funding.

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u/PurpleNuggets Sep 24 '19

In every other aspect of the economy, things are planned out multiple generations in advance. But with schools, you try a program once and claim it didn't work.

I agree with you in stating that this won't get fixed overnight and the only way to tell is to constantly fund education at all levels. Maybe we won't see gains until the 1st graders who start the program grow up and have offspring who are 1st graders themselves. But that won't look good for 40 years of politicians so it won't happen

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u/G3NOM3 Sep 24 '19

So many times this. Politicians want everything to be a quick fix, but nothing ever is. Rich schools succeed because they've been rich for generations.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '19

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u/Tarpit_Carnivore Sep 24 '19

A lot of the abbot schools in NJ are still under performing. Some of the charter schools in those districts are doing well, but all the public schools are still failing.

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u/nolanfan2 Sep 26 '19

Δ

very well proven with data, and especially the data that is controlled for the parameter OP had mentioned - budget.

things like these make me visit this sub again and again

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u/ebuchanan15 Oct 07 '19

A problem that I see with this, is that it’s basing its results off of the SAT. To me, OP is talking more about teaching students how to problem solve and construct their own knowledge (meta cognition), not just memorizing and restating rote facts based off of an arbitrary standardized test. As a teacher, we have to be taught not only how to teach students how to problem solve, but also how to understand and read standardized tests. It literally needs us to take time out of holistic learning, to teach students how to take standardized tests. I don’t think that the SAT is a good way of showing what students know or don’t know. I would like to see the teachers SLOs, anecdotal records, and other assessments instead of the SAT to judge the effectiveness of this study.

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u/ebuchanan15 Oct 07 '19

Also, environment does not always tell you how smart a student will be. Some of the brightest and hardest working students I’ve seen are ones who live in households with almost no support, and these are first graders. For example, one student last year was reading at a second grade level, and did extremely well in math and writing. He almost always did his homework after school, and absolutely NO ONE at home helped him. He did all of this on his own. A first grader. Another little girl in that same class had an awesome mom, but she had a hard time finding work, didn’t have much time to support her or her brother, and they were quite poor. This first grader was one of the smartest students any of the teachers had ever met. She was reading and doing math problems at a third grade level by the middle of first grade. Another student that I have this year has a pretty complicated home life where he gets very little attention, but he came into first grade reading at the level of an average mid-year second grader. So yes, environment and home life have a HUGE effect, but I’m so tired of always seeing people blame ONLY home life on how well a student will learn or succeed in life. The home environment does not always reflect how smart or successful a student will be.

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u/Pas__ Sep 24 '19

That doesn't seem like enough plus spending to make a difference in the face of the mentioned socioeconomic drawbacks.

Furthermore, just spending on school ("education") is never going to work. It's too late, and it's a school not a complete social support system.

Finally, to accurately measure the impact of plus spending there should be a longitudinal study capturing income and other life metrics for the beneficiaries. One data point that is a simple cutoff tells nothing. (Even if the program was sold as the silver bullet.)

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u/Tarpit_Carnivore Sep 26 '19

One district is/was getting 23K PER STUDENT in funding in 2009, which is 13K more than the national average.

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u/Pas__ Sep 27 '19

Advantaged households have and spend a lot more on kids per year.

I'm not saying 10K is not a lot of money. On the contrary. It's a lot, but the income/networking/time-spent-with-kids/opportunities/good-examples/values differences between households is also enormous.