From: Billy Brown (bbrown@conemsco.com)
Date: Tue Mar 30 1999 - 12:42:45 MST
Jeff Taylor wrote:
> Perhaps the real issue is that the current mode of education is just
barely
> effectual.
I'd certainly agree with that.
> I've noticed that the evolution of education has been severely inhibited.
Is
> this a subversive maneuver to preserve the economic class structures?
IMO, it is a natural result of the fact that a government bureaucracy is in
charge of education. They have no incentive to even care about whether
their methods work, and every incentive to fiercely resist any effort to
change the system.
> A poorly educated nation is easiest to govern. Perhaps that is why so
little
> is spent educating our people. (in the USA)
Actually, the U.S. spends quite a lot of money on education. Teachers are
paid above-average wages (especially considering that 3-month vacation every
year), and the only schools that don't have basic materials are the ones
where the bureaucrats intercept all of the money before it reaches the
classroom. The constant complaints about funding are another natural result
of bureaucracy - we could spend $1,000,000 a year per student, and they
would still claim to be short of money.
Having worked as a teacher, I would say that money is largely irrelevant.
Once you have a classroom, furniture, books and a teacher, you have
everything money can buy that is actually helpful. Spending vast sums on
computers, multimedia tools, field trips, and so on produces very little
benefit - what really matters is what the teacher and students do in that
classroom.
Billy Brown, MCSE+I
bbrown@conemsco.com
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