I continually hear the statement made that we are not spending enough on Education in this country. Schools need more money.

My question is : How much IS enough?

We need to answer this basic question to understand where we need to be and how we need to get there.

Probably one of my liberal traits is my stance on education. That being said you just don't throw money at a problem, you have to look at why or why not it is succeeding.

I think the main problem with Education is too much of the resources are being spent on administration(not teachers). Students need better facilities, text books, computers, and study aids.

How much IS enough

That's tough, because unless your kids are going to private schools, most people don't pay a per-child fee for their kids to go to school. You pay property taxes (at least in most places) and part of those taxes fund your local school system. So how much you ACTUALLY pay is far less than what you'd pay if you had to pay a per-child flat rate for each child.

And Sleeper is right: school administrations are getting bigger while class sizes are supposed to be getting smaller. Which, if you think about it, makes sense. If you are running a company that employs 10,000 people, you need a bigger administration budget (and more people) than if you're running a small company that employs 25. Is it proportional? Usually not, because after a while, you must add layers of administration to manage stuff.

And the Federal government doesn't help much by insisting on rules and testing and documentation procedures that require even MORE administrators to handle.

Yes, our schools need more computers, teachers (which, if you add lots of teachers, you'll need more administrators to manage them and a bigger school to house all those extra classes, right?), text books, etc.

But I have a few things that could help:

1. Make public schools like private schools when it comes to discipline. Public schools shouldn't HAVE to educate those who through their own actions make it clear that they don't belong there. Make it easier to toss kids out of school for breaking rules (not perceived rules, like the girl in Roswell who wrote a story about a dream where someone killed a teacher and the girl got temporarily expelled for WRITING A STORY instead of encouraged to write more).

2. A problem in a number of elementary and middle schools is that 1 out of 3 kids in the class on day 1 are gone by the end of the year. This transience is horrible for trying to insist on "smaller class sizes" and a waste of funds. Let's get rid of the notion that smaller class sizes will help kids learn better and instead use larger classes with a more flexible teaching team that is in proportion to the number of kids in the class. Which leads into...

3. The teachers' unions needs to change. Right now, they appear to be more concerned with having their members paid more money instead of insisting on having the school systems create the type of learning environment that will keep their teachers happy and on the job. Unhappy teachers quit. Teachers aren't always unhappy because of the pay, but they're often frustrated that they can't teach and have to put up with disruptive students and bombastic parents.

4. Quit teaching to tests; quit dinging schools where kids don't test well compared to other schools. This wastes valuable school year time with minimal gain. Most of the difference in test scores tends to be related to the transient nature of the students being taught. Or whether the students even have a grasp of the English language.

So how much is enough? I think that when it comes to teaching my kids what they need to know in order to succeed and survive in this world that not enough is more dangerous than too much.

The education budget should ALWAYS be more than the foriegn aid budget. That would be a good starting point. If an administration wants to raise the amount of aid going to oil-bearing countries, that's fine, but you have to raise the education fund equally so that in order to accomplish anything, you have to invest in the future's ability to handle the inevitable later problems.

I agree with Perspectives idea on a minumum standard. The education system should never lack for funds.
While money is of course important, it really isn't THE problem with education today. The education system is horribly out of date and completely lacks any ability to prepare children (and Adults) for the modern world. It doesn't even attempt to teach people according to how humans actually learn. The read and memorize methods employed by schools give an abysmal return. Children are made to feel inadequate for being unable to flourish in the current system which only leads to a complete loss of any interest in learning and future problems in life because of the sense of being "Dumb". Some of the best minds are irretrievably lost because there is no way to allow these kids to go at their own pace. There is no program available that focuses on their "Non traditional" ways of learning. They become frustrated with the mind numbing boredom and complete lack of anything interesting and generally start to act out. They become labeled as "Problem children" and are written off and lost to delinquent behavior.
We are manufacturing insecure uneducated people with no actual life skills, loaded down with guilt and lack of self confidence and are suprised by the problems we are now drowning in today.
The only solution as I see it will come from the private sector as those who recognize this problem begin to open private schools that try to offer affordable alternatives to parents. The best end solution will be the destruction of the public school system. The beauracrats will never let it go or recognize their abject failure and responsibility for mangling the mental ability of their students.
I don't want to give the impression that I actually blame most teachers. They do an incredible job with the sadistically minimal support they are given and the tragically inept system they are constrained by. Having worked with many ex teachers who could jsut not be a part of the system any longer I hope that future private endeavors will finally accord them the respect they deserve and offer them the rewards for holding what i consider the most important and critical role in peoples lives just below that of Mothers.

This is an area where I tend to veer off on conservative and libertarian ideology- especially after seeing so many school systems abroad doing so much more with so much less.

I don't think more money is the problem at all, with the exception of teachers salaries- there should be some kind of benchmarking of thier salaries to legislators pay in order to make sure that we have the best and brightest applying. In other words, all perks and pay that a legislator recieves, so should the teachers.

However, I see the success of other countries academia compared to ours, such as Russia, and they spend SO little compared to us and recieve such a higher quality of education at the primary level (through our equivilent of high school) that you have to look at what they do right. And in every country where the children are better educated than our children- there is one overwhelming constant- parental involvment. The parents take total ownership of the child's education, and absolutely, positively, do not leave thier kids education up to the school system, and do not see the school system as thier personal babysitter, which seems to be unique to the US system, as a culture.

Some kind of forcing accountability back onto the parents would be the first step, before any real money is spent, unless it is in this direction.

I’m a big believer in the Montessori approach. Overall it’s more expensive but I think our youth is worth every penny. And CruisingRam, I completely agree with you that family is the key to education, that’s one of the reasons I like the Montessori schools, it demands family involvement.

So I think the appropriate funding level would be whatever amount it takes to get all public schools converted over to a Montessori system (no small feat) and then maintain the funding. Since this philosophy requires involvement from the family it would be imperative that employers allow time off for at least one parent to actively participate.

I also feel we need to address students who aren’t academically capable. Not all of them are cut out for academia and the school system should be responsible for a vocational type education, teaching students a trade or skill set so that when they graduate they are immediately employable.

However this will probably never happen so under our current system I think we should still approach the needs of the non-academic students through vocational training and ensure all schools are equally equipped. There's too much disparity between some of the schools.

Isn't montesorri a French or European system? Shouldn't we call it "freedom" schools instead? LOL

Really, this is one area we should really look to the European models.

I like that idea. It's a shame that the best and the brightest scholars who would be great teachers, and who have an interest in teaching - myself included - won't do it because we won't bandinsh ourselves to poverty and take ourselves out of the rat race for wealth. That's exactly what a teacher must do - she must decide that money is not important to her. Same reason I'm not still working for the FBI - to truly give of yourself to this country, you have to resign yourself to poverty while staring teary-eyed at your counterparts in the private industry making 6 figures. Money talks people. You can claim it doesn't, but reality shows - money talks. If I could make what I make now as an outside contractor to the government, working directly for the government, I would choose to work for the government. If I could make what I make now as a teacher, I would most definately teach.

You can claim all you want that money isn't the problem - but money is always the solution.