WASHINGTON (AP) — Education is supposed to help bridge the gap between the wealthiest people and everyone else. Ask the experts, and they'll count the ways:Preschool can lift children from poverty. Top high schools prepare students for college. A college degree boosts pay over a lifetime. And the U.S. economy would grow faster if more people stayed in school longer.Plenty of data back them up. But the data also show something else:Wealthier parents have been stepping up education spending so aggressively that they're widening the nation's wealth gap. When the Great Recession struck in late 2007 and squeezed most family budgets, the top 10 percent of earners — with incomes averaging $253,146 — went in a different direction: They doubled down on their kids' futures.
I forget who it was, a long time teacher who'd written a book not the subject of education, from New York city i think. He responded to that favored chestnut that you can't fix education in poor schools by throwing money at them, by pointing out how well that worked in affluent schools.
ReplyDeletePrivate colleges are predatory though. I won't ever give money to mine. It wouldn't be smart to send my kids there even if they could get in. I question this whole "if you get into a good school you're good and if you don't you're not" message that we keep getting bombarded with.
ReplyDeleteI'm not talking about private schools. I'm talking about funding public schools more equally and adequately.
ReplyDeleteHeck?
ReplyDeleteRefrain from killing
Refrain from robbing
Refrain from screwing around
Refrain from falsifying
Refrain from intoxicating
Life has been quite tough with or without education..
Forget about war, is there food today?
Thank the Good Lord.