By What Measure Do You Think a State Should Measure Its Public Education?
@mythociate (21437)
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
October 12, 2012 6:43pm CST
The Oklahoma Gazette this week said that Oklahoma's education-system is "not just broke, but broken," citing a lot of financial stats as 'proof' (focusing on spending-per-student, in which Oklahoma ranks 48th lowest in the nation.)
That's a very shallow angle to judge from. It's like measuring how pretty a flower is by 'how much you water it' ... neverminding that you planted it in a dump in the desert.
Agreeing with superintendent Janet Barresi & financial-analyst Jonathan Small, I don't think education's quality is measured by 'how much you spend.' The schools are a garden, and the garden's success is measured by the value of its fruit.
With schools, that value is the goodness of the citizenry after attending.
How is the goodness of a citizenry measured?
4 responses
@smtrsv (186)
• India
13 Oct 12
Hello there! Respected my dear mylotter friend mythociate Education is not a matter to be balanced with the money. It is other than the money. It may be 48th rank in terms of money but the Education is different.
MK Gandhi said “By education I mean an alround drawing out of a man body mind and soul”.
Similarly Froebel described education as “Education is a process by which a child makes its internal and external.”
It does not include the money to measure a parameter of assessment of quality of education.
Happy mylotting and have a lot sweet dreams! Thanking you.
Mrs Rakhi Sharma
Saturday, October 13, 2012
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
4 Nov 12
Thank you Mr. Sharma.
But I don't think a total elimination of money is necessary! Rather a realization of 'what money is.'
'What money really is--what the American Dollar really is--is power!... the power to move others' possessions out of their "possession" (as "credit for having money" is moved out of your own "possession").'
(... a statement modeled on Captain Jack Sparrow's description to Elizabeth Swann Turner of "What a ship is--what the Black Pearl really is ...")
What I think a better measure of a community's 'quality of education' would be is 'the contentedness of each community-member.' (Sure, "counting the money" provides results more-quickly; but 'money' is not a stable standard ... one day a dollar buys a hundred chickens; another day it won't get you a crumpled feather!)
Isn't 'contentedness' how you would measure 'quality of education'?
1 person likes this
@mythociate (21437)
• Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
30 Mar 13
That's what I was saying about education in general, but I think what the statistic shows is 'our state's devotion to schooling'---and a state's devotion to something is shown by 'the amount of money the state spends on it.'
However, that statistic may have been a miscalculation, as 'money is different' in Oklahoma (a dollar buys more here ... or -less, you can use MyLot Search & look-up 'worth of money by state' or something & find out).
@peavey (16936)
• United States
13 Oct 12
I absolutely agree with you. How much money we throw at something has nothing to do with its success or failure. A school that's broke probably means that it isn't using the money it has in the best way. Students don't need money, they need someone to care that they learn. And by "learn" I don't mean sitting in a circle and telling whether they think their parents love them.
Schools have come a long way over the past few decades and it's not all for the good. I like your example of measuring how pretty a flower is by how much you water it. Water (money) is only a part of the growing medium.
@JenInTN (27514)
• United States
14 Oct 12
Peavy was right on the money with this one. I could have a shed in the back yard with more learning results than some of the school environments. I understand the need to budget money to run the school itself but I think that somewhere in there, the students have been lost. Some really good teachers are lost in there too.
@smtrsv (186)
• India
13 Oct 12
Hello there! Respected my dear mylotter friend mythociate Education is not a matter to be balanced with the money. It is other than the money. It may be 48th rank in terms of money but the Education is different.
MK Gandhi said “By education I mean an alround drawing out of a man body mind and soul”.
Similarly Froebel described education as “Education is a process by which a child makes its internal and external.”
It does not include the money to measure a parameter of assessment of quality of education.
Happy mylotting and have a lot sweet dreams! Thanking you.
Mrs Rakhi Sharma
Saturday, October 13, 2012
