> invest 2x the resources into a person that will never likely tinder a significant benefit to society?
So you would rather have the cleaning lady, the garbage collector, the truck driver,... not got proper read/write/calculate/economics... education and increase their chances of ending on the side where they fall for addiction instead?
I don't think that's what they're saying.
Anacostia High School in Washington DC has zero percent of students meeting expectations in Math, yet its funding per student is twice that of nearby districts that perform much better. Lebron James' I Promise Academy is similarly very well-funded both for in-classroom and wraparound services, and it's one of the worst schools in the state of Ohio. It is increasingly evident that we cannot improve student outcomes in failing schools simply by funneling more resources to those schools. Students who come from households who do not value education not only will not learn, but will also likely sabotage the education of the others in their schools. It is probably more effective to give direct cash payments to struggling families than to struggling schools.
The reality, which politicians will never admit out loud, is there is a population of K-12 students who 1. will never become educated to any measurable standard, and 2. disrupt the education of everyone around them. You could give unlimited funding to a school, and these kids will not learn. You could assign a huge staff of dedicated top-educators to each class, and it won't make a difference. You could isolate them from everyone else, each individual into a dedicated classroom with that staff of education PhDs all to themselves, and they will not learn. They will either graduate high school not meeting the standard, or they will drop out before they graduate. You can't force education on someone whose parents, peers, and surrounding environment don't value it.
Yes, this has been my experience in my stint running an after school program. It’s an unfortunate reality that must be accepted in order to have sane policy.
I think it's pretty clear to everyone that teaching basic literacy - reading, writing, practical maths etc - is a huge societal benefit. Nobody is advocating for not doing that.
What is maybe less clear is the benefit of extending formal academic education to 18 and beyond for everyone. If someone is not academically gifted, why make them waste years of their life struggling through an academic education. What's the point?
The relationship between education and achievement for a given person probably follows an S curve. More education has an impact in the steep part of the slope, but eventually the limiting factor is natural ability, and achievement flatlines. The problem with education today is that people looked at that curve when it was in the steep part, thought "more education means better outcomes" and just kept blindly throwing education at people.
Most people would be far better served by vocational learning after a certain point. Effectively every career is a form of vocational learning, we've just delayed it further and further in the name of academic education which has limited benefit.
> What is maybe less clear is the benefit of extending formal academic education to 18 and beyond for everyone.
For a democratic society, I think there's a pretty big benefit in making the general population fairly well educated beyond just what it takes to make them proficient at a job.
The point would be to make sure they could reasonably reason about the policies and politicians they are voting for or against.
Now, maybe that can all be covered in high school classes. However, I think a lot of humanity and philosophy classes just don't come in until college level classes.
Reasoning and rational consideration of things is not easily introduced after about age 7. People brought up in a reactive environment will struggle and rebel against logical analysis, preferring “common sense” or emotion based decision making.
Reactive thinking is often pretty accurate, and people used to reactive thought think that their conclusions are “obvious”, so the idea that they need to also stand up to a first principles analysis undermines a fundamental aspect of their worldview.
If they haven’t been taught to see themselves and their environment in the third person by the time they are in kindergarten, it’s basically too late. It can be fixed, but it won’t likely be in school.
I expect better from someone whose user name is nuancebydefault
You are right, thanks for pointing this out. My comment was not very nuanced. I feel polarization happens easily with some topics. Well the benefit is, I got replies that are food for thought.