It isn’t the money, it’s the kids’ futures

I am going to make an argument that agreeing to increase education funding is an action against our kids getting the education they need and deserve. You may think I must be wrong but let me explain. For at least the last 25 years education spending has increased at a pace about twice the rate of inflation. It must have resulted in greatly improved education performance, right. Not really. If you look at the statements from the A Nation at Risk report of 1983 and the 2007 Tough Choices or Tough Times report you will have to admit that things have only gotten slowly worse. Our kids score near the bottom in international math and science testing and close to the middle in literacy. Since, the competition globally from billions of people released from the bonds of closed society socialism and have embraced capitalism with a vengeance, our kids must have a better educational foundation, NOW. With the increasing prevalence of knowledge work in the future, they need a stronger foundation than our kids have ever had to have in the past if a decent paying job is the goal.

Now if money were the answer we would already have achieved a world class level of performance. But money isn’t the answer. In fact, there is too much money sloshing around in the education system. That excess has led to much waste and lack of attention to what is important. It has facilitated all sorts of expensive and time wasting initiatives that are tangential to what needs to be done. Thus, we have too much fat and too little muscle. We need to withhold further increases in funding to send a message that it is time for educators to face facts, prioritize efforts toward their mission and stop the “joyriding” they have been doing. The money is a small issue compared to our kids futures. Time to say, no more money until we see positive action on eliminating waste and addressing the needs of the kids. Lest you think the Colorado is doing better than most states you would be wrong as we are in the bottom half there.