Funding Education

Over the last couple weeks I wrote about a couple of ideas that I had for introducing Raspberry Pi into the classroom, including a vision to update the great Gingerbread Man escape game. One of the obvious and important questions that arose from this was: "How much will it cost?" My answer; Relatively? Not much...But admittedly more than a lot of schools might have to spare.

Funding for education is left mostly as a responsibility for each individual state, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Maybe I am projecting, but it seems to me that this would imply that education funding, at least in the opinion of our federal government, isn't a federal issue. This seems to be echoed by the fact that education funding wasn't even mentioned in the first two Republican Presidential debates, and was barely mentioned in the Democratic debate. On the brighter side, the president's 2016 education proposal is focused on increasing equity and opportunity for all students; expanding high-quality early learning programs; supporting teachers and school leaders; and improving access, affordability and student outcomes in post-secondary education.

This proposal includes a $1 billion increase to provide support for school districts that have been serving a greater number of students from low income families.  This is exactly the type of focus that I think is critical in reforming our current education focus.  What baffles me as I look further into this issue is that it's been a campaigning tool one way or the other for at least the last 15 years, and it's still a major problem.

Education makes up 6% of federal budget and 30% of state budget. Looking at the general overview of the Minnesota State Budget, it's hard to argue where we could adjust spending, and I think it simply becomes obvious that burdening the state with the vast majority of funding responsibility for education is irresponsible. When you look at our national budget you see that 55% of our spending goes to the military. It's sickening when you start to research where this money goes, and find stories about manufacturers, banks, and other companies overcharging on military contracts. In one extreme case, a company is accused of charging $600 for a hammer on a contract for building military trucks.

This is a rabbit hole that goes deep, and there doesn't seem to be a single politician that believes the government is spending it's money appropriately. The most common campaign promises by far are ones related to how the government spends it's money. My question is, why hasn't someone done something about it already?

I definitely understand that there are people that benefit from huge piles of money falling at their doors. If I was selling hammers for $600 a piece I'd probably be on the other side of this issue, but I'm here, staring at a future career that manages to land itself on nearly every "top underpaid jobs" list on the internet, while also studying in the only civilized country that doesn't offer some form of free higher education.

It makes me angry, and I want things to change. I don't just want more education funding, I want more funding education. I want people to have access to a deeper understanding of where money comes from, where it goes, and who it's benefiting. When we spend 55% of our budget on military defense, does that 2 trillion dollars help the military 2 trillion dollars worth? or does it only benefit them 20 billion dollars worth because of companies inflating prices 1,000% to milk military contracts?

When a state spends 30 percent of it's budget on education, what does that mean?  How is that money being allocated, and is it going to the schools that need it, or is it staying in the area codes that pay higher property taxes?

My conclusion is simple: Numbers alone don't help anybody, and campaigning on promises to increase percentages or put billions of dollars into this or that don't mean anything. Without a true understanding what schools are lacking, and a solid plan to provide the funds to fill those needs, we might as well be throwing money into a black hole - or in the case of American politics, electing someone else to do it for us. I can't say for sure what the solution may be, but I think the first step we need