On 'Getting' Educated: More Money Is NOT The Answer!

An education isn't something that can be 'given' to someone. We'll make better progress improving education if we'll accept this fact. Too many people irrationally think that giving more money to the education bureaucracy translates automatically (and magically) into giving our kids a better education. To become educated one must decide to learn. It is a personal choice, a personal action. What we adults (ie, taxpayers) must do is provide the environment, material and instruction in just a reasonably competent way. The rest (ie, actual learning!) is up to the students.

Problem is, once children become teenagers it becomes difficult to channel them to acceptance of anything, including an education. Sometimes, especially an education! If a teenager doesn't want to learn he/she won't. Take a couple other examples to illustrate my point. Parents can put a good meal on the table but a lot of kids can't/won't eat it because they're full of fast food or would rather go out with their friends for fast food. We can tell kids to get more exercise but, in the end, it's something they have to accept responsibility for doing, as it is for becoming educated. We can't give them a healthy cardio-vascular system any more than we can put educational materials in their heads.

I'm hoping this is an 'aha' moment for the more liberal folks who might be reading this. Are you beginning to understand that money cannot fix it the way it needs to be fixed? Read on for further proof and solutions.

So, why is it that high school test scores are unchanged since the Department of Education was created nearly 30 years ago (according the the Department of Education's own statistics)? Nearly 50% of all states' budgets go to education and the federal Department of Education budget has doubled in the past 10 years. My God! In the absolute sense, why isn't that enough money? What do we have to show for so much money going into the education system? Not much! At what point do we accept two things:

1. Mind-boggling amounts of money hasn't fixed it yet so maybe it's time we accept it's illogical to think more money will fix it and


2. Teenagers tend to be biased (by hormones, peer-pressure, disillusionment with and loss of respect for adults and/or adult authority, etc) against most any kind of attempted indocrination or act of authority by adults (at least those who don't do well in school) and we LET them get away with their unacceptable attitudes.

Maybe We Should Try ...

1. Parents should be more responsible for their kids' education, making it their responsibility at least as much as it's the responsibility of schools (and taxpayers!).


2. More accountability needs to be placed on the kids for becoming educated. Parents should be the primary 'enforcers'.


3. Fewer excuses for kids who don't want to learn. Life is challenging to say the least and these young adults need to start realizing that their future is becoming THEIR responsibility as they enter high school.


4. Boundaries in many areas, especially at home. Bad grades = fewer privileges. For example, reduced/no TV, computer, cell phone, and car use. Curfews and grounding from social activities.


5. Stricter rules. Homework comes first ... before socializing, TV, computer, cell phone, etc. Homework and good grades become their primary responsibility. For those getting bad grades, very strict rules with no exceptions until exceptions are ... drumroll ... earned via improved grades!


6. A decent study environment somewhere at home.


7. Exercise. A healthy body is conducive to better learning and a better attitude toward becoming educated.


8. Good food (especially limits on fast food). A healthy body is conducive to better learning and a better attitude toward becoming educated. Most kids need wayyyyy less caffiene, sugar and saturated fats in their diets.


9. Adequate sleep. A healthy mind and body are conducive to better learning and a better attitude toward becoming educated.


10. No TV, gaming consoles, phones, or computers in kids' rooms. When kids use computers their parents should know the kinds of things they're doing with/on them.


11. Chores. It's good for kids to understand that with approaching adulthood comes with increased family responsibilities. Less of a free ride.


12. Cars are a privilege for kids ... period. They're a need, sure, but NOT a right.


13. Both parents must be involved in kids' progress by checking homework, helping with homework as necessary, checking test grades, and proactively checking in with teachers.


14. Most students need to avail themselves of school and public library resources for extra help. For example, I found that different math books often helped me understand a new concept because a different author approached explanations with a bit different view that made it clearer for me. Doing this requires the student to accept responsibility for it.


15. When I started making 'being an effective student' MY responsibility I learned material better, learned it faster and retained it longer. The main revelation I had in this regard was Plane Geometry in high school. I was failing the first nine weeks and was so scared of not passing that I started doing ALL the problems in the book, not just the ones the teacher assigned ... and I turned them all in. Another thing I did was move to the front of the class which forced me to be attentive even when I didn't feel like doing it. Even if a teacher has a seating arrangement he/she doesn't want to change, if a student who is struggling were to ask permission to move to the front row I doubt that many teachers would say no. The important thing to do is to take ownership for 'what =>I<= can do to become a better student'. The rest of my story in Plane Geometry is that I went from straight "F" work in the first nine weeks to straight "A" work the next nine weeks. And that happened because I started taking responsibility for being a good student. After starting to do this and other things I'm outlining herein, I never again worried about bad grades. One of my most interesting and important revelations was that teachers' competence mattered a whole lot less after I started taking personal responsibility for results in my life. My bad grades in Plane Geometry was a problem that didn't require ANY more taxpayer money to fix. In addition, my fix was a whole lot more effective.


16. When I took OWNERSHIP of 'really/actually learning the material' my grades improved even more. There's a very important distinction in this. If 'a passing grade' is your objective that's about all you'll get, sometimes not even that however. If 'getting by with not reading all reading assignments' (ie, scanning rather than 'studying' the material) about all you'll get is a passing grade, sometimes not even that. If you're doing math problems assigned without rechecking your work or having someone else check it over all you'll get is a passing grade, sometimes not even that. When your objective becomes actually learning the material rather than turning in homework just to be turning something in, you'll not only succeed, you will get lots of A's.


17. Another important step up for me was becoming more proactive in the classroom. Volunteering to put math and science problems on the board was a good move. It was scary at first but the more I did it, the more confidence I gained. Plus it's a really, really good way to hold yourself accountable to do homework well and actually learn the material. Raising my hand more to answer teachers' questions is another example. By the way, I started by volunteering for the easier problems/questions and worked my way up to volunteering for the most difficult ones.


18. ALL Freshmen should be required to attend a well-structured class/seminar on Study and Learning Skills. Maybe it should be a special class given the week before the normal school year begins. Most high school students don't have very good study habits. Even those who do, however, could improve their learning skills. Things to cover in such a seminar include memorization skills/techniques, what constitutes an effective study environment, effective methods to learn a given subject tailored to what's most effective for each subject type, skills for reading faster with better rentention, time-management for students, note-taking skills (for use during lectures),test-taking skills, and effective participation in class.


19. ALL parents should attend a seminar that covers such things as the bullet items above. For one thing, most parents could benefit in their personal lives from this information.

The items listed are valuable life skills too. In this increasingly high tech world, it's clear that learning is more of a lifetime requirement than ever before.

Ensuring the students are doing these things ought to be primarily the responsibility of their parents but one of the key things schools must do is provide tutoring help. Senior students could help with this as well as parents and others in the community. Mentoring is equally important for many students, especially when a student has only one parent or none at home.

One of the things I've learned over the years is that I could learn some of the most difficult subjects EVEN when the teacher wasn't all that effective. EVERYONE has ineffective teachers from time to tome. Students (AND PARENTS!) need to get over it and not let that be an excuse for doing poorly because learning, in the end, is their responsibility. I found that as long as I had good textbooks I could learn most any subject pretty well. Regardless of how supportive my parents were too. By the way, in case you're thinking I had a situation or capabilities that gave me an advantage to do this, I was just a middle-class kid whose father died when I was seven. And an IQ test I was forced to take in high school showed I had average intelligence. I had no special help and was fatherless but I became successful in school when I took personal responsibility for learning the subjects. No one, and I mean NO one, thought I'd accomplish something like a Master's Degree in Engineering from Stanford but that's what I did. While learning a subject more on your own requires a lot more discipline than when teachers are very competent and effective it's important to understand how much is possible to achieve.

I firmly believe that, with the proper personal commitment to learning, a student can learn any subject well enough to get, at a minimum(!), passing grades. The study of foreign languages may be an exception but for most basic courses in English, Literature, Math, Science, Government, History, and the like, a person can learn any subject pretty well armed only with a good quality new or used textbook and determination. What that tells me is that money isn't nearly the answer to the problems as the media, government, 'scholars' in the field of education, a large percentage of parents, and others would have us believe.