Democrats Push for Stimulus Package to Include Education Spending

Reader Comments
Back to article

We actually do not spend the most money on education as a nation. Don't just look at how much money we spend as a nation, look at how much we spend on each student. Of course we are going to spend more money that Nigeria, we have a few more students. If you look at how much we spend per student we are below 50th. Think about that!!! Fifty other countries spend more money on education than we do and yet we wonder why we are in trouble. Think about whats going to happen to the next generation, we are getting left behind. We are no longer the SuperPower we once were. Here's a link to show how we rank. Check out all the information before you make false claims. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pub_spe_per_stu_sec_lev-spending-per-student-secondary-level

Scott of CA 3:48PM January 20, 2009

I agree that there is something disturbing about the fact that we spend so much money on education and get so little in way of a result. As a teacher for only 9 years, I can only offer the following. I think that all countries put a great deal of money into education, even if it isn't all public funds or on the books, or for public education but also private after school "school". Teachers have recently been told, through NCLB and other research, that they can make the difference. Really? The 40 to 80 minutes a day I have with 100 or more students can compete with the time and influence of birth parents? That would not seem to make sense unless those birth parents were somehow missing, but every year I observe more and more parents abandoning their children at school every morning and throughout the year asking why I can't teach their children to be self-sufficient and leave the parents alone to their "lives" as if, as parents, they had anything better to do. That is to say, I am not sure education is a black hole of money, but that we are trying to do more for kids than before due to the state of the family. For many parents, like it or not, if parenting is not speedy or convenient, it doesn't happen, leaving children wanting adult contact, positive or negative, from a teacher who obviously has an agenda, otherwise known as a lesson plan. If those other needs are not being fulfilled by the adults in their lives, can we seriously expect them to stay focused for a standardized test in which they have no personal stake, where they rarely see the results and are told that the results are not really about them, but about the school district? Education was how the newly created nation of the United States of America told the world that they were sophisticated enough to be a nation of the world, that we could raise our own children without the help of a colonial power. Education is how one becomes an adult. Is that what we are saying to the world? We talk much about how important our children are to us. But is any of it actually, and I mean actually, true?

Carl of VA 4:48AM January 16, 2009

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that as a country we spend more money on education than any other nation on the face of the earth and yet we consistantly fall lower and lower in the standards of education that our children receive? Is it a black hole or some sort of siphon? I guess I would like to how those countries that spend less turn out brighter kids. It seems to me we also have higher infant mortality rates than alot of nations and it looks like we are being led down the path to trusting our health care to the government. It doesn't look good for the Republic!

Jeff of WI 10:15PM January 14, 2009

The stimulus emphasis should include Leon Lederman's Physics First to supplant the status of Biology and Chemistry and replace it with Physics as the leading course in secondary schools. Physics instruction would go a long way in alleviating remedial college work and would help close the achievement gap for all students.
A secondary benefit would be to revive innovation and original thinking in America.

Norm of AR 9:58PM January 14, 2009