tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post5497348286139463976..comments2024-03-28T03:12:12.079-05:00Comments on Northern Valley Beacon: Gun laws and education terrorize the nationDavid Newquisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04937837001343753140noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5371904020164697258.post-82281820782497023752015-06-08T08:19:42.640-05:002015-06-08T08:19:42.640-05:00Excellent discussion and analysis. Though glancing...Excellent discussion and analysis. Though glancing at the map strengthens rather than refutes the notion that one is unable, alone, to improve education by throwing money at it. Many of the education costs for AL & WY are transportation costs resultant of few schools, few students, vast distances. AL & WY students are middling, at best - a constant WY complaint of 'where's the value added?'. And few would trade a substandard SD education for one from inexpensive FL, AZ, or the lavish spending in DC.<br /><br />Folks 'need to do the math'. What's a comparable education cost in first-world educated nations? What are the primary, secondary, and tertiary economic impacts?<br /><br />It's anecdotal yet instructive to note that the worlds best transportation rail systems are in first world educated nations. Extrapolate on ones own the economic spinoffs of rapid idea exchange, increased commerce, etc.<br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/in-japan-maryland-governor-is-wowed-by-fast-trains--with-big-price-tags/2015/06/04/d36283f4-0970-11e5-951e-8e15090d64ae_story.html<br />http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/06/05/map-the-remarkable-distances-you-can-travel-on-a-european-train-in-less-than-a-day/<br /><br />The US once had a primary & secondary education system that was the envy of the world. That system was largely responsible for pushing the nation through the twin crisis of the Depression and WWII. Then we froze that system, so except for integration, it's fundamentally unchanged from the 1920s-1930s. First world education systems have common threads: they attend school year-round instead of chase the growing season of a throw-back agrarian economy; they focus on scholarly and academic activities instead of placing playtime millstones around schools; they have professional faculties where oft the best-of-the-best teach (often INVITED to teach) and earn a living salary; etc. Those first-world proven education systems must be our North Star; not merely throwing money at our past venerated yet passé system. The US (and SD) cannot afford resting on its laurels, must change, must adapt.<br /><br />Adapt, migrate, or die.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com