Over the years, I have been writing about misconceptions regarding the schooling process. The purpose of these posts is to explain why I disagree with various comments that I have heard people make about schooling. These are meant as personal thoughts rather than conclusive proof, and I will admit that I'm not always the best at explaining my thoughts. Regardless, I have decided that I should be willing to share these posts when I encounter someone online who makes an argument that I have already discussed.
It might sound good when you first hear it. We need to fully fund our schools. It doesn't take much to find a big problem with this argument.
We keep setting records for inflation-adjusted spending per student. We are throwing more money at our schools than previous generations would have considered to be fully funding. Despite spending a fortune on the system, schools still aren't fully funded. Why is that?
What schools consider to be fully funded is actually a moving target. Money is not the problem with our schools, but it's an easy scapegoat. In reality, the conventional schooling model was built on top of a disastrous anti-educational foundation. No matter how much we spend, our schooling model will always fail to meet the needs of students. Teachers will always have ideas on how more money could be used, including giving themselves more money. If we gave them everything they demanded, they would just increase their demands again.
We can't fully fund the schools. If we did, teachers would just redefine what it means to fully fund them. No matter how much money we throw at them, they will never consider themselves to be fully funded. Because of this, it's not actually possible to fully fund the schools. Instead of chasing the impossible, we need to seek out real solutions to our educational crisis. Throwing money at the status quo isn't going to fix anything. We need meaningful change.
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