Unfortunately Seaborn only got half of the picture right. The relationship between per pupil spending and SAT scores or other metrics of quality is weak to non-existent. Those like Seaborn, not unlike those currently holding office, talk a great game of increasing funding to education 'in order to compete' and fall short when it comes to accountability and then being too afraid to stand up to teachers unions (unions who absolutely abhor the idea of merit pay) when they actually get into office.

Education _is_ everything, but the way the system is currently run, the poor are often hurt the most, ironically, by their most vociferous and supposed advocates.

I agree that the quote is only half the picture. But what I remember is, "Education is the silver bullet." Not more money for education will cure all. The level of conversation on education is not nearly enough just like the amount of money. It shows a lack of care.

I don't know what the fix for education is; all I know is that education is the fix for most of the world's problems.

I think that is a step in the right direction that plenty of people have not taken.

I should have also qualified my response and thinking in saying that I think that in the US and much of the west this holds true. In developing countries, often the key barrier for the poor to becoming rich is the lack of strong property rights systems. There are numerous studies that show the education spending is largely useless or rather suboptimal relative to other interventions in developing countries (see William Easterly's books - he was an economist with the World Bank).

Unfortunately I think you're right in that most people don't think hard enough about the issue - but the problem is that most people equate caring with blindly spending money instead of delving into some of the more nuanced issues. That they do so is often because this blind spending also happens to cater to special interests like teachers unions. The research on charter and voucher schools for instance is quite promising but just look at the spending that teachers unions have done in those districts that have even considered the ideas. Again, it's the poor who are the worst off given that the wealth(ier) just send their kids to private schools.

Education means students learning, not teachers teaching. The product of the process of educating is what is inside the students' heads, not what has been said by the teachers. So this is more a question of cultural preferences than that of the money thrown this way or that way.

If you want to have a well educated population, get the parents love the process of learning and help them pass this love to their children.

No, education is most certainly NOT the silver bullet for this (at least not our current system).

There are too many kids in school, racking up absurd amounts of debt for worthless degrees right now. A backelor's degree is more-or-less worthless right now because it is so common. Currently, you'll need at least a masters degree if you want to get noticed, possibly even a PhD.

The idea of "lets churn more people through this ridiculous system! That will fix the problem! The numbers won't lie! 4 years chained to a desk will fix the problem!"

No. Please not more educations.

I'd say that bachelors degrees in traditional subjects from traditional universities retain most of their value.

In most cases, a degree from a second-tier university is unlikely to be a good investment, but that's not the only reason that people do degrees - if a grown-up (18) wants to do it anyway tho' that's got to be their choice (and their responsibility to pay for it).

Teachers themselves - specifically, teaching unions - are the biggest barrier to that happening.

Incidentally, in the UK we spend GBP 30Bn/year on defence and GBP 70Bn/year on education. It is already incredibly expensive. Literacy and numeracy rates have been falling for over a decade. More money isn't the problem. In fact, the graphs show that more money is making education worse.

It is a poorly guarded secret that, deep down, white people believe if given money and education that all poor people would be EXACTLY like them. In fact, the only reason that poor people make the choices they do is because they have not been given the means to make the right choices and care about the right things. -Stuff White People Like

I do not understand why the above quote is marked down (-2 points when I was looking at it). We may agree or disagree with certain arguments, but if an argument is well presented, or a quote from a mainstream publication, I do not see any reason to shout it down.

Now, I abhor this distinction between the white and black population, but this may be because I grew up in a European country with essentially no blacks, and have not internalized the American history of the racial relations. However, if we remove the "white" label from the above quote, the argument sounds mainstream. I do not agree with it, however, and besides, see it as illogical: the second sentence neither follows from the first sentence nor contradicts it, and how it is a "fact" is unclear to me. No studies have been mentioned, so this must be pure speculation.