Educating Creativity

This is from 2006, but it is so insightful and funny. I came across it thanks to Seth’s tribe:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

 

The school or the student

Our little first grader has done incredibly well since we switched schools a few weeks back. This has me thinking. According to Paul Graham it doesn’t matter much where someone went to college, at least when it comes to predicting software startup success. This was a surprise for the Yale graduate. I tend to agree with him at the college level. But when kids are younger does the school matter more?Do they need a better environment when they’re just getting started with formal education?

Same Old Story

Here’s the headline from the DeseretNews:

Utah still ranks last in student spending

The 2006 census data was released this week which prompted this latest article.

Here’s what always bugs me about these news reports, there are more numbers than just the one that shows Utah at the bottom, but do they ever show up in the paper? Utah does in fact spend the least amount of total money per student. Meaning if you take the annual education budget and divide it by the number of students, you come up with: Utah ranks last in student spending. The thing is that Utah has a lot of kids, so if we look at it from the perspective of what percentage of the total state budget goes towards education, well then we get a different picture. The census data looks at public spending in relation to every $1,000 of personal income. Or in other words, what percentage of the wealth of the state is going towards education. In 2006 we were not last in this category but rather 32nd in revenue and 42nd in spending. 32nd is closer to middle of the pact as I understand the math.

If we go back and look at the total money spent we can see that we are also last in instructor salary, but we’re 35th in benefits. If you combine salary and benefits with Utah’s lower cost of living I don’t think we’re mistreating our teachers as badly as is often made out. Should teacher’s be paid well, absolutely, it’s just we’re closer than is often thought, and we’re getting better. That’s good news.

The other good news is that despite being last in total spending. we’re not last in test scores, graduation rates, or any of the other measurements used to determine the success rate of students. In fact in some measurements we’re even in the top ten. This seems like the best news of all to me, if we can give our kids a solid education for less money than other states, well that’s fantastic. The game is not to spend the most, the idea is help the kids learn. Doing that for less money is a good thing. Also, some analysis reveals that pouring money into a learning program doesn’t equal results. For example over recent years Utah put extra money into reading programs, only to see reading test scores decrease. It would sure be nice to see a journalist explore this topic in-depth instead of always just hitting the hot buttons.

Is there room for improvement in our education funding? Maybe, but I believe there’s more need for creative solutions that enhance student learning. I know that the former chairman of the state school board was asked what could be done to improve our public schools besides increasing spending and the response given was to the effect that he couldn’t think of anything. That kind of thinking won’t get us very far. Here’s hoping we can do a lot better than that from here on out.