In this election season, one of the many things people will be looking at is education spending. How education is funded is one of the reasons why the educational system in the United States is the way that it is. In some places in the US, the educational system is the best in the world, and in some places it is the worst. Why is that? Because education is funded locally. Some people forget that the USA is a federal system, where funding is decided by each state. What that system does is create local control over education, and what children are taught. The more federal money a school is willing to take, the more control the federal government has over the education of those kids. Is that a good or bad thing? It would be nice to have universally-mandated standards, and it would also be nice to have the same funding across the board so that we wouldn’t have these arguments of “weak” and “strong” schools. Quite frankly “math” is “math” and kids all deserve to learn it. I know in a country as large as the USA there isn’t really room for a homogeneous education, but couldn’t there be something that allows for equal funding and local control? I guess that’s like saying “let’s have our cake and eat it too.” One can wish, I guess. What do you think?
