{"id":3814,"date":"2011-09-19T07:15:29","date_gmt":"2011-09-19T12:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2015-03-13T16:56:55","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:56:55","slug":"five-biggest-problems-public-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2011\/09\/19\/five-biggest-problems-public-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Biggest Problems: Public Education"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><em>Part of a series on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/tag\/biggest-problems\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Five Biggest Problems Facing America<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"The Five Biggest Problems Facing America\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2011\/09\/13\/the-five-biggest-problems-facin-america\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n<p>5. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2011\/09\/16\/five-biggest-problems-unnecessary-wars\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Unnecessary wars<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Inequalities in public education<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>3. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tonyjones\/2011\/09\/20\/five-biggest-problems-corporate-taxes\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\">Corporate tax loopholes<\/a> (Tuesday)<\/p>\n<p>2. Medicare (Wednesday)<\/p>\n<p>1. Money in politics (Thursday)<\/p>\n<p>Conclusion (Friday)<\/p>\n<p><\/p><center><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zDZFcDGpL4U?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/center>\n<p>I am very, very privileged in that I went to one of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.edina.k12.mn.us\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">best public school systems in the world<\/a> \u2014 that\u2019s right, I\u2019d say <em>the world<\/em>, not just in the U.S.  And my children now attend this same school system, which is showered with awards and accolades regularly.  <\/p>\n<p>But many kids in America do not get this great educational start.  Instead, they are at schools that have well-meaning but overworked and undervalued teachers.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->What\u2019s the difference?  Of course, it\u2019s the fact that I live in a suburb that\u2019s full of relatively wealthy people.  We have a strong property tax base, and we have a population that demands top-notch schools, as much for property values as for the good of our children.<\/p>\n<p>There are other problems with public education, like the myopic focus on test scores.  But I think that the inequalities of funding, and therefore teaching and resources, is the root cause of our struggling educational system.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s the deal: <strong>If we\u2019re going to have a public education system, we need to fund it robustly, and across the board.<\/strong>  There\u2019s no point in having public schools if they don\u2019t have money.  And there\u2019s <em>really<\/em> no point in having a public education system if families can take the public money earmarked for the education of their children in the form of a voucher and pay for a private school.  That undercuts the entire system \u2014 it does not increase competitiveness, as its advocates claim.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve got enough experience as a country now to determine what things the government does well, and what things it does not do well.  Our government has done a good job at educating us and our children for generations, though we seem to be slipping in that regard.  <strong>If we\u2019re going to keep offering public education, we cannot do it half-assed<\/strong>.  We either need to go all-in, or fold and get out of that game.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part of a series on the\u00a0Five Biggest Problems Facing America: Introduction 5. Unnecessary wars 4. Inequalities in public education 3. Corporate tax loopholes (Tuesday) 2. Medicare (Wednesday) 1. Money in politics (Thursday) Conclusion (Friday) I am very, very privileged in that I went to one of the best public school systems in the world \u2014 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[790,1061],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-biggest-problems","tag-education"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Five Biggest Problems: Public Education<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Part of a series on the\u00a0Five Biggest Problems Facing America: Introduction 5. Unnecessary wars 4. Inequalities in public education 3. 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