Education - Up or Down?

I purchased one of those new internet phone, PDA do everything toys Friday. It is now Sunday afternoon and I finally have the device set up to the point where I can do email, call, find contacts and surf the internet. There are many more whistles and bells, but for the most part it is in operation.

I don’t claim to be a computer guru nor a whiz in math, but I believe my skills in those areas are well above average. It took most of two days and my brain is well worn after this experience. I imagine most people can understand. I might add that I don’t have a lot of money and this was a major purchase which adds to the stress. I can’t afford to break it or toss it without suffering a big loss.

In my tired state I let my mind drift. Something that is easy to do at my age. I remembered an article recently published in one of the five or six newspapers I regularly read. It said that American high school students scored 26th on math tests when compared against all nations.

I don’t know if I can name many more than 26 Nations much less name 25 that are, at least in math, better educated than our American children. Can you?

In the survey for best jobs in the future MSN published a report that went like this. High Tech side of the computer business… programmers etc; then financial gurus; followed by medicine including dental professions.

Now it has been a lot of years since I since I taught at the university level and even more since I finished my grad degrees, but in those days all of these professions required considerable math skills.

America is moving and has been moving for the past two decades out of manufacturing into services and high tech. It isn’t a new trend. So my question is… what are we doing in education?
In our dinky state of Arkansas if taken at all levels combined the largest burden on the tax payer is education. Health and human services run a close second. My guess is if we add economic development, mainly geared to attract high tech jobs, it makes up over 60% of the state tax burden.

I guess it all proves the low math scores are correct. The public can not calculate return on investment when it comes to government spending vs. payback. Are our children and our future going the way of an uneducated third world country? Have we reached the tipping point in education?

Education, up or down you decide.