The business of education is more lucrative than ever before, and school districts are spending millions of dollars on LMS contracts and consulting fees for services and speakers. Some of the biggest names in education earn the equivalent of my monthly salary for a single day's speaking engagement or training workshop.
While I value professional development and feel like consultant fees are often well spent, I can't help but wonder what would happen if that money went directly into school improvement, dynamic curriculum design and teacher salaries.
According to the Berkery Noyes report, "Professional Training Services" transactions surpassed "K-12 Media and Tech" in 2015 and increased by 26% from 2014. While the report also includes higher ed, the staggering amount of money invested in the K-12 "industry" is glaring. People are capitalizing off the current climate of desperation. Who can blame them?
Bottom line, spending money on motivational speakers and technology will motivate those already motivated, but does not solve the problem of teacher burnout and lack of compensation for engaging and meaningful work in classrooms. It doesn't solve the problem of teacher turnover in disadvantaged neighborhoods, or the fact that many teachers have to work several jobs to keep families afloat. It doesn't solve the problem of low performing schools and standardized testing structures that do not serve or accurately represent performance of diverse populations. It does not change the fact that teacher demographics almost never match the student demographics in the community they serve.
We can continue to blame unions for bad teachers, teachers for low test scores, school districts for misappropriating public funds, or capitalists for profiting off the failures of the system, but what if all that energy was directed at solutions. I can't help but wonder...
What if $18 billion was divided amongst the lowest performing schools in America?
What if $18 billion was used to fund a college education for every student attending these schools?
What if $18 billion was used to recruit the top graduates of the most esteemed universities across the world into the teaching profession?
What if $18 billion was used to expand all public libraries into public media labs, open studios and creative learning spaces? Or, build public theaters and community rehearsal and performance spaces?
What if $18 billion was used to fund programming, coding, game design, CAD and VAPA programs in all inner city schools?
What if $18 billion was used to bring down student-teacher ratios?
What if $18 billion was used to create and fund research lab schools across the country aimed at actually changing the infrastructure of public education?
What if?
What if $18 billion was used to recruit the top graduates of the most esteemed universities across the world into the teaching profession?
What if $18 billion was used to expand all public libraries into public media labs, open studios and creative learning spaces? Or, build public theaters and community rehearsal and performance spaces?
What if $18 billion was used to fund programming, coding, game design, CAD and VAPA programs in all inner city schools?
What if $18 billion was used to bring down student-teacher ratios?
What if $18 billion was used to create and fund research lab schools across the country aimed at actually changing the infrastructure of public education?
What if?
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