I have long thought, as I'm sure many of you know, that education is the most undervalued issue in politics today. This is probably because teachers vote much more often than students.
I had the privilege of sitting next to the former U.S. Under Secretary of Education, Sara Tucker, for dinner on Monday night, and we discussed many of the concerns I have, namely rural and early education. Then on Wednesday morning, I had another privilege of presenting education policy to some state legislators at the Texas Capitol, along with some other youth. One thing we had to focus on during the large amount of time we spent preparing our policy was making it cost efficient. Texas is running a deficit and we couldn't just put forward some ridiculous, large spending bill.
I realized that the programs I wanted to put into my policy were more expensive than I had imagined, and had not historically produced the results I was hoping for. So I had to find a way to spend money but convince people that it would save the state money in the long run.
I hypothesized that if someone is college educated, or even has a high school diploma, then that person is less likely to go to prison or be on public assistance in the future. That person is also more likely to have a higher paying job and provide more money through taxes.
Then I went searching for a study that would back up my hypothesis, and this is what I found.
http://www.cbcse.org/media/download_gallery/Leeds_Report_Final_Jan2007.pdf
It is a rather long, yet very interesting, study, but essentially what is says is that, on average, a high school graduate contributes 209,100 to the government during his/her lifetime. My programs cost. (based on previous implementation of similar programs) between $59,000 and $90,000 per new expected high school graduate.
Those numbers include any public subsidies required for the growth of college attendance (grants, loans, facilities).
So if anyone agrees with this, then why is everyone so afraid to put every child on a path to high school graduation and some type of post-secondary education? It will only save us money in the long run.
I should say though that after speaking with Sara Tucker and some of the state legislators, I am more confident that there are people in government working towards improving public education in this country.
I had the privilege of sitting next to the former U.S. Under Secretary of Education, Sara Tucker, for dinner on Monday night, and we discussed many of the concerns I have, namely rural and early education. Then on Wednesday morning, I had another privilege of presenting education policy to some state legislators at the Texas Capitol, along with some other youth. One thing we had to focus on during the large amount of time we spent preparing our policy was making it cost efficient. Texas is running a deficit and we couldn't just put forward some ridiculous, large spending bill.
I realized that the programs I wanted to put into my policy were more expensive than I had imagined, and had not historically produced the results I was hoping for. So I had to find a way to spend money but convince people that it would save the state money in the long run.
I hypothesized that if someone is college educated, or even has a high school diploma, then that person is less likely to go to prison or be on public assistance in the future. That person is also more likely to have a higher paying job and provide more money through taxes.
Then I went searching for a study that would back up my hypothesis, and this is what I found.
http://www.cbcse.org/media/download_gallery/Leeds_Report_Final_Jan2007.pdf
It is a rather long, yet very interesting, study, but essentially what is says is that, on average, a high school graduate contributes 209,100 to the government during his/her lifetime. My programs cost. (based on previous implementation of similar programs) between $59,000 and $90,000 per new expected high school graduate.
Those numbers include any public subsidies required for the growth of college attendance (grants, loans, facilities).
So if anyone agrees with this, then why is everyone so afraid to put every child on a path to high school graduation and some type of post-secondary education? It will only save us money in the long run.
I should say though that after speaking with Sara Tucker and some of the state legislators, I am more confident that there are people in government working towards improving public education in this country.
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