In The West, culture is money; therefore any legislator seeking to cut funds to education is also destroying the culture. Tough decisions means it is impossible to reduce education spending without destroying the culture of education. That should be respected by any Governor or legislator. The government needs to support the culture of education, not destroy it.
June 7, 2013
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A record-high 55 Michigan school districts (click here) are operating with deficits, though this year's final tally of financially troubled districts could drop below last year if 10 get back into the black as expected this summer.
The state's update to lawmakers was closely watched Thursday because of a number of recent school developments across Michigan.
Buena Vista School District near Saginaw was forced to shut its doors for nearly two weeks after running out of money to pay teachers. Albion Public Schools between Jackson and Battle Creek decided to close the high school next school year. The Pontiac School District is headed toward a financial emergency that could result in the appointment of a state manager.
Three districts already are being overseen by managers.
State Superintendent Mike Flanagan told legislators on K-12 budget panels that most of the state's 549 districts plus 278 charter schools balance their budget every year. Some local school boards just do not want to make tough decisions in the face of declining enrollment, he said.
Since peaking at 1.7 million in 2002-03, K-12 enrollment has dropped every year since and has decreased 177,000 overall. In the same time, the number of deficit districts rose from 10 to 49 at the end of the 2011-12 school year....
Income matters, but culture may matter more
On the surface, money and education seem to create a virtuous circle, with rich countries – and individuals – buying good educations for their children who, in turn, benefit economically. A closer look, though, indicates that both higher income levels and better cognitive test scores are the result of educational strategies adopted, sometimes years earlier, independently of the income levels existing at the time. More important than money, say most experts, is the level of support for education within the surrounding culture. Although cultural change is inevitably complex, it can be brought about in order to promote better educational outcomes.
11/27/2012 3:33 pm EST
...Finland and South Korea, not surprisingly, top the list of 40 developed countries with the best education systems. Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore follow. The rankings are calculated based on various measures, including international test scores, graduation rates between 2006 and 2010, and the prevalence of higher education seekers....
1. There are no magic bullets: The small number of correlations found in the study shows the poverty of simplistic solutions. Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results, and individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focussed system-wide attention to achieve improvement.
2. Respect teachers: Good teachers are essential to high-quality education. Finding and retaining them is not necessarily a question of high pay. Instead, teachers need to be treated as the valuable professionals they are, not as technicians in a huge, educational machine.
3. Culture can be changed: The cultural assumptions and values surrounding an education system do more to support or undermine it than the system can do on its own. Using the positive elements of this culture and, where necessary, seeking to change the negative ones, are important to promoting successful outcomes.
4. Parents are neither impediments to nor saviours of education: Parents want their children to have a good education; pressure from them for change should not be seen as a sign of hostility but as an indication of something possibly amiss in provision. On the other hand, parental input and choice do not constitute a panacea. Education systems should strive to keep parents informed and work with them.
5. Educate for the future, not just the present: Many of today’s job titles, and the skills needed to fill them, simply did not exist 20 years ago. Education systems need to consider what skills today’s students will need in future and teach accordingly.
