by Jared Garrett

Created on: November 20, 2008   Last Updated: March 12, 2010

The best way that the government can increase literacy skills and programs nationwide would be for the federal government to raise property taxes .5% and use that money to fund the Derek Zoolander Center for Kids Who Cant Read Good.

Wait, that's not a real literacy center, so maybe that won't work. In fact, maybe hiking property taxes wouldn't be such a good thing, given the current economic and housing situation. In the same vein, maybe the government needs to stop seeing all of the educational problems in the nation as solvable by flinging money in their general direction.

Whether you liked the Ben Stiller movie "Zoolander" or not, the solution to the nationwide literacy problems is, unfortunately, going to be far more complex than we might like. After some pragmatic pondering and careful consideration, it seems that the government's role in increasing literacy skills and programs can be broken down into three fundamental areas: Financial, Administrative, and Training.

So cast aside those wishes that the federal Department of Education could simply evaporate and read on to see what the federal government could actually do to increase literacy skills.

*Financial

The absolute first priority, in the area of finances, that the federal government absolutely must do is to conduct an independent audit of every dollar spent on or toward education. With a total budget in 2008 of $68.6 billion, it seems like we ought to be seeing some kind of improvement. Indeed, in the 2005-06 school year, there were 49.1 million public school students, so when we do the math, our eyes pop out... profoundly. We are spending right about $1400 per student on the federal level. But my friends, each state also has its own public school budget. Here's an example:

Utah, which ranks last in the nation in per student funding, spends about $5250 each year. The national average is $8700. So it looks like a student in Utah has $6650 spent on them for a school year, between the federal and state governments. Published figures indicate that about $3500 of that is directed precisely toward instruction, not to staff or faculty salaries, support or facilities.

Now take a classroom of 20 students (which is a very conservative number by today's standards) and do the math. That class has very nearly $70,000 spent on it per year. And that's in Utah, the state that ranks 51 in per student spending.

With that kind of money being spent per student and per classroom, and it not having to pay for teachers

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>