Of course, there is enormous value in knowing how to add and subtract and pen a coherent sentence, but the education argument as it pertains to our economic health is completely divorced from reality.
State Comptroller Peter Franchot told The Diamondback, the University of Maryland's student newspaper, that the education argument for gambling is a ruse devised to interest "voters who want to do the right thing for kids, when it does nothing to bring in new dollars for education".
In school education, arguments about funding have distracted energy from reforming the classroom by encouraging more targeted teaching, in which teachers assess and respond to the needs of every child, and teacher feedback.
The AFT has sought the high ground in education arguments, appealing to broader reform forces by publicly participating in the debate and working on such measures as streamlining teacher discipline.
Societies which invest more in education, the argument goes, reap long-term rewards.Plenty of evidence suggests that economies which invest little in education generally perform poorly.
Usually, when the case is made that other countries are somehow doing a better job than the US in education, the argument is based on test scores, but it is unclear what exactly is being evaluated when we compare these scores.
Government studies with blue chip, well-meaning, gifted and highly qualified people on panels write reports about the arts and education (specious arguments and delays).
Given the intense competition for finite higher education resources, the argument goes, there has to be some way to separate the wheat from the chaff, and to give hardworking students from poorer backgrounds a chance to rise to the top.
"The way you attain knowledge," Hester once observed, in what amounted to his credo, "is to go to college, get an education, start an argument, take either side, and then put your money in".
Henry M. Levin, the director of a new nonpartisan center at Columbia University's Teachers College to evaluate research on privatizing education, rejected the argument that researchers cannot afford to wait: "One study should never make a difference between moving towards policy or not.
Online courses will reduce costs and create unprecedented access to higher education, so the argument goes.
