This is amazing. A serious political discussion where people disagree, have points and counter points, and move the discussion forward.
Re the education issue:
The problem is two fold:
1) The hardcore anti-government types consider all government spending bad.
They fail to realize that the government is capable of investment. The return on investment will not be immediate dollars and cents - but roads, bridges, dams, water infrastructure, airports, shipping ports, and other forms of infrastructure no-doubt have a significant return on investment. And once built, they MUST be maintained to preserve that return. Not only is the construction and maintenance economic activity in and of itself, but the real payoff is the economic utilization of the asset.
They struggle even more with intangible investment. Healthcare, research, and education are investments. A healthy workforce is more productive, prosperous, and capable of taking care of themselves. Preventative care costs 10% of what it costs if we let it fester and provide emergency care. You want more people off government rolls? Healthcare is part of it.
Research should be a no-brainier. From velcro, to commercial rockets. GPS, the internet, microchips, bar codes, aerodynamics, medical and health research galore, composite materials, most significant aviation advancements, and on and on and on. You list it out and it kind of sounds like the basis of our modern economy. Commercial research is a key component, but government funded research allows teams to go after angles that don't have immediate returns on investment (as are demanded by the market). Intel sure as heck wasn't going invest big and then wait 20 years for the microprocessor to become commercial viable.
A
nd it is all worthless without education (warning a mini history of education follows). Immediately after the revolution many states set out to establish public schools, particularly in the north where making a living on the farm wasn't a given. By 1821 Boston had public elementary, middle, and high school. It is no accident that Boston is the seat of some of the greatest colleges in the world - it has long viewed education as a key. By 1870 all states had public elementary schools and part of reconstruction was building public universities throughout the South (U Arkansas, Auburn, etc.) and land grant Universities in the North (name a major State school, great chance you named one...). By 1900, all 30 northern states and 4 southern states required school attendance through elementary school.
By 1918 every state required elementary education. By the 1930s and 1940s most communities had their own high schools and took pride in their level of education. By WWII, 50% of Americans had high school diplomas - far exceeding anywhere else in the world. And it paid off - essentially every enlistee could read, write, and think. Battlefield communication, promotions, and the ability to follow instructions to repair the machines of war was a huge advantage. After the war education was seen as the way to prevent the boom and manufacturing/agricultural bust that we saw after WWI, and Uncle Sam agreed to pay for hundreds of thousands of GIs to go to college. When the Baby Boom came, college was heavily subsidized by government - the average student could pay for tuition and fees working 200 hours at minimum wage.
That gave the United States among the highest levels of education in the world nearly from our founding through the post-war baby boom. It gave us the leg up in the Space Race, in banking and commerce, in manufacturing technology and productivity, in agricultural efficiency, and in technology. From the rifles and ironclads in the Civil War, to nuclear weapons and the Stealth Bomber. From the steel plow to the G7 Intel Processor. From Wallstreet to Hollywood. There are a number of reasons America dominated the 20th Century, but a corner stone is education. Take away education, and our natural resources, population, and ability to work might be meaningless. There are plenty of people willing to work hard in plenty of other places.
But starting in 1980 we (by "we" I mean the generation that benefited most from free or heavily subsidized colleges, from massive government outlays on interstates, water projects, and government research programs) decided that government subsidies led to free loaders. We cut back on everything except military research. Education funding started a free-fall - the cost of college went from 225 hours at minimum wage in 1980, to 700 hours in 1995 (
for public universities fees and tuition, not counting room and board). It stands over 1,000 hours today.
We subsidize mortgages, horizontal drilling operations, and NBA franchises - but student loan rates are often above 8%. The average college kid graduates with $35k in debt ($25-35k depending on the study). AVERAGE - we are not just talking about the high on the hog idiots or the "my parents paid for it all" kids. The average payment is between $280 and $400 a month, for 10 to 20 years. A new car, savings for a house, money to start a family. Whatever it is, its gone to the bank. A burden their parents very likely didn't have to face. We also stopped meeting the demand for public education. PRIVATE is a great buzzword. Private schools jumped in to fill the shortfall and make a profit. Generally, these private schools are substandard.
As a result, the number of Oklahoma kids going to a University has actually dropped off in recent years. This isn't a unique trend.
It is easy to look at some drunk at an OU tailgate staggering towards the dorms and mock them. Its easy to see Black Lives Matter protesters and write them off as whiners. But most will turn out to be productive members of the economy. The investment will pay off. Look at Animal House, a caricature of college life in the 1960s from the 1970s... but that generation went on to win the Cold War and develop the internet.
Education is NOT essential for everyone to succeed. But if we want welders to have jobs, we need people to design pipelines. If we want factory workers to make whatever it is we need tomorrow, someone better invent it and figure out how to build that factory. It worked for the first 200 years...
and #2) The "support" for education is often support to co-opt it.
Education is not controversial. It teaches the best facts we have available as designated by the experts in that field. It isn't religious or anti religious, it isn't liberal or conservative. If your religious or political views differ from the available facts, your preacher or political leader can tell your kid what you want them to believe. That's different than teaching to reality.
Teaching the Bible as a history text. Teaching "Creation Science" as a scientific theory. Teaching abstinence only as the only form of "sex education." None of this is actually education anymore than Chinese kids being forced to read Mao's Little Red Book was a legitimate education on economics. "Does life begin at conception" is a question for bioethicists, philosophers and priests - not a high school science teacher. "I am the Lord Thy God, Though Shalt Have No Other Gods Before Me" is a great lecture for a preacher or a Deity. We spend so much time creating controversy because some people don't like what a particular field of study has learned.
It is further co-opted by people trying to get the latest and greatest technology or tool into the classroom. By that, I mean sell crap to school districts. Some tools are important, clearly kids need to learn how to do internet based research and word processing. Art on computer is as important of a skill as art with a paint brush. I get that... but a digital screen in every classroom is not nearly as important as a teacher in every classroom.
At 15:1 a student has to actively try not to learn. At 30:1 a teacher is just a babysitter and only certain kids will learn anything.
And while I'm at it... teachers should never be rich. They are never going to get paid Baseball Allstar money. But we used to have a good understanding worked out - you will never be rich, but you will make a decent living, you will have good benefits, you will have a stable job, community support, summers and holidays off, and a retirement package. That attracted a good group of people (we don't want the guy going "I hate kids, but the job pays so well) who stayed with the profession. Sure, there were lazy teachers - but there are bad employees in any field. But now we have created a market with low pay (Tulsa starts at $32k), dwindling benefits, and job security stopped being a thing 15 years ago. Remember what I said about $400 a month in student loan payments... how bad does that suck when your take home pay is $2000 a month and you aren't getting the other parts of that agreement? And we expect them to pay for their own supplies? But gee... for some reason we just can't find enough teachers in this State.
The OK House pays $38,400, plus ~$9500 per diem, plus ~$6600 mileage ($54,500) for a 4 month a year, part time job. And we don't seem to have a shortage of people looking for that job.
/venting ; rant
