The world of tomorrow begins with education today
This is the corner stone of the future and unfortunately politicians ignore this because its results take more then 4 years to become apparent. Education is the input into our entire economy. The better educated your population the better off your society is. It is a rainfall effect of job creation, better healthcare choices, spending habits, saving habits etc. Every person in Minnesota should be able to afford to go to school. Now that my rant is out of the way here is what I would do....
1.) State ownership in results in exchange for increased funding. WTF does that mean? Here are some examples we increase funding for medical research, genetics, bio-medicine etc at our universities. In exchange for an increase in spending the state would own a portion of the proprietary medicine or research that would be developed. This has two affects more spending = better research families to attract talent and create results. The state who now owns some of the rights to the medicine and research could generate revenue or pass along discounted medicine or healthcare to its inhabitants.
This could also work with other patents as well. I think a class that should be mandatory in every business program is how to get a patent and patent law. In exchange for facilitating the process through education in public schools and universities the state would be in a three way partnership with the university and the student where everyone would benefit from the creation of new ideas and products.
2.) Everyone needs two majors. One hard science and one liberal arts. Latin is cool and you have the right to study it but
3.) State sponsored prizes for Robot Wars, Science Fairs, Writing contests, Aviation Ext. We need to place the carrot further into the future to spur growth, creativity, drive etc.. before we become a nation of people selling big macs to people who sell whoppers.
4.) Standardized tests are bullshit the only thing they teach people is how to memorize things we need to find new ways to evaluate the quality of education that our children are receiving.
5.) I can't believe I can still walk into a school and every kid is not typing on a laptop...we have got to fix that. (Although I admit that it has its place there is a problem of forcing thought into a computer program but that is another blog I am working on)
6.) First Two Years is on us in exchange for 6 months of community service.(Double effect of allowing low level city jobs to be eliminated along with some of there cost and giving young people the benefit of some real world experience before going into college)
Well this is some of the stuff that I would do if I ruled the world.
1 comment:
1. The number one way to increase the level and value of education in this country is to pay teachers more and reduce class sizes. It will result in students with a better level of education and a desire to continue their education past high school. Medical research isn't going to do jack for education. It's important, but I don't think it has anything to do with education, per se, since the funding sources are different, and the revenue would never be directed to education costs.
2. I'd kill myself if you made me major in a hard science. Sometimes, you just have to let people be who they are without requiring things of them.
3. We need to focus on literacy before we care about science. Science=important, but without literacy levels where people can understand the science, you're screwed.
4. Amen. Standardized tests do nothing but require teachers to teach to the test, instead of teaching things that will engage students in learning, and eneable them to learn better.
5. money. need money. and it doesn't have to be a laptop.
6. This would require some tweaking, and military service should be an OPTION, but I can get behind this.
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