The ideas contained in this plan can work. I am saying that as a personal opinion and also as a person who worked as a Vermont state employee in human services for +40 years. From my experience the current government administrators still do not understand the positive financial and societal impact of a more productive education system. In contrast, start by looking at the cost of Corrections in Vermont: leg.state.vt.us/jfo/appropriations/fy_2015/Department%20Budgets/DOC%20%20-%20FY%2015%20Budget.pdf $58k per year to keep someone in custody. Then look at the cost to educate through our current system--around $19K per student per school year. Graduating each year from kindergarten to grade 11 should mean being successful with oneself, with ones family, community and vocational future. Graduating from high school should mean leaving that level of training not as a burden to anyone but as a young person beginning to accept responsibility for the future. For all other aspects of prosperity to work, students have to be well trained, responsible, and confident. Educators and parents have to accept responsibility to keep their students on track so that they do not become burdens that require addiction programs and prisons for lifetimes. Not everyone will succeed but the plan for prosperity needs to emphasize those who want change, not those who no longer care. It can change even though some of those who no longer care are younger than you might think. As I considered a plan for better education several years ago, I asked three different School Board chairmen at our local k-12 school (Twinfield) to evaluate the last graduating class three years after graduation. I kept it simple. I asked for an accounting of how many graduates where still in attendance at 4 year schools, had graduated from a 2 year school and either continued their education or graduated and secured jobs, how many attended vocational schools and were/were not working, how many were in the military and finally how many dropped out of high school or graduated from high school and after three years were not working. This was not a complicated question. I thought it had merit. Apparently the probable answer was too discomforting to deal with because all three chairmen refused to complete the exercise. If you dont know where you have been, it is difficult to figure out where you are going. Thats what I thought. Reducing the cost of human services and improving upon educational and vocational successes work hand in hand. I know it works. I can tell dozens of stories of it working, but its not working now. Sometimes we need to reposition our resources. That can work. Lets be more prosperous with our resources by being better managers. It can happen, but not on the road we travel with the current administration. Please think this through. Share a thought.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 15:23:39 +0000
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