Friday, September 11, 2009

Massive Inefficiency in the Educational System

Did anyone else notice that all elementary/middle/high schools teach basically the same thing? There are around 100,000 schools as far as I know in the USA and in terms of content we only need 3. One elementary, one middle and one high school. Let's pick ONE teacher (the best one) for each subject, record them, and then focus on getting that content to all of the students in the country. Let them play the content at their own pace. How much money would that save? Let's see:

100,000 schools
50 teachers per school
$50,000 per teacher

So, about $250 billion per year could be saved. Minus some IT costs (essentially negligible in comparison). Not bad. Oh and I forgot administrators, buildings, buses, meals and sports. We could save a LOT of money - and I bet we'd have a better educational system as well. If you consider that, at the end of the day, most students learn very little in school, what's to lose from trying it?

-BT

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