necessity and invention

I've been reading a lot about increased funding and expanded budgets for "innovation" in education lately. America spends a lot of money (among the highest) per student on public education; most people are unsatisfied with the results, and yet the prevailing strategy to improve things is to throw more money at the same system.

The Numbers:

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in the 2005-2006 (the most complete data I could find) school year for public K-12 schools:

1. Total number of students: 49,113,000
2. Total number of teachers: 3,143,000
3. Spending per pupil: $9,154
4. Total operating budget: $449.6billion
   • Instruction $274.2billion - 60.98%
   • Support Services $157.1billion - 34.95%
   • Food $17.3billion - 3.84%
   • Enterprise Operations $1.0billion - 0.23%
5. Total budget: $528.7billion (#4 + $7.4b other current expenses, $57.4b capital outlays, $14.4b interest on loans)

ASIDE: According to the US Census Bureau's Public Education Finances report, of the $274.2b for Instruction, 89.8% or $246.2b goes towards teacher salaries and benefits ($78,334 per teacher). That's a pretty good wage these days, but as I've said before, I believe that teachers should be better-paid, and respected as peers to doctors, lawyers and engineers. Regarding this last point, I wonder then if it's time for teachers to secede from their unions? Most lawyers, doctors, engineers, etc. are not union members; I wonder if being union members creates the impression of not being on an equal footing with those professions, and actually diminishes teachers?

I'm not judging whether the level of funding above is too much or too little for America. Let's say it's just right. Now combine this with the graph to the left, and it's pretty clear that the budget is big, and has and continues to grow very rapidly.

I don't know enough about the public sector, but in business when growth like this occurs, it is likely that bad habits form. People get lazy, money is not spent wisely, and consultants get hired to do what employees should be doing, or to provide management with a CYA safety net. Management gets in the rut of preserving the status quo/gravy train. Most organizations that survive past the rapid growth phase have to go back to the drawing board and rethink their whole business. They must develop a strategy re-defining success, specifying new resource allocation models, and advocating entirely new business processes and approaches in order to achieve their goals.

With the kind of funding growth education has enjoyed, I wonder if the administrators have simply been adding more $$ to existing line items - taking the easy way out?

Have they taken the time to form a strategy that establishes where the puck will be, enumerates and prioritizes their current resources, and defines a plan for how to get there? If the current budget won't get to the puck, they should first look inward, make trade-offs, and then demonstrate exactly how additional funding results in specific outcomes that other stakeholders want and would fund.

I've written before about how organizations can get waylaid by their own success, and the effect of size on performance. While both blogs were about commercial companies, I wonder if some of the same principles might apply to education?

At one time, the American education system was among the best in the world, and it appears that the formula from that era remains in force today despite many changes to the world around us. Why is that? Despite all the lip service paid to edu-evolution, except for very small pockets, the system appears to be just the same as it was two or three generations ago. It feels like Education is trying as hard as it can to live up to this Peter Drucker quote.

Can education achieve innovation when increased funding is not a part of the picture? If necessity is the mother of invention, is it possible that the constant increases in funding have resulted in precisely the wrong (zero-innovation) outcome?

Humans tend to think most creatively when their backs are against the wall, and they have to adapt or die. If put in that situation, would the American education system find a completely new and innovative way to achieve its goals? I think it's possible.

It takes leadership to achieve this, but I don't see the present administration (President Obama or Secretary Duncan) taking this on. We remain in desperate need of an education sensei to lead us.