Jul 23, 2009

Funding What Doesn’t Work

by Tim Ogden

In last night’s press conference President Obama was asked if Americans would have to give up anything they get from the current health care system under his proposed health care reform. The President answered, “They’re going to have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier.“

So it seems particularly ironic that this morning an article in the Wall Street Journal details a flood of money from the federal stimulus program that must be spent on technology is hitting school districts this summer. Many of these school districts are therefore simultaneously cutting teachers and classroom hours while buying computers and “smart” whiteboards. That may seem bad enough in its own right, but consider that this spring the US Department of Education released the results of one of the largest controlled trials of education software ever run. The trial, over two years and hundreds of classrooms in several states, found essentially no benefit from the use of educational software in the classroom.

Apparently Americans will have to give up paying for things that don’t make them healthier but can continue blissfully on paying for things that don’t make them smarter.