Oregon raised spending by 80%, math scores dropped

>> * New computer labs, laptops, digital textbooks, learning software licenses, smart boards, and other and other expensive crap that is at best neutral from a learning perspective.

I think we should be actively removing these things from schools, but it's a tough fight as parents against an entire well-funded EdTech industry pushing these things with a firehose of VC money.

>> * Pointless building improvements that don't service education but instead service the prestige and egos of the administrators of the schools.

This makes me crazy. We have a very fancy, very large new school building my city which is LEED platinum certified. I can't possibly imagine that that certification level is cost effective. I'm sure we could have built a very good school with a healthy safe learning environment and environmentally conscious decisions for heating, cooling, power, etc. for significantly less if the city were willing to forego the press release headline. This is also a really hard problem that pits taxpayers against a well-funded industry full of lobbyists.

Both of these can be traced back to the principal agent problem, which really is blaming the administrators, because they're making decisions and then don't have to deal with the consequences (actually integrating and using EdTech in a classroom, paying more taxes for the same or worse education, etc.).

The cost to produce many things in American is too high given the relative strength of the US dollar. If our corporations need educated workers, they can just import them, like we import everything else. Why would US workers be any different than cars or widgets? They aren’t. The labor market is globalized too. Everything is precisely as the economics dictate. If our businesses couldn’t so easily import workers, we’d see massive improvements in NAEP. We act as if things are how they were. It’s all very tiresome.

Most schools across the US were available for in person teaching by April and June of 2020. By August of 2020 the vast majority of schools were opened back up.

https://ballotpedia.org/School_responses_to_the_coronavirus_...

The science for what's actually causing cognitive decline is linked more to the neurological damage from poor ventilation and lack of hygienic conditions in the schools causing kids to get sick multiple times a year, directly causing neurological damage.

  In the most expansive study of its kind, researchers have for the first time shown serious and prevalent symptoms of long COVID in kids and teens. The August study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, is among the first large comprehensive studies of the disorder in this age group. The study, which followed 5367 children, found that 20% of kids (ages 6-11) and 14% of teens met researchers' threshold for long COVID.

  We know that COVID harms the brain. Neuroinflammation, brain shrinkage, disruption of the blood-brain barrier and more have been documented in adults, as have cognitive deficits. These deficits have been measured as equivalent to persistent decreased IQ scores, even for mild and resolved infections. Millions of people have, or have experienced, “brain fog.” What, then, do we guess a child’s COVID-induced “trouble with focusing or memory” might be?

  When you put together the estimate that 10 to 20 percent of infected kids may experience long-term symptoms, that many of the most common symptoms affect cognition, energy levels and behavior, and that children are being periodically reinfected, you have a scientific rationale to partly explain children’s widely reported behavioural and learning challenges.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/long-covid-is-har...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/28227...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-96191-4

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7131a3.htm?s_cid=mm...

https://theconversation.com/long-covid-puzzle-pieces-are-fal...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2024/07/23/covid-te...

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/...

https://www-news--medical-net.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.new...

Admins, support staff, generally focusing on "access" instead of quality.

There's a belief that the bottom 10-20% is more important than the top 80% to bother spending on, which I think is reflected in the budgets.

https://www.commonsenseinstituteus.org/oregon/research/educa...

Data's probably not out whether digital makes a difference. But it sure doesn't stop the spending and the resultant political gravy train for anyone involved. Common Core was another epic investment without returns, but that didn't matter either.