Another comment about education

In my previous post (AI and its ambitions), I talked about how I am in support of public education, mainly because of the aggregate benefits to society it provides. Schools are where the youth acquire the foundational knowledge and skills to use later in their lives. Simultaneously, they undergo character development as they learn, because they spend the vast majority of their time at schools. Educational institutions thus play an important role in a community.

In terms of educational outcomes, both schools and individual student effort matter. Specifically, there can only be so much a student can do if a school lacks resources, to achieve the highest outcome. Conversely, there is only so much resources schools can make available without a student's effort to obtain the optimal outcome. Given that public schools are free or charge a very low amount at the point of service, the possible distortion of perceived value can consequently distort effort. Rest assured, the provision of public education is not free. It is costly, and paid primarily through tax dollars, which come out of worker paychecks. It should be reminded that everyone is paying for, and are responsible for public education. Therefore, society should perhaps value public education like if they were sending their children to fee-paying schools, because if public schools did not exist at all, they would in fact be sending their children to fee-paying schools.

I understand that school quality is a topic which is frequently debated, and other socio-economic factors need to be considered when discussing solutions to increasing quality etc. However, that is an ongoing discussion. While decision makers work away in the background to find ways to improve schools overall, students can at least do their part by taking full advantage of the public school education they currently have available to them.