So I’m haranguing the 101s about the 102s’ having flubbed their first effort at framing a thesis for the extended definition essay, and in the middle of my rant I ask them if they know how much it costs to put 25 Arizonans through 13 years of K-12 schooling.
They of course don’t know, so it’s a SMARTPHONES OUT! moment: I reveal the $7,813 annual per-pupil spending our illustrious state commits these days and holler “multiply that by 13! Now multiply it by 25!” Forthwith, they come up with the $2.5 million figure that we have spent on the members of my English 102 section. And, for that matter, on their own section.
They’re shocked.
But one guy, a freshly returned Navy veteran, keeps calculating. Hand goes up.
“Just for comparison,” says he, “the cost of operating an aircraft carrier is $1,450,000 a day. Let’s see…my last deployment was for 10 months…{tap tap tap}…that’s $435,000,000 to send us to sea for ten months.”
We all look at each other. Silence descends over the assembled company.
Me: “uhhhh…. So, we’re spending, what…? About a zillion times as much to send our young men and women to war as we’re spending to educate them?”
Vet: “Looks like it.”
{sigh}
It’s awesome that that vet was there. It takes that monstrous education cost and really puts it in a sad perspective. It really shoudl be the other way around. And if we were all better educated and had top-of-the-line teachers because they were being paid top-of-the-line, wouldn’t we need less war? THe more educated people are, the more they can think up other solutions than just shooting — right?
Thanks to the Navy vet – same as my husband and oldest son, my younger son was a Marine, my Father – Army, and my uncles all of the services as were many of our friends.
Nope, sorry, but the education amount was for 25 students, the Navy sends far more than 25 people on a carrier.
And I for one would prefer any war be fought on the other guy’s property.
There are many reports done by school districts that show money spent per student does not have a direct corellation to learning or graduation numbers.
A global economic empire doesn’t come cheap. Beware the military-industrial complex/racket, warned Ike Einsehower and Smedley Butler.