Leading Factors: US Education as a Ponzi scheme
by Miki SaxonOr is it a pyramid?“A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns (“profits”) to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business.”
“A pyramid scheme is a non-sustainable business model that involves the exchange of money primarily for enrolling other people into the scheme, without any product or service being delivered.”
This is what came to mind after reading CandidProf’s post yesterday; I finally decided that’s it’s both, making is a pyra-Ponzi scheme.
As CP described the situation it’s definitely a pyramid, his college is funded based on how many students are enrolled as are most K-12 schools in this country. Further, lowering standards and focusing only on retaining students in order to continue funding certainly fits the no service being delivered description of a pyramid.
The Ponzi element is seen in high promises from such initiatives as No Child Left Behind, which has done nothing to stem the downward spiral of learning—in fact, it has made it worse.
NY Times Op-Ed Columnist Bob Herbert quotes from a study published in the Notices of the American Mathematical Society that states, “The United States is failing to develop the math skills of both girls and boys, especially among those who could excel at the highest levels, a new study asserts, and girls who do succeed in the field are almost all immigrants or the daughters of immigrants from countries where mathematics is more highly valued.”
He ends by quoting “An article in Monday’s Times spotlighted some of the serious problems that have emerged in the No Child Left Behind law. Among the law’s unintended consequences, as Sam Dillon reported, has been its tendency to “punish” states that “have high academic standards and rigorous tests, which have contributed to an increasing pileup of failed schools.”
After reading CandidProf’s post, my Russian business partner, Nick Mikhailovsky, commented,
“Actually, the average education quality has significantly degraded over here as well. Although the reasons are different the outcome is the same and applies to both basic and higher education.
Our reason is simpler—low salaries in education.
Everyone who needed money or couldn’t bear living in poverty has left education. After 15 years of that, there are almost no good teachers or 
college professors left. The old ones retired, and young people aren’t willing to live in poverty when they have plenty of other opportunities and all their life in front of them.”
Hmmm, Russia seems to be dumbing down by salary, but considering the salaries we pay our teachers we’re trashing US education from the top down and the bottom up.
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