Reduce, Recycle and Reuse

What a neat and unusual story, I thought. It brings up an adage about spending a little for education saves a lot of social and economic cost down the road from imprisonment and social services and crime, and I think that’s true. Finishing high school drastically increases your chances of having something better (more rewarding, less risky and more profitable) to do than turn to crime.

This from Focus Adolescent Services Website:

The gap between dropouts and more educated people is widening as opportunities increase for higher skilled workers all but disappear for the less skilled. · In the last 20 years the earnings level of dropouts doubled, while it nearly tripled for college graduates. · Recent dropouts will earn $200,000 less than high school graduates, and over $800,000 less than college graduates, in their lives. · Dropouts make up nearly half the heads of households on welfare. · Dropouts make up nearly half the prison population.

There are many different ways to get that statistic—to make it greater or smaller—but the bottom line is that Prison is not an asset to anyone’s resume and the burden falls back to taxpayers to an increasing extent. Yet, we’re paying more for schools than ever before—so where is the problem?

The problem is in schools that aren’t doing what Ms. Reubell is with her “teacher’s wish list”. Instead of buying new computers, or spending a fortune in a lawsuit asking taxpayers for more money, Missouri could save so much by writing a few letters asking for donations. Instead of spending thousands of dollars, Ms. Reubell was able to re-use something already paid for by taxpayers.

It’s so refreshing to see initiative and a respect for the fact that taxpayers and towns themselves aggressively support education, and the more bang we get for our buck, the better our students will be educated, the more resources will be available to them, and the more taxpayers will be able to support those endeavors that DO require a lot of additional funding.