Importance Of Investment In Education

Education: the Best Investment
As we enter the twenty-first century, it is clear that education is, indeed, the best investment that we can make, for an information economy depends upon a knowledgeable, skilled, educated workforce. As Gates says,
Today, at the end of another century, change is in the air again. People are wondering whether schools are giving their children the skills they’ll need to succeed, this time in the Information Age. A new technology revolution is transforming business and putting new demands on our educational system—even while the technology itself is providing the means for meeting these demands. The people who resist change will be confronted by the growing number of people who see that better ways of learning…show more content…
He cites the example of the Christopher Columbus Middle School in Union City, New Jersey, where the local telephone company, Bell Atlantic, conducted an experiment in computerization and networking. The school was in trouble. Dropout rates were high and test scores were low. Bell Atlantic funded the installation of networked computers linking students' homes to classrooms, teachers, administrators, and the Net. Teachers, parents, students, and administrators were trained to use the computers. Two years later, “The dropout rate and absenteeism were both almost zero” (233). Gates tells of a company named Academic Systems, in Palo Alto, whose interactive Algebra courseware brought about pass rates among college students that were “20 to 38 percentage points higher than with traditional methods” (220). He explains that the fit between computers and education is “just too good to ignore: The PC, like education, is devoted to information—how to get it, how to organize it, how to evaluate it, how to use it, how to keep it at hand, how to disseminate it” (214). And he eloquently describes high-tech scenarios explaining the myriad ways in which elementary and college students can benefit from working in networked environments. Because the fit is so good and because the need is so great, Gates describes himself as optimistic that in time we shall, indeed, make the necessary investment to provide…show more content…
On the contrary, he points out that no good business case exists for selling hardware to schools:
The rapid rate at which hardware becomes obsolete isn’t a good fit with the school purchasing model: Buy once, use forever. When schools buy new PCs, they often buy behind the price/performance curve to save money—which puts them in the position of owning obsolete machines that much faster. PCs are still considered budgetary “extras,” so the cost of providing enough hardware to really make a difference seems huge, insurmountable. (210)
Preparing high-quality educational software is expensive, costing hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars, and there isn’t, at present, a way for companies to recoup the cost. Schools’ major funds are allocated for payroll, plant maintenance, and textbook purchases, not for technology, and the other market for educational software, the home market, is not large enough and cannot command high enough prices. People are willing to plop down ten to fourteen dollars for a copy of Reader Rabbit 1, but not several hundred dollars for software that will enable their kids to take state-of-the-art virtual journeys through American history. Development of educational software for colleges is hampered by the fact that professors prefer to develop their own courses, structured in their own ways, so that no two calculus courses or freshman composition classes are alike. The