Education Database Online

Why America's Education Isn't Worth the Money

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America spends a lot of money on education, and the announcement of the 2013 budget plan is no exception. With a projected $1.7 billion increase from last year’s education spending plan, the U.S. government will continue to have the priciest school spending on the globe, outranking every other country in price-per-student costs. From specialized classes for lagging students to sophisticated technology in kindergarten classes, the U.S. government is committed to spending whatever it takes to give kids a top-notch education.

But despite this spending, American students just don’t seem to be measuring up. Outscored by nations who spend far less, public school students in the U.S. don’t seem to be making any headway. Test scores, graduation rates, and general student achievement have all stagnated in America since the 1970s, and ACT scores have begun to decline. So when American students fail to achieve year after year, the question arises: Exactly what is that money doing for America’s education?

Can Tech Save Education?

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Apple recently announced three new applications that will effectively revolutionize education around the world: iBooks 2, iBooks Author, and a new and updated iTunes U. For America, the world's largest economy, this means great things -- especially considering that the country's current educational practices are in deep water. Of 30 developed nations around the world, the United States ranks 25th in math and 21st in science: a disparity that has politicians and educators baffled. Every 26 seconds a student drops out of high school in the States, but there is hope.

Studies from places like Maine and Ohio have shown that technology can save education. Students who have access to iPads and laptops in their classrooms perform substantially better than their peers without this technology, and with Apple's new platform for spreading free education to its products the real question we should be all be asking is: Can Apple save education?

This graphic attempts to answer that question.

Facebook and Grades

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Facebook has taken a beating in the media over the last few years for what three studies have found to be the dire toll it takes on the academic lives of students. The most frequently cited of these studies, from Ohio State University in 2009, found that Facebook users often had GPAs up to one full point lower than non-users. The publication of this study caused a brief media whirlwind, as outlets from MSNBC to Time published stories on the study with sensational headlines, drawing dramatic conclusions.

But it turns out that none of these studies of Facebook's impact on academics, including the OSU study, has been rigorous enough to draw the conclusions that the media has drawn. The OSU study, for instance, surveyed just 219 students - a relatively small sample size. The other two studies used comparable samples. Further, these studies used simplistic models of what it meant to actually 'visit Facebook,' usually just looking at overall time spent on the site per day. The results were significant, sure, and as the first studies in a very new field, they were doing the good work of breaking new ground. But the bad reputation with the media and educators that the studies lent to Facebook use was, in all likelihood, incommensurate with its actual effects on grades. And, worse, there has been no study that contradicts this data at all - until now.

Leading social media researcher Reynold Junco has published a new study on how Facebook affects grades, and it's the most thorough study to date on the topic. Using a sample size of more than two thousand university students, and employing a complex model of Facebook use which broke it down into the individual activities performed on the site, Dr. Junco found that the claim of Facebook's hampering of grades is partially true - but very, very, partially, and even insignificantly. If you use Facebook for many hours a day, a tiny drop in GPA can occur. But very few people can or will use it often enough to make that difference. The real story is that there are bigger effects depending on how you use Facebook - both for good, and for bad. Posting status updates, for example, predicts grades negatively. But checking up on friends and sharing links with others actually positively predicted grades. Yes, you heard that right - Facebook may actually be good for grades, depending on how you use it. Dr. Junco collaborated with us on this infographic, the very first to present this game-changing data.

Textbook Shakedown

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Though the exorbitant cost of textbooks has become a staple of any discussion about the costs of college, it's a shame that this is now simply taken as a matter of course. "Yeah, textbooks are expensive," students say, "but there's nothing we can do about it." Unfortunately, that is exactly the position textbook companies want to keep students in - feeling that they're powerless to change the way the system works. For decades, students really have been in that position. Because of the way publishers have kept professors in the dark about prices, students were unable to exert any power of consumer choice - all while publishers jacked up prices (a staggering 186% since 1986). With plenty of new options, however, including e-books, book rentals, open books, and online book sellers, students are finally taking some of the power back. None of these solutions is perfect, but by using a combination of them - and with the helpful restructuring the government is imposing to keep publishers in check - students can shrewdly save a few hundred bucks each year. And in college, that's big.

Textbooks of Tomorrow

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If you ask any college student how they feel about textbooks, he or she is likely to groan. A constant annoyance for most students, largely because of their hugely inflated prices, textbooks have been under a great deal of scrutiny in the media lately. A recent survey of college students conducted by the Student PIRGs found that 7 in 10 college students have passed on buying a textbook for financial reasons. When the prohibitive cost of crucial supplies is directly keeping students from learning, there is a problem. And many are starting to think that traditional textbooks' time as paradigmatic features of the institutional learning experience is almost up.

Luckily, and right on time, technology has swooped in with a highly desirable alternative. Digital textbooks, largely dismissed as a novelty only a handful of years ago, are roaring to the forefront of discourse on education, coinciding with the staggering ascent of Apple's iPad. 53% cheaper, on average, than new textbooks, e-textbooks don't just offer a price advantage; the new range of student experiences opened up by a digital textbook is simply enormous. Imagine charts and diagrams that come alive on the page - or the screen, as it were - and offer fully interactive options for exploration. Every illustration in a biology textbook can now be a video, of a tiger bounding through the jungle or an eagle swooping down upon its prey. All textbooks' associations with being dull and boring are dashed instantly. And this isn't the future; this is right now.

Of course, though the possibilities exist in the present, it's going to take some time before digital textbooks fully penetrate mainstream education. Other countries have already begun their promotion through legislation; South Korea, for instance, invested $2 billion last year to fully convert all of the country's textbooks to digital by 2015. An equally bold bill is being advocated in Florida right now to do much the same thing. But it is going to take large national measures before we can envision students walking around college campuses with nothing more than an iPad in their backpacks. Still, the students have spoken: the current model of textbooks is no longer meeting their needs. And when an industry fails to meet the needs of its consumers, that industry is forced to change.