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Comment by goalieca | Hacker News Reader

Since education is a state level responsibility, why not handle it there? We don’t have a federal education ministry in Canada for instance.

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Good question. If the US is truly facing a "Sputnik moment" with regards to China nd AI, the US should bring back something like the "National Defense Education Act" (1958) which was aimed at bolstering American competitiveness in science and technology.

Well I suppose we should start hiring in science and technology then and not just stamp around saying how important it is to the future. All we have are layoffs right now. The signal the industry sends to would-be majors is to stay away.

The goal was to ensure that there was a more balanced result of education across the country. California can afford to spend way more per child than Kentucky can, so without some sort of federal level balancing, California's children are just going to be more likely to prosper than Kentucky's. This doubly applies to funds for disabled or underdeveloped children who needs extra support from the school system to be successful. Those programs are going to be largely cut across the red states.

Canada handles this balancing problem with equalization payments between provinces. Which is well, sorta socialist, so it causes a great deal of consternation amongst certain people.

> Canada handles this balancing problem with equalization payments between provinces

So then there is a federal "department" involved in education...

From what I understand it's a lot more hands-off, it's a bucket of money that goes in (or out) of the budget that is used for education, healthcare, and other items. The province gets to decide how its used and the federal government doesn't get to withhold or dictate conditions. Unlike for example, highway funding and drinking age in the USA?

Well, for what it’s worth, Kentucky has a stronger economy than Canada and we manage to find money to spend on education. The key part is to spend your money well, not spend more.

If spending is so important why are the most expensive districts the worst. Shouldn’t that money have helped them? And yet year after year, they remain the worst despite $20k+ per student.

But if the name of the game is efficient spending why are we replicating much of the same work in 50 states instead of just once federally?

That would make far more sense if this was only about money.

Libertarians and conservatives don't want to acknowledge efficiencies of scale in certain areas because it's not about efficient spending.

The question is how much administration does the education system really need? Many of the admin tasks are local in nature so I’m doubtful that moving it across the country will get good results.

Are you happy with the state and trajectory of education in Canada?

Ontario is the wealthiest, most populous and most diverse. Are you happy with education there?

Provinces handle it well enough but some better than others. The teaching curriculum did use to be less political but bringing federal politics would only make that worse. We have very diverse populations and needs from province to province. We generally rank well globally.

I am not I would imagine the federal government getting involved would only make it worse. (BC)

we try in mississippi but the conservatives slowly take away funding piece by piece because they don't want to educate black people, because then they wouldn't be able to control them.

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