Myth: You can improve education by throwing more money in it

This text is part of: "I would never send my kids to school" by Piotr Wozniak (2017)

Lots of people believe in the myth that we can improve the school system by throwing a lot of money in it. This myth is based on, and as pervasive as, the myth that we need teaching to achieve learning (see: Do we need teachers?). The smartest brains have fallen for the myth at a high cost (see: Bill Gates is wrong about education). In reality, free learning based on child's own choices is the most efficient way of learning, and it costs virtually nothing. The world around is rich in learning opportunities. All it takes is to get an individual engaged into accomplishing any goal based on a child's passion. We can safely trust the algorithms of the learn drive for the kid to make highly efficient educational choices. Today, even a cheap laptop may work better than a school (see: Hole in the wall).

The climbing school for horses is a good metaphor on how we waste money on education:

Metaphor. Why use metaphors?

Imagine a school for horses that would teach them to climb trees. A low cost school would have a poorly paid teacher shout at the horse: "Climb!". The yelling would go all day long and bring nothing good. If a horse rested its hooved on the tree, we would celebrate maximum success. A well financed school might provide assisting lifts for horses, safety devices, experts in horse psychology, Skinner boxes for teaching tree climbing theory, apple slices and carrots of rich reward for learning progress, etc. Only a billion dollars could finally make it work: design and production of horse climbing exoskeletons. Only horses would still cry for their lost pastures

The above metaphor shows the absurdity of the investment because we know that horses will never climb trees. Schools on the other hand, have their own ways of masking or mitigating absurdity:

• some learning takes place, and even if it is 1% of what is possible, schools will use this as a proof of their efficiency (see: 13 years of school in one month)
• old soup problem makes a bit of good learning hide a great deal of bad learning
• schools take credit for what students accomplish on their own, e.g. while learning at home
• graduates quickly forget the pains and give school the credit for their own achievement (see: Glorification of schooling)

An interesting argument is that we might pay schools more to hire sports stars as PE coaches and transform how we teach sports. Sports are more than just declarative learning, however, we can instantly see that we will hit the wall of star scarcity, star pay, and the problem of star skills in the area of pedagogy. Doubling the investment in education is unlikely, and star coaches would call for much more than just doubling. An efficient solution is to have best coaches attract voluntary participation from youth. Parents could spend their money on efficient coaching instead of inefficient school bureaucracy that would hardly make a good use of a good coach. If that solution is not egalitarian enough, parents could use school vouchers and still be guided by a child's passion. Last but not least, there are plenty of great coaches in public schools. They lack no skills. It is the malaise that affects today's youth that is the key problem. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. The system needs a redesign (see: Grand School Reform).

Similar reasoning is used to suggest that schools might hire better psychologists and education experts. Those would allegedly improve learning and socialization. However, for the same reason for which a psychologists won't make a horse climb a tree, new hires would not remedy the inherent problems of passive schooling or closed systems of socialization. Even if the goals were achievable, all efforts thus far prove that the costs are exorbitant, and benefits negligible.

If we look at less developed countries, we can indeed see the value of investment in schools. However, the benefits hit the wall at some point. More investment in schools of old design will drive them in the direction of similar schools in the west, which ultimately hurt children by undermining their self-esteem, killing the love of learning, generating learned helplessness, etc. In the LDCs, investment in education shows diminishing returns. This is discussed in: We need more bad schools.

Education policy expert, Justin Sandefur of Center for Global Development put it best (source):

A vast body of research questions the link between education spending and learning outcomes, and some of the best micro research on interventions to improve learning focuses on things that cost zero money, or even reduce education budgets

Learning and socialization are easy and cheap if they are based on a child's freedom of choice.

Investments in education are throwing good money after bad

See: Mythology of the archaic school system

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For more texts on memory, learning, sleep, creativity, and problem solving, see Super Memory Guru