I made mention about this back in 2007 as part of a much larger post, but I think it is time for a reminder for those that might have missed it.  This educational system overhaul would save the nation billions of dollars on education in the first couple of years and much larger sums in the following years while providing truly the best educational system with cutting edge technology and employ only the brightest and most talented educators.  Not only that, but, the educational system would be available 24/7 for everyone in the nation, not just school age children, an educational system for EVERYONE!

The largest hurdle for this system is to break people away from their romanticized view of a class room.  We need a new modern classroom that promotes education without distractions.  Another benefit that would have been realized this year is the help in reducing the spread of infectious diseases.

Here is the guts of of post I made back in 2007:

Educational System:

For many, the educational system in the USA is untouchable.  That is, many people would not consider allowing the government to drastically change it, they just keep throwing more and more money at it expecting things to improve, but at what cost.  In the 2003-2004 school year:

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d05/tables/dt05_025.asp?referer=list

It says that tax payers paid out over $511 billion for elementary and secondary education systems with a whopping total for all at over $826 billion.  That is a cost of over $2,753 per person in the USA, not per student, but each living human being in the USA, all 300 million of them.  I call that a joke!  Imagine if the government wrote every person (including babies) a check each year for $2,753 and said, here, find some education...

Well, my answer is yet again, simple! It is time to change the entire educational system and update to the new world of technology.  Yes, good teachers are required no matter what, but having a teacher teach the same thing, year after year and getting paid for it each year and then multiplying that by the number of schools is simply wrong.  We are repeatedly paying for the same product, which is bad business. 

In 2002, there were 123, 385 elementary and secondary schools in the USA.  There were over 3 million teachers in those schools.  That is a city in its own and what are we getting for it?

Education should not by forced on anyone, it should be there for everyone whenever they wish to make use of it regardless if they are 15 or 50, every citizen should have the ability to learn.  I actually think it is a global need, but even if produced only for our own country, we could see a revolution in industry with new ideas and new businesses popping up all over.  A person who has the opportunity to learn can achieve almost anything!

My idea will use a fraction of the educational budget and would have the entire curriculum (3-12 grades) along with maybe college level courses built into full interactive multimedia sessions.  You simply sign on to a computer at home or at a school and do your work in what studies you require at your own pace.  If you get stuck or have a question, simply hit the button and talk with a highly qualified teacher through the system using video conferencing, to help you understand.  It would be a large call center (or several of them) that hire the best possible teachers at a premium salary and they sit there taking calls (so to say) when students need help.  We do not need 3 million teachers, a few hundred to a few thousand should be able to handle it (my plan goes much larger though to be safe).

When I say interactive multimedia, I mean, high quality educational audio/video systems.  Microsoft's new Silverlight technology (there are other technologies that could fit the bill too and I am sure more will come out, but ability this systems provide offer a great deal of interaction with media) could be just the ticket to provide the user interface and have all the power to drive the audio/video along with video conferencing with the teachers when needed.  If the government took $50 billion and went to Hollywood, I am sure they would have an awesome full curriculum.  They could hire the best teachers to work together and build the best possible curriculum giving all citizens the highest possible educational experience anywhere, second to none globally!

Edit: Even if they did not use the great abilities of Hollywood to build the curriculum, they should still be able to build one that is able to teach students better than the classrooms of today with far less cost.  You build it once and use it over and over with only minimal costs to update when content changes.  With our current system you pay teachers in every school to teach the same thing which varying levels of quality.  Not only are you paying for the same thing over in every school, but you repeat it the next year at full costs.  With this system you have the best teachers collaborate to put forth the best possible teaching on the subject and it is used everywhere and every year without further costs. 

Schools would shrink to be a center with computer booths that people could use if they do not have a computer at home.  Most people would probably use their own system at home.  The best part of this is that anyone could sign on and learn just about anything without any cost to them, it is a benefit of being a citizen of the  USA.  A full education to be whatever you want to be at your finger tips 24/7!

Think about this, in 2003 the educational system cost $826 billion.  So, we take $50 billion and make the curriculum, then spend $75 billion on all those 123,000 schools which would be greatly reduced in cost and size since they are nothing more than a series of computer booths and servers.  Add on to that another $6 billion to pay 50,000 highly qualified teachers to staff the call centers at $120,000 salary per year each.  By my numbers, the first year would only cost $131 billion saving $695 billion.  The second year would be even more savings as you already have the curriculum.  To be safe though, let us say you still spend another $5 billion per year improving the curriculum and making changes.  The typical year would run $86 billion!  About 10% of our current expense but open to allow every USA citizen to have education for free when they want it!

You might be wondering about the server cost and bandwidth for all that multimedia and where that cost comes in to play.  I actually added that to the cost of the schools.  The local servers would have the full curriculum and could serve that over the Internet or a local wireless network.  The only real bandwidth would be for talking with teachers.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett say they want to give their fortunes away to help people.  Why not implement a system like this or even close.  Yes, there would be a lot of initial cost, but it would take little to maintain and the benefits would be immense!  Come on Bill, take a real challenge, give the world education!

I posted more about this topic a while back at:

Is our educational system behind the times?
http://www.ReflectedThought.com/RandomThoughts/archive/2005/03/27/254.aspx