It’s been a slow week at TCP, from both the readership and writer-ship perspectives. I would like to think that gives me an excuse for having a difficult time conjuring up a economically viable account for the importance of educational reform… but that would be false.
There are two reasons I am having a difficult time coming up with the economic case for education reform. One, I am not an economist, and two, an economics-only argument does not feel sufficient.
My original idea was to point to the way educational reform has a tangible and statistically significant impact on the downstream growth of GDP (as seen by the graph below). 
I wanted to argue that we could essentially couch an investment in education as a viable low growth financial investment. Afterall, a 2007 World Bank report on the topic does argue that:
There is strong evidence that the cognitive skills of the population, rather than mere school enrollment, are powerfully related to individual earnings, to the distribution of income, and to economic growth.
By this approach, an increase in the DOEd funding with reallocation towards properly incentivized teaching might catalyze GDP growth, by which that investment could yield downstream return. To the extent that return is strong, it might also be possible to attract private investment into an educational reform fund. But, in the end I fear I have neither the time nor the economical acumen to make this case as convincing as it could be.
The second reason I was having trouble with developing the economic argument was that I have some reservations with the underlying logic of an economics only case. Specifically, if this financial argument fails to hold, should the entire case for funding educational reform fall apart? If it is not financially viable, is it not worth pursuing? I would hope not. In the end, it is necessary to first understand the importance of funding education for the sake of those being educated first and foremost. Perhaps this case, like Paul Farmer’s arguments for health care reform, should rely on the argument that that children should have a universal right to receive proper education.
So, its on that note that I end this short series. I believe that the educational system needs reform, and this can best be done through finding better teachers and keeping them on board longer. Furthermore, if this is done appropriately, I think there is a good chance this reform would yield economic growth. However, at the end of the day, I hope we could see the proper education of children as something worth pursuing regardless of whether it increases our country’s bottom line.
