LITTLE ROCK — If we put stock in the biblical axiom about our heart being where our treasure is, no one can say that the people of Arkansas don’t put a lot of heart into education.
Despite our low rung on the national economic ladder, we manage to muster more than $4.5 billion for public schooling from our relatively meager resources.
On national lists from the U.S. Census Bureau 2010 Statistical Abstract, Arkansas ranks 46th in per capita income, 48th in median household income and 34th in gross domestic product among states.
In the Census Bureau’s report on public education finances released this past summer, Arkansas ranks 40th in per-pupil spending. Yet when the states are ranked in the report according to the relation of public school spending amounts to $1,000 in personal income, Arkansas comes in at No. 13.
The fact that only a dozen states spend more on education relative to their personal incomes than Arkansas does is outshone only by this corollary revenue statistic: A mere four states generate more public school revenue from state sources relative to income.
That settles the heart question.
But education is also a matter of the head, and the evidence is not as compelling that we overachieve in actual learning as well as we do in funding.
When compared to other states, Arkansas is in the mid to low 30s in scaled test score assessments for eighth-grade reading, science and math; 37th in Morgan Quitno’s Best Educated index; and (doggone it) 49th in educational attainment of persons 25 and older with a high school diploma or higher.
In areas that correspond with education, our numbers lag as well. Arkansas ranks 48th in A.G. Edwards Nest Egg Index, which incorporates data such as savings habits, net worth,home value, mortgage balance, cost of living and local employment rate.
At 12th, we’re still embarrassingly high on the violent crime index (into which education factors). And measuring bankruptcy filings per capita, we registered 10th at last year-end.
While we’ve made schools a priority, we haven’t yet garnered the same consensus on what exactly we want our children taught. Indications are that we’re not doing a very good job of teaching them how to manage and save money, obey the law and avoid debt.
All of which suggests that maybe the role of education needs to be reevaluated. Undoubtedly, as a model, public schools are contemporary with an era that no longer exists regarding employment, finance and money management.
Back when public schools were taking shape as widespread institutions, career jobs at large, often industrial corporations were commonplace. Home ownership costs were much lower and more in line with median household incomes.
Who needed to be taught to manage credit card debt when the plastic troublemakers didn’t even exist? Even to the extent that debt may have been frowned upon, it was a hollow warning since the average person had little chance of racking up unmanageable liabilities with a local banker (who likely knew him and his creditworthiness).
Today, even a quick glance around reveals a landscape fraught with economic and financial peril for young adults. Home ownership, for example, has been part of the proverbial American dream for ages, but its historicalcontext involved property ownership as a delineating element between the middle classes and the poor.
Ownership in that day and time was typically translated to mean “free and clear.” In more recent times, the phrase has been hijacked by real estate marketers to help ramp up home sales prices.
As millions of Americans, including a goodly number of Arkansans, have learned the hard way, “owning” a home you can’t afford is a nightmare, not a dream.
Likewise, it’s easy and often enjoyable ro run up a credit card bill, since consumerism has been similarly slipped into the American dream ethos. Many are the newcomers to credit who wind up overspending their way into a high-balance, highinterest situation in which they wildly overpay for their merchandise. Oftentimes, they create situations in which they simply cannot come up with payments large enough to make any headway on their credit card balances.
Indeed, the very act of attending college today typically creates indebtedness.
For many families here in Arkansas, every dollar counts-all the more reason to augment our public school curriculum with age-appropriate classes on the dangers of debt and the sagacity of savings.
The financial services sector of the economy has always been predatory, and the odds are stacked even more heavily in its favor today, with its marketing prowess and our consumerist mindsets.
Age-old wisdom warns us of what happens to the uneducated fool and his money. One of the most basic paths to prosperity might be simply to use our schools to teach our kids the good habits of better stewardship.
Dana D. Kelley is a free-lance writer from Jonesboro.
Editorial, Pages 19 on 10/29/2010