(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)
One of my favorite scenes from Die Hard is when the evil villain Hans gets found by our hero, John McLain. Hans, dastardly fellow that he is, passes himself off as an American. John gives him a gun to have him help fight the bad guys. John turns his back, and the villain confidently pulls the trigger, only to hear a loud
**CLICK**
McLain looked at Hans, shocked to be holding what he now knew to be an unloaded gun, and said, if memory serves: “OOOOOOOPS!!!! Do you think I’m f****** stupid Hans?!?”
Apparently, an outfit calling itself the “Arizona Economic Council” thinks that Arizonans are stupid. They shot an advertisement in Africa claiming that the looming budget cuts in K-12 threaten to move Arizona to Third World Status.
There is just one little problem with this: objective reality.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has this pesky habit of actually collecting spending per pupil data. Here is Arizona compared to the Third World Countries:
Oooops! Arizona spends five to nine times more than any of them. How does Arizona compare to Second World (former Communist) countries?
Ooops! All the former communist countries would kill to switch places with Arizona. How does Arizona compare to First World European Countries?
Ooops! Arizona’s figure is 48% higher.
I could dig up comparisons on academic outcomes but that would just be running up the score. Like Hans, the so-called Arizona Economic Council is shooting blanks. And given that they could have looked up these numbers before flying to Africa, I have to say they look pretty stupid.
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
You mean that some people are willing to lie – well, OK, to be entirely accurate, shade the truth – to achieve their political goals? Oh, say it’s not so!
Does this ad make it entirely clear that when you refer to the public education system the word “public” ought to be capitalized, bolded and in a bigger font and the word “education” ought to be in lower-case and a smaller font?
The ad is meant to motivate supporters of the educational status quo and provide them with talking points so the undecided will hear the same message from many sources assuming, unfortunately, that repetition equals credibility. That message can only be counteracted by finding an opposing constituency and motivating them to make a counterpoint.
Here’s my counterpoint ad:
scene: a water tumbler and a water pitcher are on a table. The tumbler and pitcher are picked up.
Off camera announcer: This is how much money the average country in Europe spends on K-12 education.
scene: fill tumbler from pitcher
Off camera announcer: This is how much money Arizona spends on K-12 education.
scene: pitcher continues filling tumbler until tumbler overflows and then continues to pour as water overflows.
Off camera announcer: So the problem isn’t really how much money we’re putting into Arizone public education…..
scene: pitcher stops pouring and tumbler is tilted so water should pour out….
Off camera announcer: But how much education we’re getting out of Arizona public education
scene: …but utilizing a bit of special effects, nothing pours out of the tumbler until it’s almost horizontal. Then a tablespoon or so of water pours out.
Fade to black.
Perfect!
After you fill the tumbler for European spending, you could have the dollar amount spent in Europe appear on the screen next to the top of the water level, then do the same after you fill it again for Arizona spending. That way the audience wouldn’t have to take it on faith that the relative water levels accurately reflect the real difference in spending.
And after that tablespoon of water finally drops out of the tumbler, you could flash an outcome statistic for Arizona schools – the % below basic on NAEP or something.
I insist upon complete artistic freedom for my masterwork! 🙂
The point of my magnum opus is to shift the focus from inputs to outputs. That’s the reason we put resources into public education. The proponents of the current public education system have successfully kept the focus on resources leaving unasked, and unwelcomed, considerations of results.
For a shift of focus symbolism trumps information.
I would never interfere with your artistic freedom to compose your masterwork in whatever way you think best, but I insist on my own free speech right to say whatever I want about your masterwork! 🙂
My favorite is Estonia. They beat the US on the PISA exam and spend 1/3rd what we do in the United States.
In fact, I think they’ve graduated a high school kid (whose better educated) for the same price it takes the average American state to get a kid into 4th or 5th grade.
I actually wrote an article awhile back mentioning this, suggesting that if our goal was just to spend a lot of money, we would be better served by shipping our kids to Estonia and paying their tuition and board for the same price as under educating them in America. Quite literally, outsourcing education.