The Lack of Scientific Philanthropy In Japan

In a good system the resources are already there, and as far as I know that is pretty much the case in Japan. So the only logical conclusion is: "Philanthropy is a solution to a problem that shouldn't (and in this case doesn't) exist."

The problem with funding like this is that it empties public research into private ownership by making funding the goal of schools. The first and foremost goal of schools is and should be to teach.

In California, we have this terrible system which from the article seems to be on the brink of being exported to Japan.

To put things in perspective, almost 36% of all taxes in California go to education ($49 Billion FY2012-2013 : http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/agencies.html [ca.gov]), and that's not including money from bond initiatives for stem cell research or other earmarks which end up at research universities, and it's not including the costs of education as part of rehabilitation for the mentally ill or incarcerated prisoners, which end up being another $18B (drill down on the numbers on that government site).

If you consider only K-12, there are 9,600 publicly funded schools serving 6.2M students (http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/pn/fb/index.asp); that's a cost of $63,000 per student, working out to ~$4M per school.

And the teachers at the schools in my area are constantly trying to raise funds for books, paper, pencils, and white board markers. At $63,000 per student per year, you'd think they'd buy them a damn box of pencils.

Before you try to claim "that's not a lot per student", realize that the median household income in California is less than that, it's just under $61,000 for the whole family, including all wage earners (U.S. Census : http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html [census.gov]).

I don't know where the hell all this money is going (I'd like an independent audit, please!) but it sure as hell isn't getting to the classrooms, so it has to be disappearing somewhere between the Franchise Tax Board and the classrooms.

As far as higher education is concerned, the colleges around here are canceling classes all over the place. You'd think that the more students they had, the more tuition they'd get, the more classes they'd have, but no, tuition collected is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the almost $10B in taxes paid to them by the state, and they optimize on the basis of revenue instead (hey, why have a student spend 4 years * tuition, when you can cancel a class and have them spend 5 years * tuition instead?). They also optimize it by preferentially admitting out of state students (who have to pay higher tuitions), but that's OK, those students can go to other states themselves, and pay out of state tuition there, instead.

And this is the model school system you are going to hold up for other countries to follow?

Japan: Save yourself before it's too late!

-- Terry

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/SiIPyMDHq1E/the-lack-of-scientific-philanthropy-in-japan

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