Yesterday two U.S. military F/A 18 jets collided over Iraq, or somewhere in that vicinity "in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom"; it's not our place to ask where. There were between two and four humans, total, in the two jets. Each jet cost us $35 million-- $70 million for the pair.
I have to admit that my first thought (after "so how many people got killed this time?") was "imagine what that money could have done for education."
We all know that people join the military to pay for college. What if they didn't have to? What if education mattered more than jets? The cost of those two jets could've put 3,500 students through state colleges, including their books and fees.
Or how about if it'd been spent on training teachers in states where there are teacher shortages (aka Red States)? At an average cost of $35,000 per teacher, that's 2000 more teachers into a pool that badly needs `em.
What about raising teacher salaries, or offering a meaningful bonus, to attract teachers to inner-city schools; those schools that need the best teachers but seldom get `em? Teachers are reluctant to go into those schools, which are often described as "combat zones". Hey.
How about training teachers at 17,000 elementary schools in Project Achieve, so that our classrooms are calm, welcoming places where 5-year-olds don't get hauled off by the cops in handcuffs?
Or providing training and materials for Sopris West's Language! program to 24,000 high schools, so that illiterate high-schoolers can be taught to read?
Well, okay, I could go on, and no doubt someone's gonna accuse me of having a "vested interest" in education because it's where I make my living. But insert your own pet cause instead. $70,000,000. Damn. We could've used that.
