Alan Weiss’s Monday Morning Memo® – 7/20/26
From my AI inquiries yesterday morning:
Rhode Island ranks as the 8th highest state in the nation for per-pupil spending on public K-12 education, with expenditures averaging $22,797 per student. Rhode Island generally ranks between 25th and 28th in the U.S. for student test scores. State report card data reveals an average proficiency rate of 36% across reading and math.
No Rhode Island public high school is among the top 150 nationally.
Why aren't our gubernatorial candidates (the election for that office here is this November) talking about that?
Your state may well be producing a better “education ROI” and I’m not placing blame, because that’s unproductive. But I am asking, “Where’s the accountability?” If public education in this state (and others) were a private business, investors would be demanding a change in leadership and perhaps the business model itself.
Investors are interested in customers (Peter Drucker pointed out that if you intend to run a business, you need to have a customer). It seems to me the customers here are the parents and students. The satisfaction or success for those customers rests in an education that provides the ability to lead an independent and successful life, whether in business, as an entrepreneur, in nonprofits, in trades, in the military, or whatever. This is especially important since I don’t believe a college degree will be as crucial as it used to be. We’ll need plumbers more than actuaries, welders more than analysts.
I haven’t included the very fine private schools in Rhode Island, where teachers are paid less, tuition is required, and scores are far higher. But if everyone deserves quality health care, which I believe is essential, don’t all children and their parents deserve a quality education? This isn’t a polarizing issue, or at least it shouldn't be.
After all, we all have a desired future, which is largely dependent on our decisions and requirements today. If we continue to kick the can down the road, eventually we come to the end of the road with just a can.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. —Benjamin Franklin
Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world. —Nelson Mandela
Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. —John Dewey
You train animals. You educate people. —Maya Angelou
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