Matthew Yglesias has a great post at his blog which describes a McKinsey report that analyzes the economic cost of having a poor education system. From his blog:
…having a high-performing school system is extremely valuable. This is important to keep in mind when talking about spending money on schools or other social services aimed at children and their parents. There’s much more to improving educational outcomes than spending money at random, but insofar as you identify a use for the money that’s genuinely useful it’s worth spending extremely freely.
Among the statistics he sites:
If the United States had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of better-performing nations such as Finland and Korea, GDP in 2008 could have been $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher. This represents 9 to 16 percent of GDP. (emphasis his)
Follow the link to see the rest of the stats. It truly does make it clear how important education is, and further illustrates the sheer lunacy of wannabe Republican presidential candidates like South Carolina governor Mark Sanford, who are actively reject stimulus money from the federal government. Money that could be spent on… hmm… education.
