A big portion of president Obama’s stimulus bill for the US economy is reserved for education. So is this good news for everyone working in education? In the new plan, education gets about $150 billion in new spending, including $79 billion for state education aid and billions more for (much needed) school modernization.

I personally think this is a important signal that the government is sending out: it emphasizes the shift of the U.S. economy from “tangibles” to “intangibles”:

The tangible sector includes industries producing or distributing physical goods (e.g. construction, manufacturing, retailing, and transportation). These industries are in free-fall, with massive and repeated job cuts, because of a global oversupply of manufacturing capacity and weakness in demand for goods such as cars and electronics.

On the other hand the intangible sector, led by health care and education, is expanding, even in the current crisis. In a knowledge-based economy, there’s still demand for more education, there’s still demand for better health, and there’s still demand for new and better ideas.

Let’s hope this renewed focus on education is permanent though. I’m keen to hear your views on this subject!

Coming Tuesday is election day in the US, I don’t think anyone failed to notice that.  Both Obama and McCain are mainly focussing on the financial crisis and the war in Iraq. These are also what most voters claim to be the most important issues facing the US at the moment. With the campaigns hardening, it is quite possible to miss out on what the election candidates stand for when it comes to (K-12) education.

I found it hard to find out exactly what the main differences are between the two. But when it comes to K-12 education policies like school choice and funding, there are fundamental differences. McCain is much more supportive of school choice and local control than Obama, and Obama supports a much larger increase in federal education spending.  Obama supports an 18 billion dollar increase in federal education spending, with 10 billion of that increase devoted to an expanded federal effort in early education and preschool.

what do you find more important? More money for early education or freedom of school choice? Or both?

I was looking for information of teaching jobs on the website of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, and found some interesting statistics that I wanted to share with you:

In the USA, of all occupations in the elementary and secondary school category, there are 64,000 preschool teachers, 160,000 kindergarten teachers, 1.4 million elementary school teachers, 640,000 middle school teachers, 1 million secondary school teachers, and roughly 400,000 special education teachers.

Impressive numbers. However, I was more stunned when I noticed the number of management jobs (almost 300,000) and other occupations in this category: There is a grand total of 8.4 million people working in elementary and secondary schools, including financial managers, marketing managers, lawyers, school bus drivers, cooks, dishwashers, librarians etc. So, roughly only two thirds of all the people working in elementary and secondary schools are actually teachers.

Some other interesting statistics are that 80,9% of the elementary and middle school teachers are female, and of all preschool and kindergarten teachers even 97,3% (!) are female.  Where are all the men you wonder

We’ve partnered with Amazon.com and opened an (educational) bookshop. Have a look around the store to find books and other stuff that can help you in your classroom or at home!