Hi Lorraine,
Your comments are very much appreciated, and I wish I had included them in my essay. I also wish I had done a better job in bring out that the value of education is not intuitive. To the Taliban education is a cost that is not seen as producing value (for men and especially women). Especially women, because the women in Taliban society are essentially slaves, and to the Taliban these slaves are intuitively valuable. To educate their women is completely a waste of effort as it was to the rest of the world a few centuries ago. This viewpoint is completely rational on the surface, and it took humanity quite a few centuries to notice that Education for women is essentially good and that Slavery is essentially bad for any human society.
Humanity still does not value education, except for the notion that a person with education can make more money. Recently, even the monetary value of education is being questioned, at least in the US. As a civilization we have come to the conclusion that education is not worth anything.
The reality is that human labor is the only thing that has economic value (water has no economic value until it is purified by human labor). Human labor is enabled first by education and secondly by augmentation via machines and computers. This is the skinny on why education is fundamental. Education is the foundation of our economic well being (and our societal well being) and this is non intuitive.
Your last phrase ""foundational inclusive education" I like very much. And yes as a society we should do it "even if it means paying people to go to school." I would add that we should do this not because we are nice considerate people with high morals (even though we are). We should do it because it is the way to economic prosperity. And as unintuitive as it may sound we can pay our way to economic prosperity.
The US for the most part has a very effective military that US citizens pay for. And for the most part the US has been prosperous. I believe it is legitimate to say we have in the past payed our way to prosperity. But this way to prosperity will come in second to "foundational inclusive education", because education is the true economic capital in human beings. Human beings are much more than economic entities, but I am limiting myself to economic considerations.
Lastly, in the US we do not bemoan pay increases for master sergeants in the army, but we do bemoan pay increases for teachers. This is because congress handles the army pay, and local property taxes pay teachers. Teachers (IMHO) need to be paid the way army sergeants are paid. And do not worry about quality, the US has very high quality army sergeants.
Thanks for the opportunity to stand on the soap box,
Wishing you the best,
Don Limuti
