The Social Costs of Inadequate Education

Found an anouncement in the Chronicle of Higher Education for an interesting looking conference to be held at Teachers College (Columbia, NYC): The Social Costs of Inadequate Education. This will be held at TC in October.

Of course, when you are a stay at home parent, there are two major reasons you can't plan to attend such events: 1) Someone has to be here to take care of the kids while the spouse is at work all day, and 2) it could cost upwards of 1500 bucks just to be there - air fare, lodging, meals, not to mention registration (which I couldn't find the fee from the current web location)...That kind of cash will take our whole family to visit relatives in nicer locations = money more effectively spent.

That said, when I was gainfully employed, my employers often footed the bill for such adventures. That was a nice perk. I would greatly appreciate it if there were some NYC bloggers (or any other bloggers for that matter) who are planning to be at this function and blogging about it, that you toss your link into the comments to this post. This way, those of us who cannot be there phisically can have some kind of virtual experience that generates some kind of knowledge transfer and exchange.

Thank you.

Slice from the announcement:

The Symposium will highlight a major social rationale for seeking greater fairness in education for all populations. Major segments of society are not provided with education adequate to meet the requirements for full participation in American society, which at its most basic level is high school graduation. Due to this inadequate education, costs are imposed not only on these populations and their families, but on society. The costs to the latter are very high and are often underestimated because they are not obvious or accounted for in a standard way. Such social costs are found in a sacrifice of national income, productivity, and tax revenues, as well as in the public costs and other deleterious impacts of impaired health, crime, homelessness, public assistance, and the spawning of a new generation of at-risk students. The purpose of the conference will be to document the extent of educational inequities as well as both the magnitudes and consequences of social costs imposed when major segments of society are poorly educated. An attempt will also be made to compare the returns to society of improving educational equity and reducing inadequate education.

The symposium will be chaired by Professor Henry M. Levin, William Heard Kilpatrick Professor of Economics and Education, Teachers College. It will be held on October 24 and 25, 2005, at Alfred Lerner Hall, Columbia University.