Our K12 Education System on Trial

The world is a pretty busy place, humans took it upon themselves to make it even more crowded. The first billion people took all human history, or until 1800, the second billion took us 130 years (1930), and the third billion took us 30 years (1960), and the fourth billion in 15 years (1974), and the fifth in 13 years (1987). In the 20th century alone, we didn't just double, we went from 1.65 billion to whopping 6 billion and if trend continues, by 2037 we will reach 9 billion and 2057 we will be 10 billion souls roaming around.

Now, let’s explore our education system with real focus on high schools, there are ~15.6M students enrolled in public school system, roughly ~1.35M students will drop out this year, and if this trend continues, we will lose ~7.4M students by 2028. In real terms, the students that drop out will still be dependent on all the services (policing, parks, roads, hospitals, healthcare, fire, schools etc.) the federal, state and city governments has to provide, with their real contribution in taxes, significantly less than required to run those services. The pressure the government/s will face to fill the deficit in tax collection will be very real, and cuts will have to be applied to the basic services.

There are over 210 nations in the world, 195 of them are sovereign nations, each country with its own set of rules, regulations, challenges, and resources. Latin America and the Caribbean is the one region where per capita government spending on education fell below its mid-2010s levels, with an average decline of 3 percent between 2014/15 and 2019/20. Low-income countries spending in 2019/20 per capita was higher than 2014/15, South Asia registered the largest increase of 35% in spending during this period.

In the US, we spend $14,400 per FT student in elementary and secondary school, which is 34% higher than average OECD member countries. We are 5th highest spender per FT student at the elementary/secondary level after Luxembourg ($24,000), Norway ($16,500), Austria ($15,700), and Iceland ($15,500).

According to PISA which is sponsored by Organization of Economic Corporation and Development (OECD), which has 35 member countries, US ranked 30th in Math's, and 19th in science in 2021.

We know the students are dropping out, do we know the reason why these students are not completing high school. Many students felt that lack of guidance and resources in their school was one of the reason, many pointed towards the curriculum and teaching methods, some pointed towards deficiencies in the middle school etc. and if the students needed extra help, teachers were not available before or after school, but the most disturbing data point was, there are 485 students to 1 guidance counselor, with average time spend in a year, less than 10 minutes.

1Journey.ai learned all these data points, created a machine learning, AI solution to address these very problems. A journey that a student starts in high school should end with a diploma, lack of resources should not be an excuse – we plan to start engaging with these students, offer them regular counseling, at least 4-6 times per year, with each session lasting 40-45 minutes. Then through our subscription/SaaS model, engage with students and let them explore our platform – we will introduce gamification to all students, at all levels, all they have to do is keep learning and keep earning points that can be redeemed for tangible things.

1Journey.ai has one mission, to change these numbers to show a real improvement in student grades and build them a learning pathway towards success. The way our world population is expanding, we need to be competitive and ahead in every discipline. Math and Science are the building blocks of innovation, and our colleges and universities are leading the world, but the raw material needed to run these institutions comes from our school system, which is where 1Journey adds the most value.