Last Wednesday marked another Republican Debate where 2016 Presidential hopefuls discussed a plethora of issues in the U.S. that they want to make a priority if elected. While education was mentioned, David Levin, CEO of McGraw-Hill Education, believes that it wasn’t mentioned nearly enough as it should have been.

McGraw-Hill Education is one of the many companies looking to help educators and administrators solve problems to strengthen the core of student’s learning experience.

Levin took careful count of the number of times various topics more specifically the major words associated with them were mentioned and you’d be surprised at what topped “education” which was mentioned just seven times throughout the debate, according to Levin.

“I'm a pragmatic person and realize that we have many important issues to tackle,” said Levin in the Huffington Post education blog.

“Taxes received a huge number of mentions (59 times), as did Iran (43 mentions) and immigration (23 mentions). However, when the mere seven mentions of education are dwarfed by marijuana (22 mentions) and even the word ‘face’ (15 mentions), I start to wonder where our priorities lie.”

Levin, many educators, school districts and parents would agree that education, especially at the K-12 level, is among one of the most important issues the U.S. faces. 

The problem of the U.S. trailing behind other countries when it comes to math and science "traces its roots to our challenges in K-12 education. In the most recent results compiled from the Program for International Student Assessment, the U.S. placed 35th out of 64 countries in math and 27th in science,” reported Levin.

“However, there is one category in which we lead the world: spending per pupil. The U.S. spends more than $11,000 per elementary student and more than $12,000 per high school student. This is more than any developed country in the world.”

Despite increased spending, K-12 education is still below the curve. Levin also believes that there just aren’t enough investments to get technology into the classroom.

“Ninety-seven percent of low-income students rely on school for Internet access, but 40 million students do not have high-speed Internet in their classes,” he added.

It’s becoming a bit hard to figure out where the priorities of the 2016 Presidential hopefuls are, however, it’s quite possible that they are missing out on an opportunity to help strengthen the role of technology in the classroom and improving classrooms nationwide in all of the ways that are needed.

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Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor