Atheneum Blockchain (OP)
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January 01, 2019, 12:33:24 AM
Last edit: January 02, 2019, 05:36:27 AM by Atheneum Blockchain |
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The Atheneum Blockchain powers a decentralized platform governed by the world's first Decentralized Autonomous Learning Organization (DALO). Masternodes ensure a democratic voting process to navigate the future of the project. Atheneum is working to shift the educational paradigm from what it is today: an increasingly costly, less efficient, institution-centric system where compensation to educators is flat or decreasing while simultaneously offering lower and lower results for students.
Here is an excerpt from our Whitepaper that discusses this a bit further. We would love to hear your thoughts on this project.
"Modern education in most parts of the industrialized world can follow its lineage to a western influence dating back about 150 years. Prior to that, systematic education for children was almost non-existent. Education was reserved for the privileged and specialists such as priests, lawyers, nobility and bureaucrats. The creation of systematic education, especially public education, was a revolutionary implementation that has been a foundational component to the wealthiest and most successful countries of modern times. This disruptive move transformed society where even the poorest could receive education.
Since the emergence of this paradigm shift in systematic education to the masses, the subsequent 150 years has pioneered less innovation than has been made within other fields during the same time. Transportation has gone from horse and buggy to perpetually more sophisticated automobiles. Communication has gone from telegraph to telephone to satellite to internet. Almost every facet of human life has had some form of technological advancement during the last century and a half while education has sadly be untouched.
Additionally, education at different levels finds itself facing different problems. For example, in the United States, public education for K-12 gets 8.2% of its budget from the Federal Government (the majority coming from State and local governments). K-12 education has seen stagnant or falling TIMSS and PISA scores in literacy, math and science versus other countries. Higher education is seeing massive rises in tuition costs while the return on investment for the average Bachelor’s Degree is falling year over year. The U.S. Federal Government allocates 21% of its budget to education which equates to $798,000,000,000 annually. This massive expense by the government hasn’t fixed the woes facing its country’s education. Furthermore, increased spending in this area has shown no significant correlation that would suggest that it would fix these problems.
There is a glaring fundamental flaw in the education system. Until that flaw is fixed, no amount of government spending or restructuring of curricula will make education better. What is that flaw? It’s the inherent nature of bureaucratic involvement that inserts itself in education in the form of institutional administration. This point is highlighted by a Forbes article from February of 2017 entitled, “U.S. Colleges: Where Does The Money Go?”. In this article a study was conducted on the 40-year history of the California State University system along with an additional study focused on Colgate University comparing operational and institutional expenses against expenses directly related to education/teachers. Here is a small excerpt from that study:
"A study found that the California State University system had 11,614 full-time faculty in 1973, and 12,019 in 2008. During that same time period, administrators grew from 3,800 to 12,183, ending up with more administrators than faculty... It has only gotten worse since 2008. An anonymous college professor -- he calls himself "Professor Doom" -- has been chronicling his own experience working in this environment of bureaucratic horror. As he describes it, all academic standards have tumbled downhill as a consequence. Not just academics, either: with the bemused air of one watching Rome burn, he noted recently that one university formally recognized a Satanist student organization, while another banned a Young Americans for Freedom group for its "inflammatory" anti-communist stance." The problems wrought by legacy institutions have grown past just skyrocketing student debt, sub-value education, and limited benefits to educators. Legacy institutions have become a bureaucratic quagmire where political influence and values that are anything but universal are perpetuated to an entire generation of students. Educational institutions have become more that just centers for learning, unfortunately the “more” that they have become is baggage that in no way improves the value for students or teachers.
The Forbes article continued by highlighting budget inefficiencies of institutions, "Colgate University spent $162 million in 2013, net of grants (scholarships) to students. It works out to $56,000 per student. There's a lot of strange fluff in the expense column, including $11.8 million paid to outside consultants, $8.0 million in travel expenses, $4.2 million to top officials, and $25 million in undisclosed "other expenses." Total personnel expenses, outside of the top officials, were $86 million."
The institution, while necessary in the past, has proven to overwhelmingly perpetuate problems and is responsible for increased. Systematic education is unable to fundamentally change without a competent mechanism by which it could be reformed. That missing instrument now exists with the advent of blockchain - that fundamental problem now has an answer with the creation of Atheneum."
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