Certainly each of us strives for efficiency. We were, most of us anyway, brought up with the early understanding, "time is money". Each of us followed that quote, some religiously. Every decision we made had to be timely. Yet, as we look back, how many of those timely decisions created some ineffective outcome? To often we forget to look at the people being effected and how they are effected. To often we look at the short term gain versus the long term affect of our timely decision.
A simple example: we believe that it is inefficient (cost wise) to establish early childhood development programs for preschool children. These costs, infrastructure, teachers, and additional costs are much to great to be considered efficient.
Now let's look at the effectiveness of our decision; Our prisons population consists of people who;
40% do not have a high school diploma
40-65% are functionally illiterate meaning "they lack the skills necessary to read and understand a newspaper, balance a checkbook, or fill out an application for a job."
On average they read at the seventh-grade level.
25-50% have symptoms of a learning disability
On average their IQ score id 14 points below the national average, and about 15 percent score low enough on IQ tests to be identified as mentally retarded.
So, what is the cost of our efficiency? I am sorry, I have to get to work on my other projects, remember, "time is Money!"
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