Privatize education

[pure_mercury]

i don't see a lot of difference between charity/corporate/religious support. they are all special interest groups with agendas.

So are public school unions.

 

[Oberon]

Without public funding the burden remains on the parents, corporate and charity schools don't exist and probably never could on a large scale.

How is it that public funding makes corporate education... i.e. for-profit private schools... possible? Just FYI, that's the business model the first schools followed, the one under which Plato was taught. Once upon a time, ALL schools were private schools.

And from the middle ages up to today in the west, there is a long and distinguished history of charity schools, for example orphanage schools operated by the Catholic church, and the ones run by George Müller in 19th-century England. Such schools provide quality education to people who need it today, now, this morning, without public funding.

 

[booyalab]

Kids don't get socialized if they are home schooled, also it's a big burden on the parents.

I don't think everyone should be home schooled. But it definitely seems to work out for some people (I've known lots of homeschoolers) The lack of socialization idea is a myth and a cliche and it doesn't have to be a big burden if one of the parents stays at home and they actually want to do it.

I think school should be completely privatized. But like Lee said, that doesn't have to mean just one form or the other.

 

[Oberon]

Kids don't get socialized if they are home schooled...

My wife and I were concerned about our kids missing the socialization offered by public school too. So, once a week we shove our kids into the bathroom, rough them up, steal their lunch money, curse at them, and offer them drugs, and that pretty much takes care of it.

Between ballet camp, church activities, homeschool association functions, overnighters, trips to the mall and play dates, I'm not sure how much more of this sheltered isolation I can stand.

 

[Enyo]

My wife and I were concerned about our kids missing the socialization offered by public school too. So, once a week we shove our kids into the bathroom, rough them up, steal their lunch money, curse at them, and offer them drugs, and that pretty much takes care of it.

Between ballet camp, church activities, homeschool association functions, overnighters, trips to the mall and play dates, I'm not sure how much more of this sheltered isolation I can stand.

You know, except for the cursing and drugs, it doesn't sound like my public school experience.

I actually contemplated homeschooling my ENTP child (or at least, he seems to be, based on the test and profile that I took online) but we make each other nuts. Plus, I wouldn't get him the socialization that he needs.

So he went back to Florida, where there's a better education system than in BC, and the climate and culture are more to his liking. Had he stayed in BC much longer, though, he would have been homeschooled. He wasn't academically challenged, so he was bored and disruptive. Homogenized education doesn't work for gifted children; he can't handle being taught to the lowest common denominator.

I'd have preferred a Jesuit school for him over anything, but there's no Jesuit school for hours of where I live in BC, and my family in Florida isn't willing to ferry him a couple of hours to a good Jesuit school.

At least he attends an A school by Florida testing standards.

 

[The_Liquid_Laser]

In many districts, that fraction is getting no education now.

Yeah those are the districts I'd be worried about. Without public education you should expect 90%+ to go without education in the poorest areas.

 

[reason]

Yeah those are the districts I'd be worried about. Without public education you should expect 90%+ to go without education in the poorest areas.

Why should anyone expect that? The school attendence rates hardly change when governments abolish private education and establish a monopoly, even when the government makes attendence mandatory. From my recollection of what I have heard and read on the issue, education is not something which is underconsumed, even by the poor. Moreover, privately run schools tend to produce better results with far lower costs, which helps make education more affordable, not less.

 

[ajblaise]

Why not?

Without the burden of taxation the population would have much more free capitol to invest in charities they feel ideological connections to.

Corporations certainly have enough money, especially since it would guarantee them a well trained workforce.

I don't think ending education taxation would free up enough money to educate the whole nation, even if 100% of the money saved went to charities. Charity education sounds like something we should be using to help starving African kids.

And with corporations, why would they want to spend all that money education kids from ages 5 to 18 just to get employees? They already get employees without spending millions on the potential workforce.

Most jobs only require a week for or so of on-the-job training, not 13 years.

 

[ajblaise]

Why should anyone expect that? The school attendence rates hardly change when governments abolish private education and establish a monopoly, even when the government makes attendence mandatory. From my recollection of what I have heard and read on the issue, education is not something which is underconsumed, even by the poor. Moreover, privately run schools tend to produce better results with far lower costs, which helps make education more affordable, not less.

Poor and lower-middle class families can't afford $13,000 per kid to go to school. It's as simple as that, of course attendance rates would drop.

 

[murkrow]

I don't think ending education taxation would free up enough money to educate the whole nation, even if 100% of the money saved went to charities. Charity education sounds like something we should be using to help starving African kids.

And with corporations, why would they want to spend all that money education kids from ages 5 to 18 just to get employees? They already get employees without spending millions on the potential workforce.

Most jobs only require a week for or so of on-the-job training, not 13 years.

Were there no publicly funded schools the business world would have no choice but to create their own.

I have no problem moving the burden from the workers to the corporations.

 

[ajblaise]

Were there no publicly funded schools the business world would have no choice but to create their own.

I have no problem moving the burden from the workers to the corporations.

What if a lot of these schools amount to a simple 1-week training program? They wouldn't be keeping these kids educated for 13 years learning things like history like they are now, they'd be out of there as soon as they could perform whatever job was chosen for them.

I envision some kind of industrial system that pumps out worker bees as a bleak affair.

 

[Oberon]

I envision some kind of industrial system that pumps out worker bees as a bleak affair.

Actually, this is the function that dictates the form of the modern American public school, as envisioned by Horace Mann and others of his era.

And it is, indeed, a bleak affair.

 

[Oberon]

Poor and lower-middle class families can't afford $13,000 per kid to go to school. It's as simple as that, of course attendance rates would drop.

What, you think that's what it costs to teach a kid?

 

[ajblaise]

What, you think that's what it costs to teach a kid?

That's what it costs per year in what many think is an severely under funded system as it is.

 

[Oberon]

That's what it costs per year in what many think is an severely under funded system as it is.

Public school systems are notoriously top-heavy with management structure, and notoriously inefficient. Honest, I kid you not, a good private school can teach any given kid better for less money.

Heck, my wife and I have been teaching our kids since kindergarten. They're 14, 12, and 8 (the youngest is 3, we haven't started school with her yet). We can DIY for about $1,000 worth of curricula and texts per year for all three of them... and I will stack my kids' standardized test scores up against those of any public school system in the country.

Now, admittedly that doesn't take into account the value of our time... but my point is that good education can be done for well under $13K per student per year.

 

[ajblaise]

Public school systems are notoriously top-heavy with management structure, and notoriously inefficient. Honest, I kid you not, a good private school can teach any given kid better for less money.

Heck, my wife and I have been teaching our kids since kindergarten. They're 14, 12, and 8 (the youngest is 3, we haven't started school with her yet). We can DIY for about $1,000 worth of curricula and texts per year for all three of them... and I will stack my kids' standardized test scores up against those of any public school system in the country.

Now, admittedly that doesn't take into account the value of our time... but my point is that good education can be done for well under $13K per student per year.

Well of course doing it yourself will be cheaper, but sending a kid to a school with teachers, principals, nurses, lunch ladys....this costs a lot of money.

No matter what, unless we are talking about home schooling, we are talking about thousands of dollars a year.

 

[Enyo]

Public school systems are notoriously top-heavy with management structure, and notoriously inefficient. Honest, I kid you not, a good private school can teach any given kid better for less money.

Heck, my wife and I have been teaching our kids since kindergarten. They're 14, 12, and 8 (the youngest is 3, we haven't started school with her yet). We can DIY for about $1,000 worth of curricula and texts per year for all three of them... and I will stack my kids' standardized test scores up against those of any public school system in the country.

Now, admittedly that doesn't take into account the value of our time... but my point is that good education can be done for well under $13K per student per year.

It can be if you don't pay your staff to teach. You have to take into account the value of the time spent to teach your children.

Let's assume that the average teacher makes $30k/year. This just brought the price of educating your children up to $31k/year. Divide that by 3, and you're still just under the mark of the cost of educating the average child.

Are you putting your kids in any art or enrichment courses taught outside of your home? Or taking them on educational field trips that would normally be paid for by the school system? What's the going rate for private lessons in music and music theory, since your child isn't attending a school that offers this as part of the curriculum?

Don't kid yourself. Instead of shelling out the cash to pay for the education, you're paying for it by missing the opportunity to earn that money.

 

[reason]

Poor and lower-middle class families can't afford $13,000 per kid to go to school. It's as simple as that, of course attendance rates would drop.

I do not think that the current price of private education should not be taken as indicative of what the prices would be in a competitive market, and neither would the affordability be the same if people were paying less in taxes for public education. The current system has increased the cost of education three-fold over the last forty years or so, with no corresponding increase in performance. As a commentator on a recent CATO podcast noted, that would be like being forced today to purchase an ordinary car from the 70s for about $40,000.

In all most every industry over the last 30 years there has been an appreciable increase in quality, decrease in price, or both. The education industry has remained static with regard to quality, but has needed to increase the relative costs three times over to achieve that--an incredible drop in efficiency. You would think that the education of children, arguably one of the most important services in society, would not be trusted to an organisation which has for so many years demonstrated its penchant for waste, incompetence and political agendas.

 

[Provoker]

Poor geniuses are desired by corporations and all academic institutions.

Their schooling will be subsidized.

And where do the corporations find the geniuses and intelligent people before they can afford to go to a good school to prove their brilliance? You're being highly idealistic. The reality is that when education becomes purely commodified and morons like Bush are able to pay their way through school the value of an education is less meaningful. This is why many northern European countries have a far more effective education system than the US. I should also mention the Soviet Union which launched Sputnik and Gagarin into space before the US which made them think "hmm maybe we better put more money into education" and they did.

Yet Harvard economists are still calling things like pollution, and the billions it amounts to in health costs, 'externalities'. Well, they mine as well be living on mars because the price of a good doesn't reflect the real costs. But this is the poor quality education you're going to get when science and academia is put in the hands of people with MBAs. You're going to get things like "alternative medicine" and endarkenment. In private institutions we see more biased testing. Didn't you hear "red wine is good for your heart". Yes and the people that were surveyed were all comfortably living bourgeoisie that are living longer anyways. Survey a bunch of homeless people or persons with incomes < than 5000 per year and we'll see entirely different results. Incidentally, these bias surveys serve the interest of industry rather than academia. This is the problem when the people with MBAs start running science and academia..you get a program that reflects their interest which usually isn't the best quality education. That said, I think privatization is a terrible and destructive idea that amounts to a poor quality education given the alternatives.

 

[Jack Flak]

And where do the corporations find the geniuses and intelligent people before they can afford to go to a good school to prove their brilliance? You're being highly idealistic. The reality is that when education becomes purely commodified and morons like Bush are able to pay their way through school the value of an education is less meaningful.

100%. Well, 99%. Bush isn't a moron, but he's no Cheney.