keitht

Why should the economic status of the family have anything to do with it? I don't remember the constitution saying anything about rights only for the poor, unlucky, less able, or any other underprivileged term you might care to insert. If the system doesn't work, then why should any children be forced to support it?

Now our target is to be slightly better than mediocre?

When are we going to get away from this notion that the only way we can educate our children is through some government subsidized monopoly that can't seen to get the job done. My kids go to a very good public school system (and my wife teaches in the same system) that could be even better, but it is bloated with massive amounts of overhead for administration, transportation, and extra curricular distractions that add absolutely zero to my children's education. If vouchers became an option for me tomorrow, I probably would not change schools, but my perception is that this is not the norm. Why should my good fortune continue to perpetuate the mediocrity or failure that other parents have to live with? Unless we get the real power in the education system into the hands of the customers (i.e., the parents) through direct control of the education money, then we will continue to have giant, inefficient bureaucracies that are more interested in perpetuating their power by expansion, rather than providing services.

Keith

Ab_Normal

Keith, if we could privatize education and somehow ensure that every child in this country, regardless of socio-economic status, got a good basic education, I'd be happy. However, I can't see the way to get there. My thoughts (and they are of post-prandial coherency, so please bear with me):

In my area, 99% of the private schools are church-sponsored. The one non-sectarian school (the one we're trying to get into) is $12,000/year. (That is not a typo.) I went to a private Catholic school as a child, but my parents were Catholic. I'm an atheist. That leaves me with only one (expensive) choice. If suddenly the public schools were to go away, how long would it take for me to find a private school I could philosophically agree with? Would I have to found one myself? How would I find teachers and other parents?

What does "direct control of education money" mean? Does this mean that the property taxes which support education would be eliminated and the entire cost of education borne by the customers (i.e. families with children)? Or would property taxes still be collected and the funds distributed evenly to families with children, either directly to the family or by the taxing authority cutting checks to the schools?

I'm inclined to try to look for solutions to fix public education, without discarding it entirely... of course, I have no clue what the solutions would be. Sigh.

Thanks for listening.

Calzaer

Yes, if that's where we can get everyone to. It's better that everyone be "slightly better than mediocre" (and considering how many successful people came out of public schools now, they aren't doing a half-bad job) than for the kids with the most advantages to be amazing and the kids in the middle (and below) be worthless to society.

And I haven't even ventured into the philosophical realm. How many pagan private schools are there that I could send my kids to with a voucher? Hell, how many non-religious private schools are there out there? Where would I have to move my family to in order to find a nonsectarian private school, now that there's no such thing as a public school system anymore?

Ab_Normal

On the whole "slightly better than mediocre" issue:

It all depends on how you judge and measure the success of the schools, I suppose. It's a truism that "50% of the students are below-average intelligence!". In a system that has to educate every child, from the seriously disabled to the freaky-smart, how do we determine what's success?

Shoot, more questions, no answers... I should just STFU.

keitht

The majority of private schools are religous because the history of our public schools basically made them protestant schools until the 60's. Anybody wanting a different religous spin had to go to a private school and those religous sects created their own systems. Everybody else, including good athiests that kept quiet, accepted the public schools as they were. If we can get some competition into the formula, I think the public schools can become far more than mediocre. As for affordable non-religous alternatives to the public schools, I think you'll see them start to spring up like dandelions when people have money to pay them (through vouchers, at least to begin with). Then you'll be able to pick and choose, and hold them immediately accountable for performance, because if you don't like their product you'll go somewhere else with your money.
On the topic of mediocrity:
I guess collectivism still lives. Why should one child's education be used to subsidize another child's education, just because they have disporportionate abilities? It sounds great to talk about the monolith of education striving to educate all of our children, until its your child stuck sitting in the corner doing busy work while that over worked teacher spends time with the kids that still don't get it, or worse, your child is put to work teaching the other kids. I went to public schools and got along just fine, but it wasn't very hard. Today, my kids learn stuff in middle school I didn't learn until college, but there are still kids out there that don't read or write very well and might not ever, because that poor teacher has to teach 30 kids whose abilities are spread over the whole range of the bell curve. The public schools are aimed at the middle two standard deviations on the bell curve and typically allow the margins (both high and low) to fall off their screen. Until we get a system that truly looks at each child separately, rather than the population of students as a homogenous unit, then we will continue to aim for slightly better than mediocre. I don't think any child should be doomed to live with such a system. A bureaucracy can't look out for every child. Only each child's parents can do this effectively. So give the parents the power to do it, not the bureaucracy.

Sorry if I've gotten a little preachy. I just think its important.

Keith

Derec

No, it is not. Private schools should be allowed to remain selective lest the government destroy them the same way it destroyed the public school system. Actually, public K-12 schools should be more like the public universities - they should be allowed to be selective and compete amongst themselves. Georgia Tech and KSU are both public universities in Georgia yet there is a huge difference between them in terms of selectivity.

In Germany there is a three-tier public school system, with further differentiation based on academic area.
The Free State of Bavaria maintained a high level of selectivity for these schools. Some other states are not as tough and it shows in the quality of their school system.

What I am trying to say is that one-size-fits-all does not work for schools and forced egataliarism is bad for the education.
Whether private or public is not as important. Maybe that is what needs to be done to improve the public school system.

UMoC

themistocles

So the solution is to leave the smart kids in these reportedly poor schools? I don't think this is an issue of giving anyone an advantage or disadvantage. Your argument admits that there is a distinction between the quality of public schools and private schools, or at least infers as much. If this is true, I would argue that much of the reason that private schools are superior are because they are selective, not because they have some magical greatness that inherently makes them better educators. My acceptence of vouchers is dependent upon high conditions, not a mass migration of the smart to the private schools and "leave the rest behind", because that would subvert the usefulness of vouchers.

Straw man argument.

themistocles

The Constitution also doesn't say anything about education, but economics is the crux of the vouchers, as far as I'm concerned. If a family's income is the only thing holding a child back from attending a private school, then I don't think it's particularly damaging to do something about it.

I wonder if anyone would argue against colleges providing or enabling the use of scholarships or student loans...

Ab_Normal

This is getting weird - I made precisely that complaint about public education to my sister today, because I have a kid who is on one of the skinny ends of the bell curve. But I don't currently favor vouchers, because I fear that the end result would be underfunded public schools that would really suck, with kids that are stuck in them because they cannot get into a private school.

UMOC makes a good point about increasing services for children who fall outside the norm, but I can't see a way that wouldn't require additional funding. (hmm, Ab shouldn't post while on Benadryl. to continue...) My school district has a levy coming up for a vote on Tuesday. It didn't pass last time, and it's not a new tax - it's a replacement for a levy that's expiring. When the economy goes to crap, folks don't want to increase their taxes. Where else would additional school funding come from?

Calzaer

keitht:
That's not entirely true. Public schools perform their educational mandate, which ends up making them focus on the middle AND LOWER margins of the bell curve in an attempt to bring everyone below the middle up to a reasonable level. The upper edge is going to be in the upper edge whether they learn quantum physics in 9th grade or in college.

The voucher system not only takes away the upper edge of the curve, it takes everything within on SD above the mean... leaving the public schools with no money and a population that hits its new mean about halfway between the middle and the bottom of the curve. It's still better than UMOC's idea of just chucking all those kids out on the street to die in their own ignorance, but it's not particularly nice, either.

Which is a more efficient society?

1000 geniuses, and 25,000 completely uneducated people

or

100 geniuses, 20,900 people of low-moderate education, and 5,000 completely uneducated people?

Assuming you have more than 100 high-level jobs to fill, and assuming that you don't need 25,000 people to be mowing your lawn off the books, the answer seems relatively clear.

The smart kid will still be smart when they get to college, even if he's only taught to his lowest-common-denominator. The dumb kid is NOT going to be ANYTHING if he's not taught up to the smart kid's "lowest". The smart kid will always have an advantage over the dumb kid. Your plan basically kicks the dumb kid out of school, to NEVER have a useful education. There are a lot more dumb kids than smart kids. And they'll all get to vote, regardless of how much of an education you've allowed them to have.

UglyManOnCampus:
So only the kids who are already intellectually superior are allowed to get an education? I'll say it again, your plan basically kicks the dumb kid out of school, to NEVER have a useful education. How much benefit does a society gain from having all the kids with 85IQs and all the kids with mild learning diabilities be homeless beggars since they weren't even taught how to fill out a job application? What is your objection to training everyone up to a common level? Because it doesn't give your smart child enough of an ADVANTAGE over them? :boohoo: Boo hoo. Get over yourself. If you want your kid to have a better education, that's fine, but try to remember that the big glowing ball in the sky doesn't revolve around him. Taking away other peoples' chances at a halfway decent education is JUST a wrong, if not MORE wrong, than them taking away your chances to do something other than busywork. I say it could be MORE wrong because, as I said above, schools aren't going to make a smart kid dumb just because they're learning below their ability. Schools can LEAVE a dumb kid dumb by teaching over his head.

You're probably one of the people that thinks Special Ed has no place existing either. Since that's what costs the most money at public schools, enough to skew the "cost-per-student" statistic, and it's inhibiting your child's super-education. Who cares that maybe the Special Ed graduates could have a low-level job, contribute to society, and pay taxes thanks to special ed? You want YOUR kid to learn quantum physics RIGHT NOW.

Further, I shouldn't have to move to a brand new place, maybe a brand new STATE, just to find a public school that will accept my kid. Now not only are you screwing mediocre and lower kids, you're screwing poor families who can't afford to move across the street, let alone across state lines. Will vouchers pay for moving expenses? Hardly.


themistocles:
Not if you can get them out without screwing the public schools out of the money they need to teach the dumb kids (now without peer role models or tutors). Keeping in mind that Special Ed horribly skews the cost-per-student statistic.

Yes, because private schools are smaller and can afford to give more individual attention. Also, private schools can pay their teachers a halfway livable salary. Finally, private schools look better on test scores because they kick out the stupid kids.

Once you eliminate the first and the last with vouchers, you have a system that's slightly better than the public one; not astronomically better like the numbers indicate. If you don't eliminate the last with vouchers, they'll still only take the students that make their test scores look good, without actually improving their educational offering. You also end up with a system devoted exclusively to trying to teach the castaways, on half the money (or less) that it had previously.

***

This entire argument seems to be based around selfishness. "Who cares about those STUPID kids, I want my kid to be learning generalized field theory, and I want the goverment to take money away from those worthless kids with an IQ of only 90 in order to teach it to him!"

The point of the public educational system is to produce informed voters. You can't turn a kid lower on the bell curve into an informed voter by tossing him out on the street. The point of the public educational system has nothing to do with any given child's potential. That's what college is for. Public school is intended to benefit America, not any individual child or family. To try and say the public school SHOULD be spending more time benefiting your child than benefiting America is a very egocentric thought process.