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And by you publishing your newspaper or opening your school, you create competition...you create choice. If enough people like the goods you are selling, you will have the ability to grow larger.
Yeah, just like my six-year old's lemonade stand was competition for Coca-Cola. It's the structure of the industry that's the issue here, and the structure of a privatized education system will not be competitive.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
There would be no reason for me to send my child to a school that didn't produce results if you opened a competing school that offered better results.
Well, I don't know where you live, but what's the chance you're going to bus your kid to the DC area to go to my school, no matter how good it is?
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Originally Posted by twojciac
And roughly 10% of their budgets are held hostage by the federal government to meet their requirements, which is consolidation.
No, there are still nearly 15,000 local school boards. And one meddling President with a pernicious penchant for unfunded mandates. Thankfully, it won't take privatization to get rid of him.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
It does matter... because it's not just about the local school board, it's about the suits in Washington that want to control the education system and not leave it entirely in the hands of the local school board.
You mean like assisting with disability services, or paying for breakfast and lunch programs? Maybe providing funds for teacher development, or for vocational and bilingual education? Outside of NCLB, this all sounds more like picking up the tab than exerting control.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
But when I can vote with my voucher, I know that that voucher holds much more of an impact than whatever vote I cast in a federal election.
Well, that's probably true. Nobody takes money away from your neighbors' kids just because you vote in a federal election.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
They haven't been put on equal footing because parents are forced to pay twice for the education of private school students.
The question was why there are 30,000 private schools still in existence when the feds are supposedly working so hard to eliminate them. Meanwhile, do you think tax dollars should be used to build and maintain private roads? People go to jail for doing that sort of thing, you know.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
Why does NASA charge less to put payload into space than it actually costs to get it there? Because it helps the perception that they're a necessary part of our government.
Either that or they want to stay competitive against the cut-rate pricing policies of China.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
So private schools aren't able to provide a good product given that profit may be part of the equation?
No one said that. There are many excellent private schools that make a profit. Just as there are many excellent public schools that don't. The point was that once you've got a corporate bureaucracy running K-12 education, no one cares anymore where the profits came from. Whatever keeps them coming in the fastest is what they are going to do.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
It's a wonder how they remain a viable option to those rich enough to afford them.
Only the elite private schools are expensive. The majority of private schools is officially rather cheap. For one reason, they cut a lot of corners that public schools don't. For another, many of the contributions that support private schools are tax-deductible to the people who make them.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
The only industries that need to be regulated are the ones that the government created as monopolies to begin with...
In my view, all industries need oversight and regulation, just some more than others. Left to their own devices, all of them are liable to engage in conspiracies to defraud and otherwise damage the public. Don't make me start quoting Adam Smith again.
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Originally Posted by twojciac
Some companies may choose to open large franchises of schools to lower costs... but by no means are people forced to send their children there...
Well, once BankOne takes over all my existing neighborhood schools, what are my options? Drive 20 miles to the ClearChannel school over in the next county? All the private schools in my area already have long waiting lists and cost way more than what a voucher will cover. How do you figure I and many more like me aren't forced to send our kids to the new McSchool? The law says we have to send them somewhere...
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Originally Posted by twojciac
People will choose to send their children where they perceive value and/or quality. As long as you don't bar entry to the small businesses who want to compete with the larger businesses, you have competition for that value and/or quality.
It's the fact that this doesn't happen -- i.e., viable voucher-schools don't just start popping up on streetcorners -- that forced Milwaukee to add sectarian schools to its voucher program. And they didn't have any mega-schools out there lobbying and otherwise acting to protect their local monopolies.
I believe I read it in some sort of scientific journal. Scientific American was hot on education for a while. Back then, *everyone* thought Japan had the best system ever. You don't hear so much about that now.
Not sure why you think that. Japanese students were among the top PISA performers in Mathematics, Science, and Problem Solving.
I follow education for the League of Women Voters, though I have to say I am speaking for myself now. I have not heard much about how fabulous Japan's educational system is for a long time. If they don't provide special ed, no wonder their students perform so well. A large sub-set just isn't around to be tested.
I follow education for the League of Women Voters, though I have to say I am speaking for myself now. I have not heard much about how fabulous Japan's educational system is for a long time. If they don't provide special ed, no wonder their students perform so well. A large sub-set just isn't around to be tested.
Well, it is entirely possible the special ed students are not part of the test taking population. The problem is, we don't know who is and who isn't part of these tests in any country.
Well, it is entirely possible the special ed students are not part of the test taking population. The problem is, we don't know who is and who isn't part of these tests in any country.
Again, I will refer you to post #200, which states:
"The information I have from the US Dept of Ed is very different. The Director of the Institute of Education Sciences at the Department of Education has gone on record stating that test takers are selected randomly in all countries and not selected from the top performers.
It would be in our country's best interest to claim that other countries were only testing certain students. The Dept of Ed can't claim that because, as stated above, test takers are selected randomly. This applies to both TIMSS and PISA testing.
"The information I have from the US Dept of Ed is very different. The Director of the Institute of Education Sciences at the Department of Education has gone on record stating that test takers are selected randomly in all countries and not selected from the top performers.
However, we don't know who is excluded entirely from the selection process.
However, we don't know who is excluded entirely from the selection process.
It is standard procedure to scrutinize the samples of students selected for testing according to rigorous standards designed to prevent bias and to ensure comparability. The tests have strict quality control procedures to ensure such.
For example, from the TIMSS FAQ:
"Did TIMSS Compare All U.S. Students with Just the Best Students inOther Countries?
The designers of TIMSS sought to have all countries, as much as possible, test comparable groups of students. Drawing on critiques of past international comparisons, they established rigorous new procedures to make sure that students taking the tests were randomly selected to represent all students in their nations. An international committee scrutinized the selection process in each country for compliance with these procedures.
The concern that all U.S. students are being compared unfairly to elite students abroad runs deepest in regard to the last year of secondary school. The conventional wisdom is that in some other countries only the best students are still in school at that age. In fact, to the extent that biases can be identified in the population samples, most of them should have favored the United States. For example, the United States has proportionally fewer 17 year olds enrolled than the average of other TIMSS countries with enrollment data. Since students who drop out presumably tend to be lower achievers, this phenomenon may enhance the relative rank of the United States."
Of course, the advantage that the United States had in this regard didn't help much. Our students still performed poorly compared to their international peers.
Seemed rather clear to me. The selected quotes referred to there being two different cultures based on what was thought to be the more important -- not the sole -- objective of teaching. Some thought sticking to the core academics, others thought producing well-rounded individuals and citizens. No evidence that either group thought that one was to be emphasized to the exclusion of the other, but your post assumed that parents would need to choose between schools that did academics and those that were social reform schools. That's a bit disingenuous to me, so I thought I'd point that out.
As for A Nation at Risk, people such as voucher proponents have misused it for 25 years in an attempt to bash public K-12 education, when the report itself specifically states that it is referring to private and parochial schools and to colleges and universities as well. A quarter century later, and there is still significant disagreement about why the raw numbers are what they are, about how they get that way, about what they mean, and about what might or should be done about it. Many of the recommendations of the original report have been introduced and adopted over the years, and are now integral parts of the educational system. No matter to those who would carp in any case.
There is a gulf of difference in the way A Nation at Risk is read between those who are truly concerned for maintaining the effectiveness and efficiency of our national educational systems and those who merely want to force taxpayers to fund their personal choices of private, usually sectarian, schools as alternatives to free public education.
I'm not sure why you would link at all to A Nation Still at Risk. This is a low-grade Heritage Foundation-inspired bit of right-wing screed. There is no known reason to give it any credence beyond that.
Eliminate all private and religious schools and the elites will make certain that the public schools will get the funding and support that is needed to produce thoughtful citizens for the future. Allowing private specialty schools is just a way of separating the children of the financial elite from the rest of us muggles.
Voucher systems are simply a way of getting government support for religious schools and cultural propagandists. They should be eliminated so we can develop a unified culture based on individual merit and not on inherited position or cult politics. I believe this should be extended to the University level as well as K-12.
I believe in a meritocratic society, not necessarily egalitarian, but not an aristocratic society. I have no truce with the people that think they are better or more suited to rule because they had the forsite to choose rich and politically connected parents.
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