Replace public schools with the free market?

[GhostWriter16]

This isn't a great OP. It was originally a reply to some side tangent in the Rhode Island thread. But maybe we can make something of it.

Reply from other thread spoilered.

Spoiler :

My first thought is that this would actually improve on it because it is well known that the US education system sucked. If you were only guaranteed to make profit based on the number of kids that have parents that choose to send them there, you'd have an incentive to make your school a good one. The government has no such incentive because they just use tax dollars to pay for it.

To be clear on what I'm proposing before said discussion, I am not suggesting that poor people not be allowed to attend schools. I'm proposing something more like, each parent gets an education fund to choose a school for their child with (Or, if they decide to homeschool, they can keep the fund as a paycheck for doing homeschooling) while the free market keeps costs to reasonable levels. This fund would be given based on number of children regardless of wealth, and could only be spent on education. (With the exception of parents who homeschool.)

I admit the one flaw is that doing it while ensuring that poor parents do, in fact, send their children to school with that money rather than spending it on something else would be difficult. To counteract this, I'd advocate sending the money from the government directly to the school of the parent's choice. The parent would never see the money, so they'd never be able to do something with it other than ensuring that their kid gets an education.

As for how the homeschooling exemption would work (To ensure that the parent that is taking that money is actually homeschooling their kid) I'd imagine current US law that ensures homeschooling parents actually homeschool rather than simply not send their kids to school would still work under the new free market system.

Come to think of it, I think I'm going to make a new thread for this post. Once I make the thread I'll remove it from this one.

The question I didn't answer in the other thread is, why do this? And why do it this way?

Education is important, there is no doubt about it, and since you need one to succeed in life, you shouldn't be denied it because your parents didn't make a lot of money and thus can't afford to send you to school.

That said, as we're finding in threads like the one with the Chicago school, public schools suck in a lot of places, and so a lot of times it wouldn't really make much sense to send your kid there if you can help it. If you are not sending your kid to a government run public school, especially if your reason is that it sucks, you should not be charged both for a crappy public school and whatever private school you send your kid to.

At the same time, I don't want the poor to be denied an education.

At the SAME time, government is a lot less inefficient than the private sector. The only advantage it has is might. The government can raise far more money through taxation than any charity can through donations, even if government is far, far less efficient with that money.

So this plan would take both the good of all schools being private (Efficiency, and not having to pay specifically for crappy schools/being charged twice for the same thing) while simutaneously taking the good in government, that it can ensure that everyone gets an education.

There are some lefty ideas here, even if it fundamentally a right wing, free-market based idea. The counterpoint is that the sum would go to each and every family, since it is being made by taxpayer's money, all taxpayers. If you are a millionaire, you'ds still get the sum of money, whatever that sum is (I'm not sure what an average private school would cost in a world without public schools, that would be what the sum of money is, based on the area it was implemented.)

Any thoughts on this idea? Good idea? Bad idea? Indifferent? Why or why not?

 

[Cutlass]

Privatizing public schools is not going to improve the results for the students or save money for the taxpayers. So pointless idea.

 

[Leoreth]

Do you really think the public school system is in such a crappy situation because it is "less efficient"? I assume these education funds you propose will use the same budget that goes to public schools now, right? So, how much money do you think is actually lacking in the system? Do we need 50% more money? And do you really believe private schools would be 33% more efficient to get that out of the current budget?

I could go into more detail how inane these "the government is always less efficient" blanket statements are. You know how private education would become more "efficient"? By investing more in areas where people can pay better. The government doesn't do that because it is inept, but because we do not want that to happen. Simple as that.

Also, how much will the government still have to overlook their testing and grading? First thing I would do when setting up a private school is promising extra good grades. Heck, the "competitors" to the public school I went to worked exactly on that principle, and everyone knew it.

 

[Evie]

At least up here, private schools get to pick their students - of course they post better result.
Not to mention that parents willing to pay to educate their kids will probably be on the side of parents who put a slightly higher value on education (not necessary knowledge, just attending school), which may lead to a different family dynamic.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Why to choose from public and private schools at all? It is XXI century out there, 3D-printers and all... Let there be open source schools!

 

[downtown]

So we've tried variations on this idea in a few cities, and we've had a few corporations decide to actually try private, for-profit K12 schools...it hasn't worked anywhere.

For starters, there isn't enough of a profit incentive in the poor students market to justify entering the business, even if the govt kicked in a 5,000 per student voucher. The margins would be too small to develop strong enough infrastructure to support at risk kids, and we'd end up with ITT Tech and the University of Phoenix, but for middle school.

The biggest reason that urban schools tend to perform poorly is the fact that their student bodies are woefully unprepared for school at every level (even kindergarten),and neighborhood schools can't have selective enrollment. What happens if you have a special needs kid, and the for profit schools don't want to take him? What happens after a kid becomes a discipline problem? If you can kick those kids out, then you can get better numbers, but then you aren't serving a large % of your students.

New Orleans almost does this, only with charters instead of for-profits, and the results (while improved) are still horrible.

 

[Berzerker]

subsidizing education drives up the cost of tuition

subsidizing home ownership inflates the cost of housing

subsidizing health care......

I agree GW, parents shouldn't be taxed into sending their kids to lousy govt schools

 

[Zelig]

At the SAME time, government is a lot less inefficient than the private sector.

Source?

 

[civver_764]

Charging money for education really rubs me the wrong way. Knowledge should be shared with all people.

I think we should move towards and educational system that is student-driven, with instructors there merely to help them along the way. We should remove the pressure of trying to get good grades or score well on exams. We should stop treating all students the same way.

There's probably lots of practical objections to this. That's ok, the details can still be worked out. I personally think the internet is a great tool for this sort of thing. Just personally speaking, most of the new things I learned from the age of 12-18, I learned through my own efforts searching the internet and stuff. And I was 100% happy to learn it, because it was my own chosen path. That was a huge contrast for me with Middle/High School, where I hardly paid attention in the classes I wasn't interested in. I believe that the biggest problem with kids not wanting to learn things is the manner in which it is presented.

As long as we have a capitalistic society, making education free isn't going to possible(teachers, janitors, builders, etc. will need to be paid). I don't see why the government shouldn't pay for it at this point in time, and I definitely don't trust rich private individuals with control over our educational system. We need to start moving towards a better, non-capitalistic society though. That way our education can become more libertarian and more accessible.

This is far from a coherent blue print of a better educational system, just my thoughts and observations of what is going horribly wrong in our current system, and some pointers on how we might fix it.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Charging money for education really rubs me the wrong way. Knowledge should be shared with all people.

I think we should move towards and educational system that is student-driven, with instructors there merely to help them along the way. We should remove the pressure of trying to get good grades or score well on exams. We should stop treating all students the same way.

There's probably lots of practical objections to this. That's ok, the details can still be worked out. I personally think the internet is a great tool for this sort of thing. Just personally speaking, most of the new things I learned from the age of 12-18, I learned through my own efforts searching the internet and stuff. And I was 100% happy to learn it, because it was my own chosen path. That was a huge contrast for me with Middle/High School, where I hardly paid attention in the classes I wasn't interested in. I believe that the biggest problem with kids not wanting to learn things is the manner in which it is presented.

As long as we have a capitalistic society, making education free isn't going to possible(teachers, janitors, builders, etc. will need to be paid). I don't see why the government shouldn't pay for it at this point in time, and I definitely don't trust rich private individuals with control over our educational system. We need to start moving towards a better, non-capitalistic society though. That way our education can become more libertarian and more accessible.

This is far from a coherent blue print of a better educational system, just my thoughts and observations of what is going horribly wrong in our current system, and some pointers on how we might fix it.

Ignoring the communist parts there is probably some merit to this. I never had any interest in math, why the heck did I need to take it all the way to 11th grade? That said, as has been demonstrated before, those sorts of ideas aren't popular on here anyways. Most people here think "Well rounded education" is more important than picking and choosing based on what is most interesting to you (Although we'd probably all agree that we need some mixture of both.)

 

[civver_764]

Math is cool as hell though. You're literally learning about the fundamental nature of reality.

I don't disagree that a well-rounded education is important. I think most people will come that conclusion themselves as well without it being forced on them. Most people have a pretty broad range of interests.

 

[emzie]

At least up here, private schools get to pick their students - of course they post better result.
Not to mention that parents willing to pay to educate their kids will probably be on the side of parents who put a slightly higher value on education (not necessary knowledge, just attending school), which may lead to a different family dynamic.

Unless I've really mistaken how Ottawa runs things, you can chose to send your kid to a Catholic school here for free, where the tuition is paid for by the city out of the same pool that pays for the public schools.

I think it's a load of crap.

 

[History_Buff]

To respond to the OP, bad idea, wouldn't work. Besides, there are non-market related reasons to school children. I wouldn't expect the market to deliver these anyway.

At the SAME time, government is a lot less inefficient than the private sector.

Then why turn schools over to the government?

 

[GhostWriter16]

Math is cool as hell though. You're literally learning about the fundamental nature of reality.

I don't disagree that a well-rounded education is important. I think most people will come that conclusion themselves as well without it being forced on them. Most people have a pretty broad range of interests.

To the first part, probably, but its too theoretical for my interests, I like practical things that I can understand.

Some math is ESSENTIAL of course, but once you get into algebra, and especially logarithms and algebra with exponents, I really just stop caring. Its just me though. By all means, pursue math, get brilliant, make lots of money. But its not for me, and I really wish I could have just stopped after 8th grade and focused solely on history and English. That's not how things work though

Second part, I ultimately agree with you, but not in elementary/middle school. The kid is too young to know what he really wants. And I know at that age I just didn't want to go to school rather than actually caring that it might help me some day That's typical "Kid stuff." But there's a reason kids don't immediately start making the tough choices.

For high schoolers, I have far less issue with it, although admittedly most people still don't. Most high schoolers don't give a crap. But honestly, I think that's on them to deal with at that point. I don't thnik that works in a communist society (Which you support) however, because in a communist society those who do get a good education and get good jobs will inevitably end up subsidizing the freeloaders. That is, unless I misunderstand your intended design for a communist society, which is completely plausible that that would be the case.

Unless I've really mistaken how Ottawa runs things, you can chose to send your kid to a Catholic school here for free, where the tuition is paid for by the city out of the same pool that pays for the public schools.

I think it's a load of crap.

Just wondering, do you think its a load of crap BECAUSE you can send your kids to a private school rather than a public school adn not have to get paid twice? Or do you have a problem with it because it specifically subsidizes Catholic schools, and not other schools?

I'd agree with you in the latter case, but if it were the former case, I think that's fundamentally a good principle that you don't have to pay for things you don't use as much as possible (I actually argued with my [for a college-level teacher, surprisingly conservative] economic teacher this morning. He disagreed with the concept, and favored charging people twice.)

To respond to the OP, bad idea, wouldn't work. Besides, there are non-market related reasons to school children. I wouldn't expect the market to deliver these anyway.

Whether you are correct or not, you probably have a good reason for coming to this conclusion, but it doesn't make sense for me. As far as I'm concerned, any flaws of the free market have to do with an inability of some people to pay, not an unwillingness to provide. As far as I'm concerned, if parents want their kids to have a good education, and the schooling market wants to make money, they will provide exactly that. In fact, if that weren't so, why do so many people attend private schools? Even in spite of the fact that in many cases they are ALSO paying for the public schools?

 

[emzie]

Just wondering, do you think its a load of crap BECAUSE you can send your kids to a private school rather than a public school adn not have to get paid twice? Or do you have a problem with it because it specifically subsidizes Catholic schools, and not other schools?

I'd agree with you in the latter case, but if it were the former case, I think that's fundamentally a good principle that you don't have to pay for things you don't use as much as possible (I actually argued with my [for a college-level teacher, surprisingly conservative] economic teacher this morning. He disagreed with the concept, and favored charging people twice.)

My annoyance is that it's only Catholic schools. Want to send your kid to a Jewish school? Pay up. Though the diversion of public funds also bothers me, but to a lesser extent. Extending your logic, people without kids shouldn't pay part of their property taxes that support schools.

Schools are a basic infrastructure that you don't get to opt out of funding any more than you can opt out of paying for the police or fire (rural Tennessee aside). If you wish to send your child to a private school, then fine, but you don't get to skirt your social responsibility to your neighbourhood and an entire generation by doing so.

 

[Zelig]

My annoyance is that it's only Catholic schools. Want to send your kid to a Jewish school? Pay up. Though the diversion of public funds also bothers me, but to a lesser extent. Extending your logic, people without kids shouldn't pay part of their property taxes that support schools.

Sounds good to me.

 

[Berzerker]

I dont have a responsibility or duty to use the tax code to compel my neighbor to send their kid to a lousy govt school

 

[emzie]

I dont have a responsibility or duty to use the tax code to compel my neighbor to send their kid to a lousy govt school

Who benefits from a better educated population? Answer: everyone.

From K-12 through graduate school at public universities compulsorily schooling and subsidised university education has to be one of the greatest public works projects in history. You have benefited from it personally even if you went to private school growing up. Don't be a selfish moocher who wants to skip passing on the benefits you gained growing up in the US.

EDIT: right, you're in Kansas. On that note, yeah, I wouldn't want to pay for public schools there either.

 

[GhostWriter16]

My annoyance is that it's only Catholic schools. Want to send your kid to a Jewish school? Pay up.

I agree with you here. That's wrong.

Though the diversion of public funds also bothers me, but to a lesser extent. Extending your logic, people without kids shouldn't pay part of their property taxes that support schools.

I wouldn't go there. If you don't have kids, YOU still benefited from the public school system. Granted, the whole premise of my OP was challenging how this works, but still, you benefited from it. So you could still easily be argued to have a responsibility to pay for it.

Schools are a basic infrastructure that you don't get to opt out of funding any more than you can opt out of paying for the police or fire (rural Tennessee aside). If you wish to send your child to a private school, then fine, but you don't get to skirt your social responsibility to your neighbourhood and an entire generation by doing so

I'd think fire should be privatized as well, although I don't feel particularly strongly about it. As for police, well, obviously. Police have to exist if laws are going to exist. My main argument with the police these days is they get away with too much* (We really, REALLY should go back to the days when you could legally use lethal violence to defend against an unlawful arrest, make those officers that would unlawfully arrest people think twice. A lawsuit is one thing, if they could lose their LIVES doing it they REALLY wouldn't want to take the chance), not because we have to pay them.

*Those that want to, that is. I recognize most police officers have NO INTEREST in taking advantage of the system, but some do. Those officers in particular should pay for it.

I don't really like the "Social responsibility" argument, the idea that you owe ANYONE something solely because you exist is ridiculous in my mind, except maybe your own parents, and even that is limited, and not enforced by law (I'd say you have a moral obligation to take care of your parents when they grow old, not a legal one). But that's a separate argument, and both of us agree that out of pure pragmatism, you can't totally eliminate it. That doesn't mean I can justify it though, and I want to minimize things I can't justify, like using force to collect money from people for the state.

 

[warpus]

When your workforce and citizenry are educated, the quality of life in the country will improve, it will produce more "minds" and more ideas, there will be more creativity, more innovation, more acceptance, less bigotry, and generally a better life experience for all. Not only that, the country as a whole will be able to better compete with other nations.

As such it is in the state's self-interest to subsidize education.

Privatized education can be dangerous because when you make education into a business - the main goal of the company in charge of whichever school will be profits. Not education..

If you can think of a way to privatize schools while at the same time not introducing the "for profit" factor, I might change my mind.