Privatizing Education

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

[quote]SteelyD wrote:
debraD wrote:
While I agree that private institutions are often more efficient than public ones, I wouldn’t agree that it is done without either exclusivity or a compromise of quality.

Could not disagree with this more. It has not been my experience, or any friend’s or family’s experience either.

I send my kids to a private school, open to all, cheaper than public schools (ie per student cost), scores are higher, kids are better behaved. Attendance is limited to a fixed number because of space and resources. By design, the classroom sizes are smaller.[/quote]

Just by being open to all doesn’t mean the school is not excluding the lowest common denominator. In order to attend this school a parent must take certain pro-active steps in their kids education. The kids who demand the most resources are already eliminated because the very thing that makes them resource intensive is the fact they don’t have parental involvement.

Wouldn’t you agree the situation would be much different if all schools HAD to follow this model? What would be the consequences for parents who don’t fulfill the requirements of the school?

If the kids get pulled from the school someone, somewhere will have to deal with them and if there are no public schools then perhaps social services. But offloading the cost of educating these kids to another cost centre isn’t really reducing costs.

I agree you are working to improve your child’s education and even at a lower cost to the government. But your situation and the situation of the other kids at the private school you chose is not comparable to the situation of the kids who are basically raising themselves.

Kids that actually trouble themselves about being kicked out are kids who are going to get the most out of their education regardless of what school they go to. The problem is the kids who don’t care.

But…you don’t actually have to deal with a real lowest common denominator because he/she doesn’t ever make it to your school.

[quote]
Fourth, mentorship-- older kids are often mixed with the younger kids to help them read, write, and do math. The older kids learn to teach and the younger kids get the help they need.

Fifth, Uniforms-- do not underestimate how much mental energy is spent on keeping up with the latest trends and the cliques that form based on what you wear. That is a non-issue at our school and the kids love it.

Finally (I could go on, but I’ll stop here)-- “Integration” is a non-issue. All our kids are equal-- black, white, latino, indian, etc. It’s wonderful to see.

The portion of my property taxes that go to public education is higher than my tuition bill for my kids. All I ask is that I get some of that back via voucher or rebate (yeah, RIGHT…)…

OH yeah-- and my wife is a public school teacher… She’s the one that said our kids will never step foot in a public school.[/quote]

42

Spend the money on school and save the money on prisons… get lifelong taxes from productive members of society as an added bonus.

Woohoo! :wink:

43

[quote]debraD wrote:

Every student does not have identical needs and there will a larger burden of some areas and smaller in others. What is the motivation for a school to operate in an area populated by students who have more expensive needs? (ie. kids whose parents do not/cannot play an active role in their education)

What is the motivation for the school to even open under such conditions when it can open somewhere else cheaper?
[/quote]

That is like saying, why would anyone open a restaurant in a less than perfect location?

Because the best places are already taken and you can still make a shit load of money in the second best places. Or the third, forth or, evil incarnate, Walmart level.

I hereby put forth the bold idea that most children would benefit greatly from the kind of education Walmart could provide, if the company ever went in the school business.

44

I you were a corporation competing for voucher dollars, how would you separate yourself from the competition? Taking problem children and turning them into model students wouldn’t a bad competitive advantage.

The biggest problem right now is there is no competition for the average student. The current crop of small private schools is not in any way indicative of what a privatized school system on a national or state level would look like.

Matter of fact, communities could still decide to provide schooling and compete with private schools. There is absolutely no reason why they cannot compete. They just need a reason to become more efficient and effective. Right now they have no reason to try very hard to accomplish this.

Direct funding of Universities has been just as damaging. Couple this will easy money for student to pay ridiculous amounts for tuition, and you have reduced the demand for students while simultaneously increasing demand for education. Not good for the average student.

We would all be better off if the feds and the state provided vouchers to students, rather than funding universities directly. gov’t subsidized student loans should go away as well.

There is no reason why we wouldn’t see new investment products like bonds or stocks issued for education. Either a fixed return on a “loan” made to a student or even promise of a % of future earnings.

Companies offering these could even negotiate lower tuition rates on behalf of student customers. There would be real incentive to lower initial investment for a given return. No such motivation in the current funding structure.

It is no surprise to economists why public education is expensive and less than effective. It is no surprise to economists that college tuition is insanely expensive.

45

An alternate solution to the problem Debra talks about is to increase the value of vouchers to children with special needs.

In reality, this already happens. Schools spend additional dollars on kids with various disabilities.

What if, these kids with “special needs” were tested by a neutral part, and if deemed by society to need additional help, the value of their voucher goes up, thus increasing the incentive to accept them into your classroom. In some ways this would be similar to existing disability pay

46

[quote]shookers wrote:
An alternate solution to the problem Debra talks about is to increase the value of vouchers to children with special needs.

In reality, this already happens. Schools spend additional dollars on kids with various disabilities. What if, these kids with “special needs” were tested by a neutral part, and if deemed by society to need additional help, the value of their voucher goes up, thus increasing the incentive to accept them into your classroom. In some ways this would be similar to existing disability pay[/quote]

Hey, if this gets us going in the right direction, sure. I am sure a voucher program will be abused and used for political favor like any other program. At least we competition amongst schools which should provide a better education.

47

[quote]dhickey wrote:
shookers wrote:
An alternate solution to the problem Debra talks about is to increase the value of vouchers to children with special needs.

In reality, this already happens. Schools spend additional dollars on kids with various disabilities.

What if, these kids with “special needs” were tested by a neutral part, and if deemed by society to need additional help, the value of their voucher goes up, thus increasing the incentive to accept them into your classroom. In some ways this would be similar to existing disability pay

Hey, if this gets us going in the right direction, sure. I am sure a voucher program will be abused and used for political favor like any other program. At least we competition amongst schools which should provide a better education.[/quote]

Agreed. Not perfect, but certainly better than the status quo

48

[quote]Headhunter wrote:
malonetd wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
We already have enough difficulty finding teachers who know how to teach. If we make teaching like any other job (no tenure, low benes) it damn well better pay like an engineering job.

Tenure is necessary in teaching because the subjects don’t change. Algebra is algebra. So, what prevents a private employer from firing older teachers to save money? Do you want your children taught by a rotating crop of newbie 24 year olds? No one will enter the field knowing that they’ll be an unemployed 50 year old.

Teaching sucks. I’ve been doing it for 29 years and it truly is a bastard. Try to get a room full of sleepy teens to do Trig at 8:00. Good fucking luck.

It therefore better pay like a motherfucker or have tenure, or no more teaching.

If education were privatized and parents were given their choice of schooling, they would chose to go were the best teachers were. In turn, schools would keep and pay those good teachers that brought in more business.

Nope. Why do you think Walmart does so well? People want the cheapest possible shit, at the cheapest possible price, provided by the trapped working poor and Chinese coolies.
[/quote]

Of course, people want cheap shit at low prices. But if you want high quality goods, you don’t find them at Wal-Mart (with some exceptions). If I want high quality tools, or high quality clothes, or high quality beef, I look outside of Wal-Mart.

49

Model the American public education system after the Canadian public education system. That of the Edmonton Public School Board (Alberta) specifically. It’s won international awards.

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a task force to study the EPSB specifically as a model for the reform of California’s school system.

Schools are all run as independent not-for-profit “businesses” whose revenue is based on both student enrollment and performance.

Unlike in the American system, students are not “assigned” to a school based on where they live. Students can register in whatever school they choose (or rather, their parents choose). If a school fails to deliver, it will see a drop in both student performance and enrollment. This means less money and staff getting fired.

This creates an organizational environment where every employee has a vested interest in retaining as many students as possible and that every one of those students achieves to the best of their ability.

It’s not privatization that creates efficiency, it’s the competitive element.

Force public schools to compete for government funding through an objective criteria of student enrollment, retention, and academic success and quality will improve dramatically.

ElbowStrike

50

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
That doesn’t make sense. Society is not responsible for the behavior of individuals. Society does not bear an expense but rather the individuals who choose to act “anti-socially” do.

Go ahead an take responsibility for other people if that’s your bag…leave me out of it.[/quote]

This is exactly the attitude that has created modern American society. The society with the highest rates of murder, rape, assault, pedophilia, serial murderers, all violent crime, depression, and suicide in the developed world.

But hey, it’s not “society’s” fault, it’s just that so many individuals just happen to be “bad people”. Your personal contribution to the greater social framework has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

ElbowStrike

51

have fun finding enough teachers to do it.

its nice that more well off people can afford to send their kids to private schools and get smaller teacher to student ratios but what about the rest?

are they fucked?

teacher shortage is a huge reason why public schools do poorly.

52

[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
its nice that more well off people can afford to send their kids to private schools and get smaller teacher to student ratios but what about the rest?

are they fucked?

teacher shortage is a huge reason why public schools do poorly.[/quote]

There will always be well-off and poor. This should not matter as long as schools were allowed to compete outside the purview government. These kids are not necessarily “fucked” because there would be enterprising people who would see the need for mass amounts of cheap education.

The reason why there might be a shortage of teachers is because government is too restrictive with regulation and the teacher’s unions bar entry into the education field.

53

[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
That doesn’t make sense. Society is not responsible for the behavior of individuals. Society does not bear an expense but rather the individuals who choose to act “anti-socially” do.

Go ahead an take responsibility for other people if that’s your bag…leave me out of it.

This is exactly the attitude that has created modern American society. The society with the highest rates of murder, rape, assault, pedophilia, serial murderers, all violent crime, depression, and suicide in the developed world.

But hey, it’s not “society’s” fault, it’s just that so many individuals just happen to be “bad people”. Your personal contribution to the greater social framework has absolutely nothing to do with it.

Whatever helps you sleep at night.

ElbowStrike[/quote]

Do you understand what collectivism is? Do you know why all of its ideologies fail? Because it disregards the individual and packages him up with the rest of the sheep. It is tries to create equality where none exists; it tries to level the playing field by stripping the productive of their efforts. It is the reason for the downfall of civilization.

Crime is not the product of free society. You really need to work on your arguments. They are weak and they fail.

I never said people should not look after their brethren; however, I do believe it is immoral for anyone to force me to do it. I do not belong to a collective. I am free.

54

[quote]PB-Crawl wrote:
have fun finding enough teachers to do it.

its nice that more well off people can afford to send their kids to private schools and get smaller teacher to student ratios but what about the rest?

are they fucked?

teacher shortage is a huge reason why public schools do poorly.[/quote]

That makes 0 sense. In a competitive private enviroment, teachers will get paid precisely what their value is by the schools, just like in any free-market system.

If they can’t attract good teachers, pay them more.

55

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
I do not belong to a collective. I am free.[/quote]

Sorry, bud. It doesn’t work that way. Humans are pack animals. The community, the city, the province or state, and the nation are artificial constructs that fulfill the human need for a tribe.

There’s a term for when these super-tribes fail: Dark Ages.

If you want to live independent of a collective, you’ll need to set up your permanent residence in international waters.

ElbowStrike

56

[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
Humans are pack animals.
[/quote]

But we require our own resources for survival and they have no reason to be the same for each and every one of us.

If collectivism is the correct ideology then so is communism, socialism, racism, sexism and every other ideology that attempts to identify individuals by a group they happen to fall into. These are all collectivist ideologies.

So which of these do you identify with?

57

[quote]ElbowStrike wrote:
Model the American public education system after the Canadian public education system. That of the Edmonton Public School Board (Alberta) specifically. It’s won international awards.

Governor Schwarzenegger sent a task force to study the EPSB specifically as a model for the reform of California’s school system.

Schools are all run as independent not-for-profit “businesses” whose revenue is based on both student enrollment and performance.

Unlike in the American system, students are not “assigned” to a school based on where they live. Students can register in whatever school they choose (or rather, their parents choose). If a school fails to deliver, it will see a drop in both student performance and enrollment. This means less money and staff getting fired.

This creates an organizational environment where every employee has a vested interest in retaining as many students as possible and that every one of those students achieves to the best of their ability.

It’s not privatization that creates efficiency, it’s the competitive element.

Force public schools to compete for government funding through an objective criteria of student enrollment, retention, and academic success and quality will improve dramatically.

ElbowStrike[/quote]

How does funding work? In the US, funding come from the district/county level primarily (although also from the state and federal level). For this, people will pay higher taxes in certain areas for better schools.

So a privatized system could work atthe district level…but how would it work if people could send their children out of district? I don’t think it would. How does Alberta do it?