Should Public Education be abolished?

[Bronzeage]

The thread about Ted Cruz and his plan to replace student loans with indentured servitude raised a lot of questions.

In the United States, public education has always been seen as a civic responsibility. Most places in this country have an elected school board which is independent of municipal and county governments. This board and all it's activities are funded by local taxes. Everyone pays, whether they have children or not. The principle is straight forward. Letting a generation of children who can't read, write, add or subtract, loose on the world is bad for everybody. Everybody would suffer, so everybody pays to prevent the problem.

But, do we really have to?

Why not let families provide what education they can, or care to, and let the chips fall where they may?

If we are going to be paying for other people's kids, when do we cut it off? Why at 12 years? Should it be less, or just go ahead and cover the 4 years after that?

When a person makes an investment, they don't expect an immediate return. That only happens in Ponzi schemes. So, what's the problem of putting out money for other people's education? Is there no return, or a poor return. Maybe it's just too far in the future for people who already received their education, to look forward. After all, a person who retires today may well be dead before today's first grader makes it all the way to college.

What should we do?

 

[rousseau]

I think a better idea is privatizing elementary school education. Make it so the very best education goes to the kids of families with the most money, as God intended.

 

[dx713]

I think some returns on the investment are not computed correctly, and would show in less than 20 years.
Want to be able to go to a party or a concert somewhere in the suburbs, on close to a lower-class part of the inner city, but deciding not to because of security problems? Being disturbed by power vested into the police so they can better do their job despite heavier workloads?
A real free public education might not solve all of it, but I'd guess it will help enough that your life quality improvement might be noticeable enough to be counted as a return on investment. Plus those extra policemen and insurances don't usually come cheap.

 

[dismal]

I think a better idea is privatizing elementary school education. Make it so the very best education goes to the kids of families with the most money, as God intended.

Who does the very best education go to now?

People in Washington DC publics schools?

 

[George S]

In an ideal world we would have teachers A, B, and C in that order of teaching skill. The A teacher has to turn students away and raises tuition, the B teacher makes a living, and the C teacher finds a different job because he gets no students.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

I think a better idea is privatizing elementary school education. Make it so the very best education goes to the kids of families with the most money, as God intended.

Who does the very best education go to now?

People in Washington DC publics schools?

Depends on the metric.

Some of the "best" are from wealthy parents who hire tutors to get them into prestigious schools starting at the age of 3. They are taught to follow strict regiments of study and never to question authority (because they will be the authority someday), just memorize what needs to be done. (Questioning takes up too much time. Biff needs to study his violin so he can be first chair.) These students are crushed if they receive a "B" in college (and often threaten legal action for receiving such a grade.) If these students are not hired as executives by their dad's or associate firms most have trouble once they get jobs because they have never developed independent thought nor chutzpah. This is one measure of the "best". I'm sure others have metrics.

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In an ideal world we would have teachers A, B, and C in that order of teaching skill. The A teacher has to turn students away and raises tuition, the B teacher makes a living, and the C teacher finds a different job because he gets no students.

But are they actually effective teachers? Or does teacher A get all the students because she performs sexual favors for the fathers?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I find it incredible, that the Republicans are targeting the very institutions that have made this nation what it is. They are tearing America apart in an attempt to sell off all they can so that their corporate overlords can make a few more bucks.

 

[Sarpedon]

It's not incredible, its very simple, if very shortsighted. It is a fact that the more educated one is, the less likely it is that one votes republican. Therefore, the solution is to destroy education. When looked at in this light, Republican policies make sense. (while still being profoundly stupid)

 

[dismal]

Who does the very best education go to now?

People in Washington DC publics schools?

Depends on the metric.

Suppose the metric is: where do the rich and powerful Democrats in Washington DC send their kids:

1) DC public schools
2) other

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It's not incredible, its very simple, if very shortsighted. It is a fact that the more educated one is, the less likely it is that one votes republican. Therefore, the solution is to destroy education. When looked at in this light, Republican policies make sense. (while still being profoundly stupid)

That simply isn't true, the reality is that both parties have numbers in the ignorant base.

What the right-wing wants to create a for profit education system that makes billions for investors, at the cost of good educations. There are currently, to my knowledge, no good for-profit schools in this country, yet the right-wing has been slowly pressing for a transition from public to for-profit for a decade now, with some decent success, with public money going to pay schools that are virtually empty, despite alleging a decent number for student attendance. They also want to crush the teacher union so they can have teachers get paid much less, for more work, and give them no recourse when they aren't getting paid... or drop a $50k bill on a teacher if they want to go to another school with a better offer.

The examples above aren't made up, but actual cases just in Ohio.

This is the right-wing wet dream. Squeeze money from the public schooling system, an entity that as been kept out of their reach for a long time.

 

[braces_for_impact]

The largest problem the right has with public education (pre-college) is that it's still (technically) a secular institution. After high school, students tend to run into a lot more diversity both in terms of student body and ideas, and so higher education is often seen as a threat to Christian privilege. That, and the fact that the right believes that the magic hand of the market is best equipped to handle anything, thus everything should be privatized and deregulated.

 

[Sarpedon]

That simply isn't true, the reality is that both parties have numbers in the ignorant base.

What the right-wing wants to create a for profit education system that makes billions for investors, at the cost of good educations. There are currently, to my knowledge, no good for-profit schools in this country, yet the right-wing has been slowly pressing for a transition from public to for-profit for a decade now, with some decent success, with public money going to pay schools that are virtually empty, despite alleging a decent number for student attendance. They also want to crush the teacher union so they can have teachers get paid much less, for more work, and give them no recourse when they aren't getting paid... or drop a $50k bill on a teacher if they want to go to another school with a better offer.

The examples above aren't made up, but actual cases just in Ohio.

This is the right-wing wet dream. Squeeze money from the public schooling system, an entity that as been kept out of their reach for a long time.

And the upshot will be fewer people getting higher education. Consistent with my point. I consider 'education' to be synonymous with 'public education.' I never claimed that they wanted to make education unavailable to themselves.

 

[Bronzeage]

In an ideal world we would have teachers A, B, and C in that order of teaching skill. The A teacher has to turn students away and raises tuition, the B teacher makes a living, and the C teacher finds a different job because he gets no students.

Who is paying teacher A and B? How do we rank teaching skill? Who gave C a ranking so poor he/she has to find other work?

 

[George S]

In an ideal world we would have teachers A, B, and C in that order of teaching skill. The A teacher has to turn students away and raises tuition, the B teacher makes a living, and the C teacher finds a different job because he gets no students.

Who is paying teacher A and B? How do we rank teaching skill? Who gave C a ranking so poor he/she has to find other work?

The marketplace. Teacher A becomes known as a good teacher. He can charge a lot. Teacher C just gets no students who want to pay tuition to that teacher.

 

[ksen]

The marketplace.

lol

 

[nightwyrm]

Who is paying teacher A and B? How do we rank teaching skill? Who gave C a ranking so poor he/she has to find other work?

The marketplace. Teacher A becomes known as a good teacher. He can charge a lot. Teacher C just gets no students who want to pay tuition to that teacher.

This sounds like what Hong Kong and other Asian countries have in place for cram schools and private tutors. The most successful tutoring schools have giant billboards advertisements, teaches in big lecture halls with hundreds of students, have access to tips and tricks and other resources for passing tests and exams, and attracts the best (richest) students who probably have the least need for extra schooling. The less successful tutors get by on parental word-of-mouth and small ads posted on lamp posts and has to rush from private 1-on-1 sessions in one part of the city to another.

Whether you call that an education is up to you. *shrug*

Success at the marketplace has more to do with marketing than actual education. You attract enough students and there's a higher likelihood that a few of them will do well and you then use those as your poster childs for success, attracting more students.

 

[Togo]

The marketplace. Teacher A becomes known as a good teacher. He can charge a lot. Teacher C just gets no students who want to pay tuition to that teacher.

This sounds like what Hong Kong and other Asian countries have in place for cram schools and private tutors. The most successful tutoring schools have giant billboards advertisements, teaches in big lecture halls with hundreds of students, have access to tips and tricks and other resources for passing tests and exams, and attracts the best (richest) students who probably have the least need for extra schooling. The less successful tutors get by on parental word-of-mouth and small ads posted on lamp posts and has to rush from private 1-on-1 sessions in one part of the city to another.

Do the bigger schools have better teachers, or just bigger billboards? It seems like if you can really tell which teachers are better through the market, you wouldn't need billboards.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

This sounds like what Hong Kong and other Asian countries have in place for cram schools and private tutors. The most successful tutoring schools have giant billboards advertisements, teaches in big lecture halls with hundreds of students, have access to tips and tricks and other resources for passing tests and exams, and attracts the best (richest) students who probably have the least need for extra schooling. The less successful tutors get by on parental word-of-mouth and small ads posted on lamp posts and has to rush from private 1-on-1 sessions in one part of the city to another.

Do the bigger schools have better teachers, or just bigger billboards? It seems like if you can really tell which teachers are better through the market, you wouldn't need billboards.

Exactly. I know intrinsically that Chevy trucks are better because they are built like a rock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IocCC1-jeTY

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Depends on the metric.

Suppose the metric is: where do the rich and powerful Democrats in Washington DC send their kids:

1) DC public schools
2) other

That's some awfully dumb metrics you got there.

 

[ronburgundy]

It's not incredible, its very simple, if very shortsighted. It is a fact that the more educated one is, the less likely it is that one votes republican. Therefore, the solution is to destroy education. When looked at in this light, Republican policies make sense. (while still being profoundly stupid)

That simply isn't true, the reality is that both parties have numbers in the ignorant base.

It is true, despite both parties having frightening numbers of ignorant members in their base. Among those that at least initially enroll in some level of post-secondary school, the more college they have the more they lean Democrat. The difference is 5% among those with only "some college", 12% among those that graduate college, and 20%.

It is true that among people with only high school or less that their is a 10% gap favoring Dems. However, this has much to do with the fact that blacks and hispanics leans so heavily Dem across all education levels, and they are over-represented in this lowest education level.

The relationship gets stronger if you focus on ideology on social issues rather than economic. That is both because those who lean Republican only for financial issues have more education than socially conservative Republicans, and those who lean Dem only for financial issues (they favor welfare and Unions but are socially conservative) tend to have less education than social liberals. Strength of religiosity and conservative views on almost every social issues consistently declines with each increasing level of education achieved.

Given that income is positively correlated with education and with leaning Republican, self-serving financial interests are a confounding variable that works in the opposite direction of the more direct effect that more education has on increasing liberalism. In sum, given what the separate correlational analysis show, if we could find an analysis that examines the education-party relationship, but also controls for both the effects of race and SES, it would show a notable positive relationship between education and becoming more liberal and more Democrat-leaning.

 

[Bronzeage]

Who is paying teacher A and B? How do we rank teaching skill? Who gave C a ranking so poor he/she has to find other work?

The marketplace. Teacher A becomes known as a good teacher. He can charge a lot. Teacher C just gets no students who want to pay tuition to that teacher.

Sounds good in theory, but how do we know Teacher C is not worth the money and Teacher A is worth the most? "Becomes known" is a vague term. Is it possible for a student to evaluate their teacher's performance?

Would it be like the way people evaluate their doctor? They like their doctor and give him a high rating because he is friendly and listens to them. They don't actually have anyway to judge his medical expertise, just his people skills.