92 replies to this topic

[Mangala]

Is there an education crisis in America? Should we institute school vouchers? Should there be more local control, or state regulated standards? Should better education go to the person with more money? What leaves Americans behind in terms of education?

[Mind]

I say there is an education crisis in America. Standards and grades are falling with respect to the rest of the world.

My solution would be to gradually eliminate public education. Leave education up to the private sector. The idea of public education arose out of the industrial revolution. Up until that point in human history education was essentially private. The industrial revolution forced urbanization and created wealth (versus agricultural subsistence). Greater wealth and politcal power amongst the lower classes allowed them to achieve "things" that were only available to the privaledged in previous centuries. Now we are evolving towards an age of information and I feel the public education system that made sense during the industrial age is no longer adequate. Information is pervasive and essentially free. The only role I can see for government is to keep the information flowing. Libraries, telecommunications infrastructure, etc...

I feel that private education and homeschooling would provide a more diverse and higher quality educational experience.

[Lazarus Long]

Leave education up to the private sector. The idea of public education arose out of the industrial revolution. Up until that point in human history education was essentially private. The industrial revolution forced urbanization and created wealth (versus agricultural subsistence).

Mind, I beg to differ, and any serious study of history will support what I am about to claim, while home education was private, as well as many Guild apprenticeships, such as engineers, doctors and lawyers, most higher education was the product of religious institutions. Any attempt to privatize completely the process of education will in fact encourage the religious institutions at taking back their historic claim to this area of social control by default. Even such institutions as Oxford owed their support and allegiance to vested oligarchic interests in a completely unabashed fashion and were bulwarks of imperial intent during centuries of European intrigues.

The very word Academy is an inheritance from Plato and his private attempts were anything but supportive of such concepts as Democratic Freedom and Equal Access. He was overtly seeking the creation of a Philosopher King to create a practical Oligarchy to replace the viscitudes of Democracy. Try rereading his Republic and you will see what I am talking about.

The First great success in his attempt to change the course of Hellenic Destiny was the work of Aristotle's student Alexander, son of Philip of Macedonia and the history for all Western People will forever date to this impact. The fall of Alexander laid open the avenue Roman States intervention in Mediterrainian Politics and the power struggle between the Carthegian/Hellenic free market interests and the Roman Military Industrial Transnational Imperialists eventually results in the fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of the Roman Empire.

Globalism is not a new idea.

[Lazarus Long]

Let Public Education exist as a guarantee of competition and encourage the process that the liberal community abhors, the application of vouchers and Charter schools that provide alternatives that extend choice for more people.

Also there should be more of a reality check as some schools should be returned to a meritocracy as opposed to oligarchy standards, reward intelligence, discipline, and serious scholarship instead of political expertise at manipulating Public Boards of Education, Grant Writing Skills, and Select Funding sources.

The issue of Public education isn't just a domestic concern either, it is the core question surrounding the possibility of a stable global environment. It must be understood that most people in the world to this date still do not have access to basic education and there can be no effective Free Market and Democratic Global Process untill this conditionis ameliorated.

The reason that not just founders of the United States, such as Ben Franklin, but later Educators and political philosophers such as Dewey and Pierce argued for public education is that no democracy can survive the ignorance of its citizens.

The future of any Democracy of Free People is dependant upon their level of understanding for the problems that face their society in common and their willingness to participate in enacting solutions. Public Education is as important, if not more so, then the maintainence of a Military in the Interest of National Security.

The fact that the result of modern education is so poor is an obvious indictment of the methodology and goals of the process, not the ideal for its existence. we do not educate we use the institutions to socially engineer. This usurpation of the process is at the core of the dilemma.

When we teach a Free People to think freely for themselves then we will have in fact a viable system of Public Education. Your criticism is appropriate in stating that little true education is taking place and that too much effort is made to indoctrinate students to social models that no matter how well intentioned have the counter-productive effect of actually reducing their effective ability to actually think.

[bobdrake12]

When we teach a Free People to think freely for themselves then we will have in fact a viable system of Public Education. Your criticism is appropriate in stating that little true education is taking place and that too much effort is made to indoctrinate students to social models that no matter how well intentioned have the counter-productive effect of actually reducing their effective ability to actually think.

Lazarus Long,

One of the issues is the courses being taught (or better phrased not being taught) in a large number of public high schools.

For example, what eliminates most football recruits from passing admissions at Notre Dame is not their SAT scores, but their lack of completing 16 core courses (math, english, science, foreign language, etc.). About 2/3rds of the available recruits do not make the admissions standards at Notre Dame.

Upon further investigation, I have found that a considerable number of high schools don't even offer 16 core courses in my local area. When I have discussed this issue with a number of high school students in the Los Angeles area, I have encouraged them to take their core courses at a local two-year college. What is unfortunate is that many high school students are unaware of the core course requirements to get into many universities.

bob

[Mind]

The fact that the result of modern education is so poor is an obvious indictment of the methodology and goals of the process, not the ideal for its existence. we do not educate we use the institutions to socially engineer. This usurpation of the process is at the core of the dilemma.

I am glad you see the problems with public education also. I must agree that the "ideal" is not all that bad, just the process.

My main beef with government run schools is with government "control". Throughout history, I believe most conflicts (wars and death) have been the result of "lack of information" or too much of the wrong information (propaganda). Tyrants and dictatorial regimes (including communist) live and survive by controlling information and education. As an example: If the American public and the Iraqi public had greater access to information about each other's society there would probably not be a need for military conflict.

Anyway, we agree on the main point. Maybe public education should not be phased out, but I feel there should definitely be a greater emphasis on alternative education like private schools and home schooling - to encourage diversity of thought and counterbalance government propaganda.

[Lazarus Long]

As does seem to often happen we are all basically in violent agreement. What Bob says is true and the reason it occurs is because the priorities for curriculum are highly questionable. Too much so called education is simple indoctrination and what isn't is becoming skewed to fulfill test standards that are themselves questionable.

I like the idea of Private and Charter schools offering competition to the Public Schools but these attitudes make me a pariah among my colleagues.

[Mangala]

Lazarus I can understand your wanting to implement vouchers into the school system to allow more chidlren the opportunity to enter schools of their preference, but would you please comment on the possible effects of public schools such as:

1) By letting young people choose private schools for higher education, the public schools will just continue to fail and get worse. One of two things could happen, one the public school will just become worse, or two the public school will be shut down because every student's parent decides to put them into the local private school.

2) Private schools are private because they do not want everyone coming in. If vouchers allow children to go to their choice of private school, private schools will just increase their prices to allow smaller classes, which will not solve the problem for less fortunate students.

How would these problems be solved?

[thefirstimmortal]

Government schools have been deteriorating for decades. Students seem to learn less and violence has become a bigger part of the school day. Despite all the promises, education is one more political problem that never gets solved.

But fear not, help is on the way.

The President and governors from all over America have formulated a plan to fix the schools within ten years. The plan encompasses six key goals:

1. All children will start school ready to learn;
2. The high school graduation rate will increase to 90%;
3. All children will be competent in core subjects;
4. The United States will be first in the world in math and science;
5. Every adult will be literate and able to compete in the work force;
6. Every school in America will be free of drugs and violence.

Oooops, sorry. These are the goals the governors set back in 1990. All were to be achieved by the year 2000. Unfortunately, as with every other political promise for education, none of the six goals has been realized.

[thefirstimmortal]

The Democrats and Republicans continually offer grand proposals to make the schools work better, but the proposals always turn out to be more of the same policies that are already failing, only more expensive than before.

[thefirstimmortal]

Here were the proposals Bill Clinton and Al Gore made:

Increase the amount of money that travels from your local school district to Washington and then back to your local school district.
More federal money to hire new teachers and reduce class size.
More federal money to modernize school facilities.
More programs to teach students how to resolve conflicts.
More facilities to police students more closely, to control weapons and drugs.
More federal money to provide pre-kindergarten education.

These ideas were offered as examples of bold and innovative thinking. But every one of them has already been implemented. Between 1950 and 1995, in American elementary and secondary schools:
Class size was cut virtually in half, with the average ratio of students to teachers falling from 29 to 16.
The average annual expenditure per student rose 307% even after allowing for inflation. The annual cost per student in government schools (adjusted for inflation to 1999 dollars) was $1,814 in 1950 and $7,376 in 1995.
The average teacher’s salary doubled, after allowing for inflation.
Spending for school construction and other capital projects increased by 281%, after allowing for inflation.
The number of non-teaching supervisors per student rose by more than half.
The amount of education money making a round trip to Washington and back to your local school district rose, after allowing for inflation, by 1,783%.

Did these improvements make the schools a fit place for your children to learn? Vice-President Al Gore pronounced the verdict in October 1999:

"The teachers are overburdened. The classrooms are over-crowded. The buildings are falling down. The reform agenda is underfunded." (Al Gore)

Now here’s the part you may find difficult to understand. He is saying that spending enormous amounts of money to reduce class size, build more buildings, increase teachers’ salaries, and involve Washington ever more deeply in local education has produced dismal results. So what does he propose as a remedy? Spending enormous amounts of money to reduce class size, build more buildings, increase teachers’ salaries, and involve Washington ever more deeply in local education.

[thefirstimmortal]

While Democrats are focused exclusively on government schools, the Republicans want to go further extending the government’s mechanisms of failure to private schools.

They don’t say that, of course; they call their proposals “school choice.” But what they’re proposing practically guarantees to eliminate private schools as an alternative to government education, leaving parents with no choice whatsoever.
Consider, for example, the system the Republican Governor set up in Florida in 1999. It will give some poor parents vouchers to pay for their children’s tuition at private schools. But any private school that participates in the program:

Must file detailed reports on its own finances and the finances of the families of all its students, not just those using vouchers.
Must conform to all federal anti-discrimination policies, which would eliminate single-sex and religion-based schools.
Must accept any student who arrives at the door with a voucher, regardless of his academic history; so the students who were disrupting your child’s class at the government school could disrupt his class at his private school.
Must use roughly the same qualifications for teachers that are used at government schools.
Must “accept as full tuition and fees the amount provided by the state for each student” thereby imposing price controls on the school.
Must abide by state regulations regarding discipline, which probably will prevent the school from expelling violent students.

It’s no wonder that, in the entire state of Florida, only five private schools agreed to accept students carrying vouchers.

[thefirstimmortal]

Republican politicians assure us they can enact a federal voucher program that won’t force private schools to change their policies. But try to think of a single government aid program that hasn’t come with a thick rule book and tangled strings.
Even if the initial program were to give free rein to each school to do as it pleases, what would happen when the next Congress or state legislature took over?

Government programs don’t stand still. They grow and change. And the politicians who guarantee that government will never cross some boundary line are eventually replaced by politicians who believe government controls are essential. The promises made at the outset of any government program are meaningless.

When federal aid to local government schools began in the 1960s, federal bureaucrats were prevented from setting any rules for local school districts. Today Washington imposes rules governing pupil-teacher ratios, teacher qualifications, “sensitivity” training, drug education, discipline policies, bilingual education, sex education, and equal funding for boys’ and girls’ sports.

If politicians exert this much control over government schools, why won’t they do the same with private schools once they control the money? In fact when has government ever subsidized anything without controlling it?

[thefirstimmortal]

Hooking Schools with Subsidies.

Look at what has happened to colleges.

Since 1975, if a single student at a college public or private receives any kind of government grant (even if the money doesn’t pass through the college), the school must comply with a long, long list of federal rules.

It might seem that any private elementary school could just drop out of a voucher program if the federal government began imposing oppressive controls. In principle, it could. And so could colleges resist controls by dropping out of aid programs. But colleges don’t drop out. Once it’s become dependent on the manna from Washington, no college will turn it down no matter how bad the controls become.

In recent years, the federal government has forced the Virginia Military Institute and the Citadel to overturn their most basic policies. Either could have evaded the dictation simply by rejecting all future federal aid, but neither did.

[thefirstimmortal]

Federal subsidies run up the prices of everything they touch, and private schools would be no exception.

Again, colleges allow us to see ahead to what will happen to private schools. In the 1950s a rule of thumb was that a good college cost a student about $1,000 a year, including tuition and books. Today, the cost at a typical college is over $20,000 per year, with more elite schools costing as much as $50,000.

This is because government “vouchers” in the form of G.I. Bill tuition, Pell Grants, student loans, and a host of other government subsidies have pushed the demand for a college education well past the supply.

As college costs rise, the politicians run to the rescue of hard pressed families with ever more subsidies. But each new subsidy allows colleges to raise their prices to capture most of the new money. That provokes a new round of subsidies, leading to even higher tuition costs.

In every way, federal aid has damaged American colleges. As Ronald Trowbridge has pointed out, vouchers for college education have spawned “pervasive political correctness, excessive dropouts, and exorbitant costs.”

Is that what we want for private elementary schools and high schools? There has to be a better way.

[thefirstimmortal]

And make no mistake, there is.

To understand the school problems, we have to realize that they have nothing to do with class size, teacher credentials, or the amount of money being spent.

Even after allowing for inflation, the increase in college costs is great.

Why does education become ever more expensive and ever more inefficient while other things get cheaper and better?

Imagine if the computer industry were like education. A typical computer wouldn’t have dropped in price from over $1 million to under $1,000, while becoming thousands of times more powerful and several times smaller. Instead, the price would now be in the trillions of dollars; it would do addition, subtraction, a little multiplication, but no division; and instead of sitting on your desk, it would fill up your entire neighborhood.

Why such different results between education and computers?

Education is the province of politicians and bureaucrats who will never personally face the consequences of their own decisions, no matter how much they ruin your children’s education.

Computers are the province of profit-seeking business-men who must continually find new ways to please you by doing more with less or else lose their own money and go out of business.

Unlike computer companies, government schools are monopoly organizations, backed up by all the guns of government. Vouchers won’t make government schools more competitive, because government schools don’t have to compete. No matter how many students they lose to private schools or home schooling, government schools still take their money by force, and they cite their worst failures to demand even more money.

Government schools are not educational institutions. They are political agencies.

So it’s no wonder that their policies are dictated by the teachers unions, administrators’ unions, and the utopian fantasies of the teachers’ colleges. There are no rewards for local innovation, no opportunities to solve problems with new methods, no way to be compensated for superior performance.

Government schools wind up teaching many things that would horrify parents, if the parents were fully aware of what’s being taught. Sexual techniques, drug use, death education, and sexual-abuse paranoia are just the tip of the iceberg. Students are taught to badger their parents to recycle and to practice other environmental pieties. If classic literature is ever studied, it’s more likely to show how unenlightened and insensitive people once were, rather than to show students the complexity of life and the richness of the English language.

The time and resources are always available to teach children to conform to trendy thinking. But if parents complain that their children aren’t learning enough math, science, history, and reading, the politicians respond that there isn’t enough money unless you vote for the next tax increase.

And why would we expect it to be otherwise? Under no competitive pressure, school administrators are free to indulge their wildest ideas for indoctrinating children to be better citizens of the New Order. In such a system, the best teachers in the world have no chance.

[thefirstimmortal]

Hummm, come to think of it, if governments ran the supermarkets, we’d all have to attend food board meetings and lobby to try to make our favorite mustard the monopoly choice for everyone. And day-old bread would be on the honor roll. If government built our cars, only the super-rich could afford a Yugo and Chevys wouldn’t be available at all.

Because schooling is run by government, you’re not allowed to decide what kind of education you want to pay for. The money is confiscated from you through taxes and then you, your children, and the teachers must all beg for crumbs from government.

You don’t get to decide which school your children will attend, you don’t get to choose the curriculum you want. Your only role is to shut up and pay.

Why? Because you aren’t a professional educator, and thus you’re not competent to make such decisions. As though you haven’t managed to choose an appropriate job, buy a good house, eat good food, and raise your children without being a career consultant, architect, farmer, or child psychiatrist.

[Lazarus Long]

Mangala says:

1) By letting young people choose private schools for higher education, the public schools will just continue to fail and get worse. One of two things could happen, one the public school will just become worse, or two the public school will be shut down because every student's parent decides to put them into the local private school.

2) Private schools are private because they do not want everyone coming in. If vouchers allow children to go to their choice of private school, private schools will just increase their prices to allow smaller classes, which will not solve the problem for less fortunate students.

How would these problems be solved?

As O'Rights has already addressed it is specious and deceptive to blame the future possibility of money being diverted for the already deteriorating condition of many Central urban schools. Diverting capital will also represent a reduction in population pressure or their funding will not be effected. In other words as population pressure dimminishes they have the option to do a better job with less.

The fact is that stresses in these schools are already past critical and that waste is endemic. Here in Latin America where I am at the moment, the schools are at times producing much better educated students with far less glamor and chinze. However here the system is not confounded by simple beaurocratic waste but instead an entrenched cleptocracy. The only practical difference in how many inner city schools are run is that it is the waste itself that is the goal of the system and not the theft of resources. Just examine the basis of budget writing.

One absolute rule of budget managment is that nothing shall be saved from one budget to another or there will be no ability to demonstrate need for the subsequent semester. This represents institutionalized waste.

Your either/or scenario for number two is an empty threat as neither of the two probabilities proposed is likely at all.

In your second dilema, you start with a false assumption about EXCLUSIVITY that is an element of some private schools but not all by any means and regardless there are Magnet Public Schools now that operate with a principle of exclusivity and require high academic, or specific talent levels, simple good luck of the draw in order to be admitted.

As to the second part of the question it really describes the more significant bait and switch aspect of the Voucher Proposals, there are few if any voucher proposals that will acually provide sufficient funding to allow most impovershed children to attend private schools without significant additional funding or scholarships from third party sources.

Clearly I have tried to astalish that an educated public is a requirement of a democracy or it must fail for lack of the ability of the populace to be rationally involved in the complexities of governance, so I do think that at least minimum standard must established to helpinsure that mandate but I do not think that such minimums are an adequate goal fo any society to accept. Hence I think it is critical to encourage the very principle of competition as it relates to the product of the educational system. We are a diverse and complex society in the United State and it is also not fair to say that the system has completely dailed but there are aras where the battle is clearly being lost.

Competition is one way of introducing stimulus, reflexion, flexibility and innovation back into modern education. But I think we have to also abandon parochial and antequated ideas like bimesters with summer vacations, single track academic standards and sending kids home at three.

Very simply you can't keep trying to treat every student the same and the idea of sending kids home to an empty house is absurd. Especially in inner city ghetto schools. Oh yeah and obviously there should be more rewards for achievement.

I have always wondered if we paid srudents to do their homework would it mean that more go done? And of course maybe even standards of reward commensurate with quality of work.

This last is more a humorous aside because we don't have enough funding to adequately pay teachers but it is still a valid point of view.

[Lazarus Long]

O'Rights said:
Republican politicians assure us they can enact a federal voucher program that won’t force private schools to change their policies. But try to think of a single government aid program that hasn’t come with a thick rule book and tangled strings.
Even if the initial program were to give free rein to each school to do as it pleases, what would happen when the next Congress or state legislature took over?

There is no doubt that such a rule book exists and that in fact probably more than one does. There is a constant competition for control between State and Federal Legislation, Local School Boards and State Boards of Education and don't forget the Federal and State Court willingness to intervene and micromanage local schools. Republicans are blowing smoke if they lead anyone to think they can create a new system from whole cloth, ultimately this goes back to a State by State set of debates that will set standards that vary widely around the country.

[Lazarus Long]

And since we are talking about how bad things are and could get how about an example of when it works.

Teen Science Whizzes Show 'Incredible' Discoveries

Teen Science Whizzes Show 'Incredible' Discoveries

By Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Farmers could grow more rice and shaky Internet communications could work better some day, thanks to prize-winning discoveries by teen-age scientists showcased at a national science fair on Monday.

High-school scientists from across the United States showed off work in genetics, molecular biology, mathematics and other fields that judges said rose to the professional level.

"It just blows me away. They're all just incredible," said Joel Spencer, a New York University professor who served as a judge at the Siemens Westinghouse Competition in Math, Science and Technology.

Research done by finalists in the nationwide competition could lead to faster Internet speeds, more effective antibacterial drugs and better energy conservation. One team researched black holes in outer space, while another examined more than 700 fossils to better understand why dinosaurs died out.

Several said they planned to publish their findings in prestigious professional journals.

MORE FOOD FOR THE HUNGRY


Juliet Girard and Roshan Prabhu won a $100,000 scholarship for their work identifying genes that help some strains of wild rice flower earlier than their cultivated counterparts.


Drawing on a database that described the genetic makeup of rice, the two Jersey City, New Jersey, students identified two genetic segments that directed wild rice to blossom an average of 10 days earlier than the conventional short-grain rice that feeds much of the world.


Their discovery could allow genetic engineers to develop a new strain that would take less time to reach maturity, allowing farmers to produce more and extending the growing region into colder climates.


"People consider us real scientists, and that's great because we worked so hard," Girard said.


Steven Byrnes of Lexington, Massachusetts, took the top individual prize for his theory describing outcomes in a two-player game called Chomp.

PAD AND PENCIL

Using a pad and pencil, Byrnes was able to detect patterns among the millions of possible outcomes in the game, an accomplishment that judge Spencer described as "real progress."

Mathematical study of Chomp and other similar games has proven handy in computer communications, potentially allowing cell telephones or other devices to fill in the gaps when a less-than-perfect signal is received.

But Byrnes said any practical application of his work was years away.

"It's forming the basis of a new field of math, and in math you build the theory first," he said of his work. "I'm just really excited about this stuff, because it fits together so beautifully."

Craig Venter, who helped to develop a map of the human genetic code as chief scientist at Celera Genomics (news - web sites) Group, told the finalists that advances in computing power and more teamwork between scientists in different disciplines has led to a climate in which innovation is almost constant.

That sense of discovery and excitement is a marked contrast to the early 1970s, when graduate-school professors told him that nearly everything had been discovered, he said.

"Now it's almost impossible not to discover something," Venter said.

[thefirstimmortal]

The obvious answer to the education problems is to get government completely out of schooling. Let people buy education for their children the way they buy the other products and services they need.

The roughly $300 billion a year spent on government schools comes from American citizens not from Martians. Why should that money be funneled through government, subjected to waste and political maneuvering, and then doled out to schools?
Why shouldn’t you keep your own money and spend it as you think best?

Schools run solely by competing private companies would have constantly rising standards, expanded choices, and falling prices. As with the computer industry, the opportunity for profit would stimulate new ways of organizing schools and teaching that we can’t even imagine now. The cost of education might drop to half or less of what a private or government school costs today. And, oh yes, your children would actually learn what you want them to learn, or you’d move them to a better school.

[thefirstimmortal]

Without “free” public schooling, how would the children of poor families be educated?
First, an end to the income tax and school taxes would reduce dramatically the number of poor families.
Second, poor children could acquire private schooling in the same way so many of them do now, through tuition aid provided by religious schools and private voucher programs.

Far more children attend private schools today through private voucher programs than through government voucher programs. Private agencies like the Pacific Research Institute, the Independent Institute, the Charitable Choice Trust, and the Children’s Scholarship Fund administer programs to put poor children in private schools, programs paid for by such companies as Golden Rule Insurance Company, State Farm Insurance, Mobil Corp., Miller Brewing Company, and the Ford Motor Company.

And all this is achieved while government drains 47% of the national income from us in taxes. Suppose that tax load were cut in half, by repealing the federal income tax and local school taxes. Can you imagine how much money would be available to take care of any child in need of a good education?

[thefirstimmortal]

Government schools are set up by states and communities. So changing federal polices won’t get government completely out of schooling.

But there are two major reforms that can come from Washington:
1. End all federal education programs. The Constitution doesn’t authorize the federal government to be involved in education in any way. Although government schools have never been ideal, the sharp descent in educational achievement began when the federal government moved in during the 1960s.
2. Repeal the federal income tax, so that you and other parents can afford to send your children to whatever school you want - without having to pressure the school board to respect your wishes, and without having to beg the state for a voucher to a government-controlled private school.

[thefirstimmortal]

This way promises the freedom to decide for yourself how to handle school and college decisions with the money you’ve already earned, instead of the politicians’ confiscating your money and doling it back to you as though you were a child on an allowance.
True, you’ll have to give up your, or you're childrens student loan or Pell Grant - if you’re relying on that now.

But what do you want for your child - a temporary subsidy or permanent freedom from the income tax?

Wouldn’t it make more sense for your child to find a part-time job to cover part of the school costs, or to get a bank loan or to investigate less expensive schools? And then be free to keep every dollar he earns throughout his life?

With this great idea and the government out of education, you’ll win three ways: (1) you and your children will be free of the income tax burden you’ve shouldered all your life; (2) the cost of schooling will drop considerably; and (3) schools and colleges will no longer be political institutions, but instead will provide the best education possible in order to keep you as their customer.

[Mangala]

That was me up top. Lazarus, are you suggesting that public education would do better with less money yet less money as well?

[Lazarus Long]

They certainly could do more with less and might feel obligated too if they had to by necessity. Are you suggessting that the only solution is more funding when the problem is endemic waste?

What I was saying however is that if student enrollment were to drop because of students going elsewhere, then there would also be a concurrent drop in cost of operation and an increase in available space because of less density. This could be the kind of breathing room the schools require to reorganize under.

[Mangala]

That sounds good to me. It would seem to me with more money for less kids the cost per student would go up, giving inner-city schools a chance to rise up.

However, this is not what you are saying. You state that more money would be available for less kids. But as already stated the money spent on sending the kids off to private school would be lost to the schools. Do you have any idea if the math would support inner-city schools or rule against them Lazarus?

I'm all for vouchers if they work out. But still the problem remains. Even with kids in priavte schools. MOST private schools pride themselves on giving superior education to students. Private therefore becomes public and what you really do is support government help for students. I do not think Mr. O'Rights would agree with youn on that one. Education must go to the highest bidder in his opinion. Why would intelligent superior private schools want dirty trash from some inner-city public school?

Listen, I do not think money directly correlates with education but it does matter whether you think public schools should get more money or not. And something else besides money MUST be going wrong for many mid-western students to receive better education than inner-city students with the same or a lower amount of money going into the schools.

Also, you totally dodge my point Lazarus in that American private schools will raise their prices. I'm not asking for more money per student in my first dilemma, I'm saying that private schools represent a market in America where money gets you grades and success. Private schooled children are not inherently "smarter" than many inner-city schools, but they end up looking that way to people because they could not spend enough money to get the best education in the most efficient matter.

If more children start showing up to private schools with tons of money from the federal government, private schools will find themselves with the problem of having to let in more kids in, increasing class sizes and disturbing the population recommedations for the school facilities. Private schools WILL increase their prices so that there is still a market and the rich can receive a great education. THAT is how capitalism works and that is why American education is souring.

How will vouchers solve the first dilemma?

[bobdrake12]

If more children start showing up to private schools with tons of money from the federal government, private schools will find themselves with the problem of having to let in more kids in, increasing class sizes and disturbing the population recommedations for the school facilities. Private schools WILL increase their prices so that there is still a market and the rich can receive a great education.

Mangala,

Why would the class size of the private schools increase if the private schools would be getting "tons of money from the federal government"?

If demand goes up for private schools, prices would probably increase but would this a temporary or permanent condition?

Without vouchers, most public high school students who live in the lower income school districts in Los Angeles are not getting access to the core courses in the public education system unless they enroll in two year college. Because of this fact, the reality is that the students in those lower income public school districts, in general, are not getting an equal opportunity under the current system.

What makes this situation worse is that the high school students in those lower income districts (which do not provide the 16 core courses) are seldom advised of the importance of taking these core courses. Again, this is the current system and sadly so far I know of nothing that is being done to change it.

I do know of some lower income single parent families who have prioritized their family budget so that they can provide a private education for their children.

The term "rich" is a relative term. What do you mean by "rich"? How does this word, "rich", relate to the current system which is not providing some of the students in the lower income districts with access to the 16 core courses in their public high schools?

How do I know this is a fact? Because I live in Los Angeles and have advised a number of high school students about taking the core courses even if it means going through the inconvenience of taking these core courses at the two year colleges.

Another point that I want to make is that I believe it is our personal responsibilty to tell these high school students the facts of life relating to the core courses until the current system is changed. Just recently a grown woman who I advised in her high school days came over to the house specifically to thank me for what I told her (Unfortunately, she didn't live in one of the "priviledged" districts which provided the 16 core courses.). I must admit this was a surprise (because she did all the work and I just said a few words), but it was also very gratifying.


bob

[Lazarus Long]

I didn't dodge your point I said it is already relevant in that vouchers are insuffiicient to get into most poor students into Private schools. So please pay attention Mangala, and Bob has already addressed part of the response I want to make to the point about money.

All I can add is that basically you fail to understand the economics as much as the rhetoric about economics. If you reduce cost of operaton Public schools will both need less money and waste less money and if the alternatives establish methods that imrove efficiencies then these can be adpted into the Public School system to improve cost effectiveness. That is one advantage of competition and adaptation to methods develope in localized social experiments with regional cultural input.