NationStates Jolt Archive

The education will get better in cities because choice and competition have been introduced into and otherwise stagnant school system. In rural areas, there will still be no choice, unless the parents want to move. However, the parents will have a more direct influence over the school because the school needs their patronage. A public school does not need a bunch of students to stay in business -- a private school does. This is both its greatest strength and its downfall. It will be good because it must perform to the needs of every student, but none will be created if there are too few students.there is already a fair amount of choice in cities. In boston, there are private, public, charter, latin, and vocational schools. there is already choice.
Parents will no more control. A private institution has to serve its shareholders only. We have control, as me and NERVUN have demonstrated many times in this thread, over public schools. We elect the leaders of school districts. In the case that they are appointed, we elect the people who appoint them.



You may need teachers that know how to teach "at-risk" students. You do not need teachers that know multivariant calculus. I'm willing to bet that there is a greater pool of teachers that can teach "at-risk" students well than the pool of teachers that can teach multivariant calculus well. As for the job being dangerous...Knowing how to teach at risk students is as difficult, if not moreso than teaching multivariant calc. When you teach calc, you most likely won't have to identify abused/neglected children (and be held legally responsible if it is found they are and you did nothing). I'm willing to say without doubt that there are very few teachers who can effectively teach at risk students



Yes, but there will be more schools in the region if there are potential students there. Where there is demand, there will be supply. Chances are very high that you will live near at least one school. The only way you will not live near a school is if you live in the middle of nowhere, which is not common in this day and age.It is fairly common. Additionally, we have areas where students are already riding up to an hour to get to school, and that is in their town. We still have bussing programs in Mass. Private schools will only exacerbate the situation.



You are saying that you think there will be no schools with 20 miles of a rural area? There will be schools distributed wherever there is demand. The likelyhood of having to drive that far is miniscule.
see above.


Give them meds, send them to regular school, homeschool them, send them to a special school, or don't send them to school at all. Tough luck.The current number of people under the age of 21 served by IDEA: 6,195,113.
http://www.icdi.wvu.edu/disability/State_Tables/State20.htm
Meds aren't the answer (well, not fully). You demonstrate that you have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to special education, nor do you realize that children with disabilities are specifically protected. How do you intend on forcing a private institution to cooperate with IEP's (or find a comprable system)? There is much more to it than just "tough luck"
This is who is currently served under IDEA
http://www.ed.gov/about/reports/annual/osep/2003/index.html

IDEA serves almost 10% of our population 21 and younger. It is an even larger portion of students who actually attend school (ie, excluding those who dropped out or graduated. Additionally interesting is that most of the drop outs are later found to have been able to take advantage of IDEA services)

Sorry for being a bit late, not only was I doing research on this, but we're starting to get the school cleaned up for the new year.

So, let's get on with the show:

Of course it would raise the bar. Private schools with equal funding as government schools perform better currently. Even schools with less funding than public schools perform better.
First off, bull. Private schools are currently performing better, but not that much better. The current national report card does indeed not that private schools are, on average, scoring better than their public cousins, but it also takes great pains to note, "Factors not reported here, such as admission policies and parental involvement, can also influence student achievement." (Perie, 2005)

As we've been, repeatedly, pointing out to you, children going to private schools tend to have much more involved parents (which is shown to have a very high effect on a child's scholastic performance) and the schools get to pick and choose as to which child they will accept, and continue, to educate. Your continued reliance on this would be akin to saying that the New York Yankees is far better than the New York City YMCA baseball team. One gets to pick the cream of the crop, the other has to accept anyone coming along.

If by a "good chunk" of students you mean those extremely isolated cases in which students are hundreds of miles away from any civilization, then yes. Otherwise, it would be beneficial to everybody.
Yes, let's just ignore students! Good job. But I don't mean just the rural kids; I'm talking about those who cannot afford your schools as well. There are an awful lot of them. According to the US Census, 13 million, or 17 percent of the population under 18 years of age in the United States lives under the poverty line, who will pay for these elite schools for them? All 13 million? Vouchers? Great, we're taxing again, why not just keep the public system?
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p60-229.pdf

Also, schools would need to be more efficient and better because they have a larger pool of students to choose from, so there will be more competition among private schools.
You'd think, except that's not what the research shows.
Competition may improve outcomes by raising test scores. Such achievement measures are important to parents, and can be used to hold schools accountable. Evidence from over 200 tests in 25 separate studies shows that competition does often have a modest beneficial effect on the academic outcomes of students in public schools.
The key word here being modest. The report also goes on to state:
However, the effects of competition are modest. Approximately three-fifths of the tests show no correlation between competition and test scores (only a trivial number found evidence of a negative relationship). The average effect of increasing competition by 1 standard deviation is to raise academic test scores in public schools by approximately 0.1 standard deviation.
That's a very small, small gain for a shake up that will cost a whole hell of a lot and isolate a large number of students.

How do you figure? Certainly less. I'd say around 10,000.
Well, depends. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, you can state that there are actually over 2 million children in such situations. The numbers for 2003 (last year the stats were complied) break down as follows:

Urban population of 2,500 to 19,999, not adjacent to a metro area: 1,443,464
Completely rural or less than 2,500 urban population, adjacent to a metro area: 403,046
Completely rural or less than 2,500 urban population, not adjacent to a metro area: 461,901
http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/RuralEd/TablesHTML/2bealestudents.asp

So even if we went with the two completely rural populations of less than 2,500, we have a combined student population of over 800 thousand children. If we expand to include small towns (meaning just one, perhaps two schools, hardly competition) the number jumps to well over 2 million children. That's a lot of children you'll just dump out of school, for little benefit for the rest of the population.

It would be mirrored in the private system. Currently, we have public schools that rate, let's say, 6, 7, and 8 out of 10 and private schools that rate 7, 8, 9 and 10 out of 10. If we made all schools private, their quality of education would remain fairly constant. However, more students would get a better education, even though rich students would get a better education that poor students (this is true currently, so nothing changes).
Oh? How so? Like I said, the competition does not seem to cause all that great of a jump in test scores or educational quality.
Evaluations showed that attending a private school had a statistically significant large beneficial impact overall. However, there were no statistically significant differences between public and private students in the test score performance of non-African Americans students, and gains were not found across all grades or subjects.
As it has been noted over, and over, and over again to you, private schools currently serve a different population from the public schools.

There's also a major issue with less diversity and more social and ethic stratification with the private system. Research has shown that, "Less educated parents with more modest means are less likely to exercise choice, which raises concerns that choice systems could lead to less equity and greater racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic stratification."

There are not 1,000,000 people living in all the Gerlach, Nevadas of the US. The only people for whom this system would be detrimental are those who live in places like Gerlach, and there are very few of those. However, they can get homeschooled or something like that, so all is not lost. People in cities and rural areas benefit from the increased amount of competition.
Again, shown to be false, as well as:
Not all choices are available, or equally salient, to all parents. Non-Catholic families may not see Catholic schools as an option. Private schools charge fees. Many small, rural districts consist of only one school, so choosing another school may mean relocating

Also, some families may have ample choice in one domain (many public schools to pick from) but not in another (no private schools nearby).

Finally, the presence of many choices does not necessarily ensure greater competition.

Local schools may be so similar that it does not matter which site is selected, or schools may agree not to compete.

No, they'll be better educated on average. The same people who are allowed to vote now can do so in the future.
You just said that they didn't matter and that you would abandon them. Add in the 13 million children that live below poverty and may not get lucky enough to have someone pay for their education and you have a lot of people who can vote but might not be able to understand the ballot.

And it should be noted that it was less than a million people that handed the election to President Bush in 2000. Whether you are for or against him, that is what happened and that number is far smaller than the population you so callously propose to strip away their education.

It's not magic. To change society for the better, a good first step would be to better educate your citizenry. Fixing schools could then lead to a better society.
YOU CANNOT FIX SCHOOLS WITHOUT FIXING SOCIETY! SCHOOLS DO NOT CAUSE SOCIETY, SOCIETY CAUSES SCHOOLS! Get THAT through your head!

And it IS magic. In the world that you are building, turning all of the schools to private will somehow magically 'fix' the system and produce better students. This is a false hope.
The existing evidence suggests that choice is unlikely to be either the panacea that some advocates claim... Rather, its ultimate educational effects are likely to be influenced by the specific components of choice plans: the requirements placed on participating private schools, the size of the voucher, the eligible students, and the financing mechanism.

Making education public gives the government more control over each individual student. They would not willingly want to give up that power for no reason, even though it might work better.
And here we have the heart of the matter, the real reason that you are for private schools. Did you bother to read what I posted though? The federal government does not have control over schools. The Department of Education has no say over schools. People have the control. THEY elect the school boards, THEY elect the legislatures, THEY either elect their state boards or elect the governor who appoints them, THEY DO, NOT the bloody federal government. The people and the people alone do so. But, as I stated, (and you ignored), you probably don't even know who your elected school board rep is, or where your board meets, do you?

You also have ignored my point that all the countries that compete against us have public systems. Hell, Japan has over 90% of its students attending public schools through 9th grade and 75% in high school. So obviously public schools are doing well, with no need for going wholly over to private schools.

You also ignore the fact that there is no law against the building of private schools currently. There is no law that states a child MUST attend public school. So competition is here, but I do not see a rush of people trying to attend private schools. Seems to me then that the pubic, when it really comes down to putting their money where their mouth is, is happy with their system.

It also seems to bear out a point I have made repeatedly, education is not the same as a business, it cannot be run as one and get a good return on profit that is demanded in the business world and at the same time provide a good education to over 57 million school children in the United States of America.

Finally, just to end out, here is the conclusion of one report, and one I would ask you to address:
Although some studies establish benefits of competition, by and large they fail to consider any reorganizational costs required to promote competition. There is scant data on how much it costs to foster, regulate, and monitor competition, and on how to maintain competition. Competition reform requires money, and these financial costs of fostering competition must not be ignored.

Since the 1940s, the number of school districts has been falling while the number of private schools has stayed largely constant; introducing competition would thus mean reversing a historic trend (Kenny and Schmidt 1994). Effecting an increase of 1 standard deviation in competition would require either large-scale reform to directly offset this trend toward larger districts or a clear incentive to private schools.

Finally, equity issues need to be considered. If low-income families benefit most, then such a reform may be redistributive. However, the financial burden placed on parents will depend on whether competition is encouraged through private schools or within public schools.

Oh, and B0ozy? The dropout rate in the United States is 3% of the student population, not 20% like you attempted to list.
http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p20-554.pdf

Bibliography:
Belfield, C. R. (2003). The effects of competition on educational outcomes (ERIC digest). Eugene, OR: ERIC Clearinghouse on educational management. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED472643)

Goldhaber, D. (2001). School choice as education reform: what do we know? (ERIC digest number 165). New York, New York: ERIC Clearinghouse on urban education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED455342)

Perie, M., Vanneman, A., and Goldstein, A. (2005). Student Achievement in Private Schools: Results From NAEP 2000–2005 (NCES 2006-459). U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.

A public school does not need a bunch of students to stay in business -- a private school does.
Baloney, schools can and are closed when the target population drops below a certian level, assuming that the children can be resonably placed in another school. San Francisco just shut down a number of schools due to declining population because of space at nearby schools.

And you haven't read a single word we have posted about who controls schools, have you?

You may need teachers that know how to teach "at-risk" students. You do not need teachers that know multivariant calculus. I'm willing to bet that there is a greater pool of teachers that can teach "at-risk" students well than the pool of teachers that can teach multivariant calculus well.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Ok, you just proved you have no bloody idea what is going on in education. Not a freggin clue. Do we need qualified math teachers? Yup. Is that need far out numbered by the need of qualified special education teachers? Oh yeah. It would be even better if we could get said special education teachers to last longer than a year. Most of them transfer to regular classroom or quit. We're in a crisis actually, a very, very large one.

As for the job being dangerous...
Teaching in JAPAN of all places, I have had punches thrown at me, things (sharp pointy things) thrown at me. Had to break up a few fights where one kid was beating the other. Delt with broken glass (Or windows get smashed reguarly), blood, tears, and other fun things.

And I count myself lucky, a teacher near me got attacked by his students after class. And even then... well, two weeks ago in my hometown, a middle school teacher talked a student to put down the gun he had brought to school and had justed used to shoot two of his fellow students. She managed to do so and kept his calm till the police arived.

This is teaching.

Give them meds, send them to regular school, homeschool them, send them to a special school, or don't send them to school at all. Tough luck.
Not only against the law, but we tried that and failed. And thank you no, I am damn glad that there was a public school for me, even if I do manage to hit every catagory of special education at once (I'm REALLY special). And now I am an adult and a member of my society. The system works.

Yes, I completely agree. Schools should be privatized. Why? Because as it is, the government controls the whole school system, so the schools can demand any amount of money they want and people have to pay up in taxes. Also, the teacher's unions are so strong that it's practically impossible to get rid of a bad teacher. If schools were privatized, there would be competition between schools for the best teachers and lowest prices, so people would likely end up paying less than they do with centralized schooling, and getting more for their money.
What about poor people? Well, there would just have to be a small tax so that the poor could afford to send their children to school, but it would be much less than the average person now pays to keep up the school system.
If you strongly agree or disagree, send a telegram directly to my nation: Wolfrunk Jaggerstadt.

If you strongly agree or disagree, send a telegram directly to my nation: Wolfrunk Jaggerstadt.
Er... did you bother to read the thread?

The problem with privatizing schools is that it will stratisfy children. One of the great things about public schools, especially in diverse areas, is that you meet people from all walks of life. The are poor kids in school learning right beside upper class children. If oyu compleatly privatize education, I'm afraid this will disappear. Kids will probaly go to school with kids only in thier tax bracket. Families that get stipends from thier goverment to send thier kid to school will probaly only be able to afford schools where all students are children get goverment support. It won't make things equal; it'll just create an ever-larger gap in the children today.

Yes, because poor people should be denied the right to go to school
Agreed! :p

*snip of this post and the one above it*
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Ok, you just proved you have no bloody idea what is going on in education. Not a freggin clue. Do we need qualified math teachers? Yup. Is that need far out numbered by the need of qualified special education teachers? Oh yeah. It would be even better if we could get said special education teachers to last longer than a year. Most of them transfer to regular classroom or quit. We're in a crisis actually, a very, very large one.
:eek: ...


*bows and kisses feet*


you have been a busy man, haven't ya? That was damn impressive. Thank you.

I know a teacher in Chicago. she has a box in her desk where she keeps the bullets that have ended up in her classroom. There are over 20 in the box.
Boston, 6 year olds are coming to school in gang colors because their parents dress them like that.
Meriden, CT, there are bathrooms within the middle school that TEACHERS wont go in for fear of being stabbed
Littleton Colorado, teachers and students targeted
these aren't isolated incidents. My prof actually told us once that we should go out and get into a fight so the first person to hit us wont be a student.

Yes, I completely agree. Schools should be privatized. Why? Because as it is, the government controls the whole school system, so the schools can demand any amount of money they want and people have to pay up in taxes. Also, the teacher's unions are so strong that it's practically impossible to get rid of a bad teacher. If schools were privatized, there would be competition between schools for the best teachers and lowest prices, so people would likely end up paying less than they do with centralized schooling, and getting more for their money.
What about poor people? Well, there would just have to be a small tax so that the poor could afford to send their children to school, but it would be much less than the average person now pays to keep up the school system.
If you strongly agree or disagree, send a telegram directly to my nation: Wolfrunk Jaggerstadt.
Okay. I'll make this simple. You read through a thread. All of it. Then you reply. Other people reply to you, you reply back. Me, and most impressively, NERVUN have already tackled your arguments atleast a dozen times in this thread.

My prof actually told us once that we should go out and get into a fight so the first person to hit us wont be a student.
I can believe it. I was also told that in the case of a fight to get backup and not try to wade into the middle of it to get the students seperated. But, yes, my first time as an adult to have a punch tossed at me was a punch thrown by a student when I took away a tennis racket he was using to hit peices of chalk at students and the two teachers in the room. When one went whizzing past my nose and shattered on the board, I had enough.

He didn't like me taking it and threw a punch, but at the last minute pulled it when he realized I wasn't flinching and not being Japanese, he wasn't sure if I would hit back or not (Of course I wouldn't have, but he didn't know that).

Yeah, fun times.

I grew up in a small community with a school that had 80 students between Kindergarten and Grade 9 (before being shipped off to a bigger school for 10-12). If education were privatized there wouldn’t have been a school that small to serve an isolated community like mine because it would have been unprofitable. My parents would have had either had to resort to home schooling or had me board in a city to start Kindergarten.

This is the same problem we see with utilities, such as phone service, where weasely phone companies swoop in and demand the use of the use of existing telephone lines another company paid to put up. The experience of the consumers in places where utilities were made free market was never good for the consumer. The new companies only go after the profitable areas where there are high densities of population and let the more isolated areas die on the vine. The company that existed in the days of monopoly then has to raise their rates to keep servicing outlaying communities (whose resources fuel the cities), because the original phone company no longer can subsidize them based on the profits made in the denser population zones. Any sensible person knew that breaking up monopolies of utilities would mean rate increases, despite what market experts would tell us (because they were on the pay roll of the people who wanted to dip into this market). Oddly the media never came back with these market experts to grill them for spreading misinformation.

Privatization does work well for most of society, but not very well for education and a few other sectors that comprise the infrastructure of the state. You have to understand that privatization equals profit. When you privatize something it doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in quality or public safety. Often the opposite result is the case. The government would end up paying the bill either way and on top of paying for education the government would also end up paying out for the profit margins of the privatized schools, because without profit there is no privatization.

The Bruce

This is the same problem we see with utilities, such as phone service, where weasely phone companies swoop in and demand the use of the use of existing telephone lines another company paid to put up. The experience of the consumers in places where utilities were made free market was never good for the consumer.

Well, this isnt always true. In some places it is benificial to cutomers. But yes, in more isolated places like your own, or in more deprived areas (look at the privatisation of water and electricity in some 3rd world coutries. From before having guarunteed free water for the poorest, these people were cut off, as is it is of course not profitable), people are shafted. The thing is that people that support privatisation of untilities etc think this ok, as it is how the market works, and they have an ideological attachment to the market, and feel people should serve the market, rather than the market serve the people.


Privatization does work well for most of society, but not very well for education and a few other sectors that comprise the infrastructure of the state. You have to understand that privatization equals profit.

I wuld agree with this. Personally for health, education, railways and certain utilities, I would say a properly accountable, regulated monopoly is the best provider.

I can believe it. I was also told that in the case of a fight to get backup and not try to wade into the middle of it to get the students seperated. But, yes, my first time as an adult to have a punch tossed at me was a punch thrown by a student when I took away a tennis racket he was using to hit peices of chalk at students and the two teachers in the room. When one went whizzing past my nose and shattered on the board, I had enough.

He didn't like me taking it and threw a punch, but at the last minute pulled it when he realized I wasn't flinching and not being Japanese, he wasn't sure if I would hit back or not (Of course I wouldn't have, but he didn't know that).

Yeah, fun times.
my most recent punch was while teaching swim lessons.
"I don't want to swim a 500"
"well, you either do that or leave. We are swimming 500's today. But if you do leave, you will fail the class. This is part of your test"
fucker took a swing, and landed it pretty solid on my jaw.

can't wait untill its my student teaching in inner city boston!
And your story just goes to prove that no school system, no matter how great it is, is without problems...often the same ones we have here.

Personally think it is "the next generation is the worst" syndrome. Young people have always been criticised for behaviour, and so I cannot really believe it has really got consistantly worse, its just the people observing it dont remember misbehaving when they were younger, or otherwise, what were the Anceint Greeks like? Perfact little angels? Oh wait.... they even criticised the young. Hell, in 20 years I will probably be complaining about the generation after mine.

The system should be left as it is, "if it aint broken-Dont fix it" unless the system is going to collapse DONT TAMPER with it. When you fiddle you just screw it up for whoever is going through school at the time, so you end up with a confused possibly poorly educated yeargroup, as the system adjusts to changes.

The system should be left as it is, "if it aint broken-Dont fix it" unless the system is going to collapse DONT TAMPER with it. When you fiddle you just screw it up for whoever is going through school at the time, so you end up with a confused possibly poorly educated yeargroup, as the system adjusts to changes.The system is broken though. Privatization just isn't the answer.

Er... did you bother to read the thread?
To what exact part of the thread are you refering?

Ah. I see. Sorry, due to the length of thread, I was somewhat reluctant to read the entire thing, I admit.

To what exact part of the thread are you refering?
The 18 pages full of rebuttals to the reasons you posted.

Accountability is the big issue. The Government is not very keen to approach it because they know that once the issue gets the attention it deserves it means that they will be pressured to spend more on education, so that the public school system can do the job they are supposed to, without having to beg corporations to help them out in return for turning their schools into marketing tools.

Personally think it is "the next generation is the worst" syndrome. Young people have always been criticised for behaviour, and so I cannot really believe it has really got consistantly worse, its just the people observing it dont remember misbehaving when they were younger, or otherwise, what were the Anceint Greeks like? Perfact little angels? Oh wait.... they even criticised the young. Hell, in 20 years I will probably be complaining about the generation after mine.
to some extent that is true...but at the same time, it is shown through international groups that the US is no longer even close to where it once was. We once had the best education system in the world. today, we are among the worst.


The system should be left as it is, "if it aint broken-Dont fix it" unless the system is going to collapse DONT TAMPER with it. When you fiddle you just screw it up for whoever is going through school at the time, so you end up with a confused possibly poorly educated yeargroup, as the system adjusts to changes.
there are a few flaws here. I'll take them one by one.
First of all, the idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" is flawed. Ask anyone in a fortune 500 industry. You have to predict future problems and deal with them. Starbucks is a classic example. The young generation isn't drinking nearly as much coffee as older ones. Hence the huge number of very sweet coffees and now, the teas they offer. If they didn't react early, they would lose their market share and have a much harder time regaining it. Same is true with education.
AT&T is on the other side of the equation. They failed to modify their practices, and in less than 20 years went from being the ultimate corporation, broken into 9 companies (8 baby bells and AT&T itself), and the most widely held stock in the world, to non existant. Today, the AT&T we once all knew no longer exists. It was bought out by SBC communications, who adopted the better known AT&T name and stock symbol.
Paradigms change, and those who fail to shift to them risk failure.
This brings me to the next point. We currently have a broken system. We failed to fix the little problems back in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. Now we have a rapidly failing system overall. Changes need to be made. The debate is what those changes should be.

AT&T is on the other side of the equation. They failed to modify their practices, and in less than 20 years went from being the ultimate corporation, broken into 9 companies (8 baby bells and AT&T itself), and the most widely held stock in the world, to non existant. Today, the AT&T we once all knew no longer exists. It was bought out by SBC communications, who adopted the better known AT&T name and stock symbol.
Paradigms change, and those who fail to shift to them risk failure.
This brings me to the next point. We currently have a broken system. We failed to fix the little problems back in the 1950's, 60's, and 70's. Now we have a rapidly failing system overall. Changes need to be made. The debate is what those changes should be.Muahaha. I remember that. One of my professors actually worked for the company shortly before it went bust (which one might consider surprising for a German university).

Muahaha. I remember that. One of my professors actually worked for the company shortly before it went bust (which one might consider surprising for a German university).
granted, I did give a slightly simplified version...part of the failure was because so many parts were stripped away, but that still ties in to not predicting future market trends and reacting to them while every other company did.

granted, I did give a slightly simplified version...part of the failure was because so many parts were stripped away, but that still ties in to not predicting future market trends and reacting to them while every other company did.Actually, according to my professor the inability to cope with change was what doomed AT&T. It was in his innovations course that he listed a few examples of how not to run a company, and used his personal experience from his last days of working for AT&T as one of them.

Actually, according to my professor the inability to cope with change was what doomed AT&T. It was in his innovations course that he listed a few examples of how not to run a company, and used his personal experience from his last days of working for AT&T as one of them.
no doubt that was most of it...but it never helps to sell off your local service, cell service, cable service, and several other sections.

As we've been, repeatedly, pointing out to you, children going to private schools tend to have much more involved parents (which is shown to have a very high effect on a child's scholastic performance) and the schools get to pick and choose as to which child they will accept, and continue, to educate. Your continued reliance on this would be akin to saying that the New York Yankees is far better than the New York City YMCA baseball team. One gets to pick the cream of the crop, the other has to accept anyone coming along.

Private schools currently perform better for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is that they have high standards and may not accept those that fall below their standards, yes. However, there is another thing that makes them better -- competition. The schools have to compete with public schools, which is an uneven fight. To do this, they hire better and more experienced teachers and better students. Competition will makes schools better no matter what other external factors influence them. Private schools must fight against each other for each student while public schools don't care where each student goes, and might even prefer to have less students. Public schools have no need improve or attract students, so their standards will lag behind those of private schools. The best way to give them an impetus to attract students and good teachers is to privatize them so they benefit from doing it. Why would they try hard to do something if they have nothing to gain from doing it?


There are an awful lot of them. According to the US Census, 13 million, or 17 percent of the population under 18 years of age in the United States lives under the poverty line, who will pay for these elite schools for them? All 13 million? Vouchers? Great, we're taxing again, why not just keep the public system?

Yes, vouchers are an excellent solution to the problem. Currently, we are paying taxes that go to the schools. Wouldn't it be much better if our taxes went to the students? We would be giving a chance for those students that live below the poverty line to choose which schools to go to. Currently, they have to go a public school because they cannot afford a private one. With vouchers, they will have more private schools to choose from, and the quality of their education will improve. We can't just keep funneling our money into the sieve that is the public education system, and by extent, the government. Why not give the power to the people? The power to choose where they want to spend their money and where their children will go to school.

Urban population of 2,500 to 19,999, not adjacent to a metro area: 1,443,464
Completely rural or less than 2,500 urban population, adjacent to a metro area: 403,046
Completely rural or less than 2,500 urban population, not adjacent to a metro area: 461,901

Those numbers are the total number of public school children who live in those particular areas. A profitable school could be build if there were 2500 children in a given area. Heck, even more than that could be built. Those adjacent to a metro area could go to the school there, so the only ones left to worry about are those in rural areas which are not adjacent to metro area. There are only ~462000 students in that situation, which is 1% of the total public school students in the country (<1% of the total students, that is). Of those <1% of students, the majority live in towns with populations of over 500 children, in which case profitable schools could be built. The majority might also live near another rural area, meaning that the two could be consolidated into one if necessary. Those left out should be <0.01%, which is negligible. Anyway, they win. The private schools will teach whatever the parents in that particular area want without involvement from the state. Big Brother doesn't always know what is best to teach our kids.

As it has been noted over, and over, and over again to you, private schools currently serve a different population from the public schools.

Yes, mostly rich people go to private schools. But all that would change. Given two schools with the same amount of funding, which would you expect to perform better -- the one that does not have any competition and does not care how many kids enroll, or the one that has competition and whose success depends on how many kids enroll? I'll take the latter any day.

Research has shown that, "Less educated parents with more modest means are less likely to exercise choice, which raises concerns that choice systems could lead to less equity and greater racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic stratification."

So basically, the dumb and the poor should not be given a choice because they are too stupid and poor to make the best of that choice? Only the rich and smart should be afforded a choice because only they can make a wise decision?

Again, shown to be false, as well as:

The argument there is that there will not always be competition between private schools. There is 0 competition currently, so any competition will be better.

you so callously propose to strip away their education.

No, I so callously propose to give them a better education. You propose to send them to public schools without a choice, to force them to be educated at a sub-par institution instead of a better private school against their will. And to add insult to injury, you make them pay for a school to which they do not want to go. Public schools are failing, but you still continue to ship students off to them to receive a bad education and call the opposition "callous."

YOU CANNOT FIX SCHOOLS WITHOUT FIXING SOCIETY! SCHOOLS DO NOT CAUSE SOCIETY, SOCIETY CAUSES SCHOOLS! Get THAT through your head!

That's like saying that if somebody is sick because he/she has a failing heart, you must first cure him before giving him a heart transplant. No, you must give him/her a heart transplant to cure him/her. The same is true of our educational system -- it is the failing heart of our society. We do not need to fix society to fix the educational system.

People have the control.

So if the people wanted to teach alchemy in science class, they could? If the people did not want their school to teach any math, they could? If they wanted to teach the Bible in an English class, they could? No, the state sets the standards that every public school must follow, and the parents cannot change that.

So obviously public schools are doing well, with no need for going wholly over to private schools.

Can you name a country with a privatized school system? Public schools may work well in other areas, but in the US they are failing, despite all the money we are putting into them. Public education is like a sinking ship, and we are desperately trying to plug the holes with money, but it's not working. For other countries, yes. For us, no.

You also ignore the fact that there is no law against the building of private schools currently.

I don't ignore that fact. We have to pay tax money for failing public schools. The rich can afford to go to private schools because they have enough money. The poor, however, have no choice and cannot go to a good school because they are paying tax money for a bad school. The system favors the rich.

It also seems to bear out a point I have made repeatedly, education is not the same as a business, it cannot be run as one and get a good return on profit that is demanded in the business world and at the same time provide a good education to over 57 million school children in the United States of America.

Finally, just to end out, here is the conclusion of one report, and one I would ask you to address:

Of course there will be costs when reogranizing a system as large as the educational system. But they are worth it. Maybe I misunderstood what they were trying to say, but I saw no reason against private schools. I don't know what "burden" they are talking about. The burden will be the same as it always was.

Public schools may work well in other areas, but in the US they are failing, despite all the money we are putting into them. Public education is like a sinking ship, and we are desperately trying to plug the holes with money, but it's not working. For other countries, yes. For us, no.


Erm... all the money that is being put into them? as far as I can tell US education Budget is about $50 billion. This compares to Britain's at least (it could be more) £27 billion, which I am roughly guessing is about fairly similar (what, $45 billion maybe), even though America has nearly 6 times the population, with a school aged population rivalling the total UK population. The States does not seem to be pouring money into education, especially compared to spending on the armed forces, which comes to near half a trillion dollars. Lokking at the figures I have seen (which I admit may be wrong) the US system looks sorely underfunded, rather than having problems regardless of funding.

Private schools currently perform better for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is that they have high standards and may not accept those that fall below their standards, yes. However, there is another thing that makes them better -- competition. The schools have to compete with public schools, which is an uneven fight. To do this, they hire better and more experienced teachers and better students. Competition will makes schools better no matter what other external factors influence them. Private schools must fight against each other for each student while public schools don't care where each student goes, and might even prefer to have less students. Public schools have no need improve or attract students, so their standards will lag behind those of private schools. The best way to give them an impetus to attract students and good teachers is to privatize them so they benefit from doing it. Why would they try hard to do something if they have nothing to gain from doing it?This is rapidly feeling like I'm talking to a brick wall. There is relatively little competition with private schools. Because they are private, they can draw from several dozen towns. Hell, Chote draws from as far away as Saudi Arabia, and no, it isn't a boarding school. Same with Mrs. Porters. Is there some competition? Yes. Is this what makes it look like private schools do better? No. We have debunked this concept about a dozen times now.
Again, private schools have no need to hire a certified teacher. They will try to find the cheapest teacher...not the best.
Education does not work as a private business. There is no instant way to show how a particular year of students has done. By the time you would find out, the damage is done.




Yes, vouchers are an excellent solution to the problem. Currently, we are paying taxes that go to the schools. Wouldn't it be much better if our taxes went to the students? We would be giving a chance for those students that live below the poverty line to choose which schools to go to. Currently, they have to go a public school because they cannot afford a private one. With vouchers, they will have more private schools to choose from, and the quality of their education will improve. We can't just keep funneling our money into the sieve that is the public education system, and by extent, the government. Why not give the power to the people? The power to choose where they want to spend their money and where their children will go to school.Nope, the money still goes to the schools. If you are below the poverty line, you still have very little choice. You can't move. Public education DOES give the power to the people. We've outlined how public schools are governed. What don't you understand about it? Seriously, if it is still ambiguous, say what the problem is. Otherwise, come up with a new line of argument. There is already also competition between public schools, as better schools is one of the top cited reasons for a family moving. I don't, and I doubt NERVUN does, suggest that money is the only way to fix school. But that isn't what this thread is about.



Those numbers are the total number of public school children who live in those particular areas. A profitable school could be build if there were 2500 children in a given area. Heck, even more than that could be built. Those adjacent to a metro area could go to the school there, so the only ones left to worry about are those in rural areas which are not adjacent to metro area. There are only ~462000 students in that situation, which is 1% of the total public school students in the country (<1% of the total students, that is). Of those <1% of students, the majority live in towns with populations of over 500 children, in which case profitable schools could be built. The majority might also live near another rural area, meaning that the two could be consolidated into one if necessary. Those left out should be <0.01%, which is negligible. Anyway, they win. The private schools will teach whatever the parents in that particular area want without involvement from the state. Big Brother doesn't always know what is best to teach our kids.Where are your sources for these numbers? where do you get the figures that say the majority live in towns with populations over 500 students? Where do you figure a school with 500 people would be profitable? Leaving students uneducated hurts the child and hurts our society. I will use this example again. Honda was considering building a factory in North America, and was choosing between the South East US and Toronto. they chose Toronto because the population was "more literate, and therefore more easily trainable". This is hardly a new line of reasoning. If we want to sustain our economy, ALL STUDENTS MUST BE EDUCATED. And don't even try to make this a "big brother" thing. The federal government has almost zero control over schools. That is handled almost entirely primarily at the local level, and then the state level.



Yes, mostly rich people go to private schools. But all that would change. Given two schools with the same amount of funding, which would you expect to perform better -- the one that does not have any competition and does not care how many kids enroll, or the one that has competition and whose success depends on how many kids enroll? I'll take the latter any day.a) it would take atleast 5 years to find out how good a school is. Education doesn't have an instant pay back. Get the idea that there will be all this massive competition. There is already some competition between public schools. There won't be millions of schools. The number of schools will most likely not change at all. Additionally, there are ways to manipulate results. It isn't hard. Private business does it all the time. The school with the best ad campaign would win. I don't want my money going to ad campaigns.
Additionally, not all students at private schools are rich. They do, however, have a selected population, and have families that are dedicated to education.


So basically, the dumb and the poor should not be given a choice because they are too stupid and poor to make the best of that choice? Only the rich and smart should be afforded a choice because only they can make a wise decision? Wow...way to completely ignore what the research said. The FACT is that minorities and those in poverty are less likely to take advantage of choice. This is due to a large variety of reasons (Not far from the top of the list is the fact that where you go to school doesn't matter compared to where you may or may not be getting your next meal).



The argument there is that there will not always be competition between private schools. There is 0 competition currently, so any competition will be better.There is some competition. I've said this several times.



No, I so callously propose to give them a better education. You propose to send them to public schools without a choice, to force them to be educated at a sub-par institution instead of a better private school against their will. And to add insult to injury, you make them pay for a school to which they do not want to go. Public schools are failing, but you still continue to ship students off to them to receive a bad education and call the opposition "callous."No, we support FIXING the public school system, rather than have to go through a long process of transition, which would hurt the kids in that transition, and create a whole new set of issues.



That's like saying that if somebody is sick because he/she has a failing heart, you must first cure him before giving him a heart transplant. No, you must give him/her a heart transplant to cure him/her. The same is true of our educational system -- it is the failing heart of our society. We do not need to fix society to fix the educational system.You have little clue of how schools actually work. Society creates education. Education does not create society. Our students don't care about their education, their parents aren't involved, we have undertrained and underpaid teachers, poor infrastructure, not enough resources...these are all symptoms of a culture that no longer values education. Then there is New England. We still value education. Our states have the hardest exams for new teachers, and the highest pay levels. Parents are involved, and therefore, students are driven.



So if the people wanted to teach alchemy in science class, they could? If the people did not want their school to teach any math, they could? If they wanted to teach the Bible in an English class, they could? No, the state sets the standards that every public school must follow, and the parents cannot change that.Again, if they voted, they would have control. Additionally, you think a private school is going to thrive teaching alchemy? Nope, sorry. Those students will go nowhere. And the bible already can be, and often is, taught in English class. You vote for the school board and the people at the state. They set the curriculum. You don't like it, you don't vote for them again. Welcome to control!



Can you name a country with a privatized school system? Public schools may work well in other areas, but in the US they are failing, despite all the money we are putting into them. Public education is like a sinking ship, and we are desperately trying to plug the holes with money, but it's not working. For other countries, yes. For us, no.See, that is the problem. Money isn't the answer, at least not wholey. Alot more needs to be fixed. Private schools will not do that. It is not all about money.



I don't ignore that fact. We have to pay tax money for failing public schools. The rich can afford to go to private schools because they have enough money. The poor, however, have no choice and cannot go to a good school because they are paying tax money for a bad school. The system favors the rich.

It also seems to bear out a point I have made repeatedly, education is not the same as a business, it cannot be run as one and get a good return on profit that is demanded in the business world and at the same time provide a good education to over 57 million school children in the United States of America.What about all those scholarships you were talking about earlier? There are ways. Also, those below poverty are paying almost nothing in taxes.
Actually, I think we were the ones saying education is not the same as business. They can run them as businesses, as that is EXACTLY what they would be. Cutting corners, skewed results...it isn't hard at all to picture.



Of course there will be costs when reogranizing a system as large as the educational system. But they are worth it. Maybe I misunderstood what they were trying to say, but I saw no reason against private schools. I don't know what "burden" they are talking about. The burden will be the same as it always was.You haven't kept up with this thread, have you? There would be a huge burden. Building infrastructure alone would be a multibillion dollar proposal, if not in the trillions or more.

Erm... all the money that is being put into them? as far as I can tell US education Budget is about $50 billion. This compares to Britain's at least (it could be more) £27 billion, which I am roughly guessing is about fairly similar (what, $45 billion maybe), even though America has nearly 6 times the population, with a school aged population rivalling the total UK population. The States does not seem to be pouring money into education, especially compared to spending on the armed forces, which comes to near half a trillion dollars. Lokking at the figures I have seen (which I admit may be wrong) the US system looks sorely underfunded, rather than having problems regardless of funding.
Funding is a good amount of it...but there are alot of other problems.

This is rapidly feeling like I'm talking to a brick wall. There is relatively little competition with private schools. Because they are private, they can draw from several dozen towns. Hell, Chote draws from as far away as Saudi Arabia, and no, it isn't a boarding school. Same with Mrs. Porters. Is there some competition? Yes. Is this what makes it look like private schools do better? No. We have debunked this concept about a dozen times now.
Again, private schools have no need to hire a certified teacher. They will try to find the cheapest teacher...not the best.Education does not work as a private business. There is no instant way to show how a particular year of students has done. By the time you would find out, the damage is done.

Speaking of brick walls...:headbang:

There is not "relatively little" competition among private schools. Since private schools do not have a large pool of applicants to draw upon, there are high levels of competition among private schools. They need students to make money. That is the difference between public and private schools, as I've said numerous times. Private schools need students to be able to function and be profitable. If people come from places like Saudi Arabia only to attend private schools, that is a point in the favor of private schools -- they attract international customers because of their high standards of education. Granted, not all private schools will be that good. However, they will still be better than their public counterparts. If they want to be profitable, they will not hire cheap teachers. Cheap teachers --> uneducated students --> low test scores --> few customers. They need to have good teachers in order to attract customers, make money, and succeed as a business.

Nope, the money still goes to the schools. If you are below the poverty line, you still have very little choice. You can't move. Public education DOES give the power to the people. We've outlined how public schools are governed. What don't you understand about it? Seriously, if it is still ambiguous, say what the problem is. Otherwise, come up with a new line of argument. There is already also competition between public schools, as better schools is one of the top cited reasons for a family moving. I don't, and I doubt NERVUN does, suggest that money is the only way to fix school. But that isn't what this thread is about.

If you are below the poverty line, with public schools you are forced to go to one school if you are unable to move. With private schools, there may be more schools in your area or you may take school or other transportation to go to another school that is nearby. You have more choices than you had before. And public schooling does not give the power to the people as much as private schooling does, for a very simple reason -- public schooling does not care about the people. If the people are unsatisfied...tough luck. Who cares? What's the worst they can do, write an angry compaint letter or vote somebody else in during the next election? With private schools, if parents are unsatisfied, schools will fear that they will lose their students. As a result, they will try to fix whatever problem the parents are complaining about. They need the students, so they must present themselves in a good light to the parents. A private institution will fix a problem faster and cater to the parents more than a public school will. Thus, the parents have more power. What don't you understand about it? Also, can you cite where it says that one of the top reasons people move is to change schools? Anyway, the people who will lose out if the rich people move are the poor people who are left behind in a bad, underfunded school.

Where are your sources for these numbers?

I just estimated, but I think it's common sense. Most of the towns with <2500 people will most likely have >500 people. The size of a town and the number of people in it seemed to follow a curve in the numbers NERVUN posted earlier. If you extrapolate that curve, you will find that very few people live in towns with <500 people. As for making a profitable school with 500 children, I also estimated. Assuming that there are 25 people/class (a fair class size), that means there will be 20 teachers required. Each teacher will then cost at most 25 times what a student pays to enter (assuming the school has only teachers, this means it will operate at 0 profit). Currently, public school costs $7000/child or something in that neighborhood. This amount will be given in voucher form to all students, so all private schools will most likely cost $7000 or more. Assuming the school operates at 0 profit (not going to happen, of course), that means each teacher can be paid $175,000. Now, obviously, this is an extremely fat salary, and there are additional expenses. You can pay each teacher $50,000 and have 2.5 million dollars left over for other things. This is enough to make a school profitable. Even with less students, it can still be profitable.

ALL STUDENTS MUST BE EDUCATED.

I don't think that Honda would want to put their factory in Gerlach, Nevada. In all reasonably-sized towns that are not extremely far away from everything else, all students will not only be educated, but they will be better educated than under the public school system.

That is handled almost entirely primarily at the local level, and then the state level.

Doesn't the state mandate the guidelines that every public school must follow? All deviations from that guideline must be accepted at the state level.

a) it would take atleast 5 years to find out how good a school is.

Really? I'm pretty sure that standardized testing does not take more than a week.

The school with the best ad campaign would win. I don't want my money going to ad campaigns.

Do you see private schools spending their money on ad campaigns? No. They spend the money on teachers and facilities to attract more students. They do not rely on ads now or will they rely on ads if the system is privatized.

There is some competition. I've said this several times.

You've said this, but the article was trying to discredit the notion of competition.

You have little clue of how schools actually work. Society creates education. Education does not create society.

Again, back to the heart example. The heart (education system) does not create the society (body). However, the body cannot function well without the heart. If the body becomes sick because a heart transplant is needed, we should not fix the body and hope that fixing the body will fix the heart. We should have a heart transplant and hope that fixes the body.

Additionally, you think a private school is going to thrive teaching alchemy?

No, a private school is going to thrive by teaching what the parents want taught. If the parents live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speakers, then perhaps they will want the school to focus on Spanish more instead of French or other languages. If they live in a mining area, perhaps they want the school to focus more on mining techniques and the like instead of classic American literature.

You haven't kept up with this thread, have you? There would be a huge burden. Building infrastructure alone would be a multibillion dollar proposal, if not in the trillions or more.

What infrastructure? The schools are already in place. They only need to be sold to the highest bidder.

However, they will still be better than their public counterparts.

No proof that there is anything unique to a private system will improve standards. What the problem is that the system is public is not working properly, not that the system is public. And there is no evidence that the [roblems with the system are anything to do with being public.


If they want to be profitable, they will not hire cheap teachers. Cheap teachers --> uneducated students --> low test scores --> few customers. They need to have good teachers in order to attract customers, make money, and succeed as a business.

To a degree true, but they will hire the cheapest teachers they can get away with. If they feel the income they will lose is less than the money they would save they would take a poorer teacher, if they are cheaper.


If you are below the poverty line, with public schools you are forced to go to one school if you are unable to move. With private schools, there may be more schools in your area or you may take school or other transportation to go to another school that is nearby. You have more choices than you had before.

Erm... most experience with privatisation shows that service and the choice of service stays the same or even worsens with privatisation, rather than improving. Poorer pupils provide less money, so less people will be interested in providing for them. Now, true, there maybe someone who is willing to provide for them, but most companies will be competing for the more lucrative higher earners, so I just dont see lots of private schools opening up in poorer areas. And there is the simple fact, that even if (somehow, I dont believe this would happen) all these less well off would be able to afford education it will be of worse quality to that provided to those better off classes. That is a degree true even with a public school system, at least in such as system there is a way to try and deal with that, as the income of a school is not meant to be based on the income of the parents. In a private system, the income of a school is entirely based on the income of parents, and so those with poorer pupils will either have lower budgets or more pupils to spend the same budget on.


public schooling does not care about the people. If the people are unsatisfied...tough luck. Who cares? What's the worst they can do, write an angry compaint letter or vote somebody else in during the next election?

Well,
1) No system cares about people. A system doesnt have feelings.
2) A private system doesn't care about people. It works through supply, demand, profit, efficiency etc, things that normally dont put people's well being first. They are beholden only to their shareholders.
3) Often public systems were set up with the well being of people in mind. They are set up with the belief that education was benificial for the people involved, and that those who couldnt afford to buy their own should be provided with it. As above, a private system is only set up with whether it makes money or not in mind.

Oh, and my earlier point on funding was not that is was the only problem, but just to counter the seeming claim that money was pouring into the US state education system.

dropout age is 16 with parental concent, 18 without, 21 manditory cutoff

Or what - they put you in jail? :rolleyes:

To a degree true, but they will hire the cheapest teachers they can get away with. If they feel the income they will lose is less than the money they would save they would take a poorer teacher, if they are cheaper.

The amount they will spend on a teacher depends on who they are marketing their school to. If they feel that mostly poor people will attend their school, then they will not pick top-of-the-line teachers. They will always pick the teacher that will maximize their profits or beat their competition. Seeing as how each student will contribute $7000 or more, even the poor ones, a school can afford to hire experienced teachers and be profitable. If they hire under-qualified, low-paid teachers, then their competition will hire better teachers and keep the price the same, driving them out of business. That's the incentive to perform well.

Erm... most experience with privatisation shows that service and the choice of service stays the same or even worsens with privatisation, rather than improving.

What are you talking about? America is a living testament to the wonders of privatization. Everything we have privatized thus far has worked better, from post offices to health care. Education is no exception.

so I just dont see lots of private schools opening up in poorer areas.

Yes, they will. The basics of supply vs. demand dictates this.

And there is the simple fact, that even if (somehow, I dont believe this would happen) all these less well off would be able to afford education it will be of worse quality to that provided to those better off classes.

They will all be able to afford education, seeing as they all get $7000 dollar vouchers for education. Granted, they will not receive an education that is as good as that which the rich kids get. However, rich kids are getting better educations already. Privatization will not alter the playing field -- simply raise it to a higher level.

1) No system cares about people. A system doesnt have feelings.

No, a system must care about people in order to be successful. If I say "screw you," are you going to buy my product? No. But what if I meet your demands in a timely fashion and try to help you? Yes. Private schools need to care about parents if they want to stay in business.

2) A private system doesn't care about people. It works through supply, demand, profit, efficiency etc, things that normally dont put people's well being first.

Yes, it does work though what you mentioned. Do you think an institution that does not care about its customers will have a lot of demand? No. The more they care, the greater the demand, and the greater the profit. The well-being of the parents and students is intricately related to the success of the school.

3) Often public systems were set up with the well being of people in mind. They are set up with the belief that education was benificial for the people involved, and that those who couldnt afford to buy their own should be provided with it. As above, a private system is only set up with whether it makes money or not in mind.

And how will it make money? By not teaching people anything? The public school system tried to give everybody a high quality of education, but it failed because it had no competition, no impetus to perform better, no incentive to help the students or their parents, etc. A private schools needs money, so it will perform all the tasks that the public school system could not.

First, sorry about my brick wall comment. rough day. But you do keep bringing up the same points over and over, which have been proven with stats to be wrong by people who currently are within the education system.
Speaking of brick walls...:headbang:

There is not "relatively little" competition among private schools. Since private schools do not have a large pool of applicants to draw upon, there are high levels of competition among private schools. They need students to make money. That is the difference between public and private schools, as I've said numerous times. Private schools need students to be able to function and be profitable. If people come from places like Saudi Arabia only to attend private schools, that is a point in the favor of private schools -- they attract international customers because of their high standards of education. Granted, not all private schools will be that good. However, they will still be better than their public counterparts. If they want to be profitable, they will not hire cheap teachers. Cheap teachers --> uneducated students --> low test scores --> few customers. They need to have good teachers in order to attract customers, make money, and succeed as a business. Private schools actually have a larger base to pull from. They are not restricted by districting, and can pull students from anywhere. Additionally, Chote is not a school that will be affordable, even with vouchers. It is the one of the most expensive private schools, hence why it pulls from all over the world. Almost no schools that would be affordable to vouchers would be any better than public schools. They would be dealing with the same funding. Funding does make a large difference. There is no proof that a private school will be any better than a public school. Additionally, it would take atleast 4 years, if not a full decade before results show up. It would be easy for a school to hire many cheap teachers without any results appearing.


If you are below the poverty line, with public schools you are forced to go to one school if you are unable to move. With private schools, there may be more schools in your area or you may take school or other transportation to go to another school that is nearby. You have more choices than you had before. And public schooling does not give the power to the people as much as private schooling does, for a very simple reason -- public schooling does not care about the people. If the people are unsatisfied...tough luck. Who cares? What's the worst they can do, write an angry compaint letter or vote somebody else in during the next election? With private schools, if parents are unsatisfied, schools will fear that they will lose their students. As a result, they will try to fix whatever problem the parents are complaining about. They need the students, so they must present themselves in a good light to the parents. A private institution will fix a problem faster and cater to the parents more than a public school will. Thus, the parents have more power. What don't you understand about it? Also, can you cite where it says that one of the top reasons people move is to change schools? Anyway, the people who will lose out if the rich people move are the poor people who are left behind in a bad, underfunded school.Whos going to pay for this transportation? If you are paying the same rate as every other student, why should the school pay for you to travel an hour? You MIGHT have more choices than before, but you neglect several facts. First, low populated areas aren't going to have more than one school. Second, you have a choice, if your district has many schools, to go to a different one. Boston allows students to choose between a vocational school, a Latin school, a traditional high school, charter schools, etc.
Bullshit that people in education don't care about the people. We don't go into education for the money, that is for damn sure. We don't do it for prestige either, as it is one of the most disrespected professions. We do it for the kids we teach.
Additionally, board members are ELECTED. if the people are unsatisfied, they don't get elected back. A private corp. serves its board members and shareholders who are not elected. There is little, if any, accountability. You have any idea how much swing a loud parent holds? A loud parent who can get other parents behind them can get entire curricula eliminated. The MACOS system in West Virginia is an example because it studied an Inuit tribe that had "wife sharing".
What don't you understand about what I am saying? You admitted yourself that you don't really know how the education system works. I do, very well. I have seen it in action. I have participated in it since I turned 16. I have studied it since I was 14. Private institutions seek to make money. Public institutions seek to serve the public.
I don't have the source online, but I will look for one. However, welcome to exactly what I meant about "white flight". We had it happen already with cities. The rich will go to evermore elite institutions, leaving the poor in *gasp* underfunded schools.

I just estimated, but I think it's common sense. Most of the towns with <2500 people will most likely have >500 people. The size of a town and the number of people in it seemed to follow a curve in the numbers NERVUN posted earlier. If you extrapolate that curve, you will find that very few people live in towns with <500 people. As for making a profitable school with 500 children, I also estimated. Assuming that there are 25 people/class (a fair class size), that means there will be 20 teachers required. Each teacher will then cost at most 25 times what a student pays to enter (assuming the school has only teachers, this means it will operate at 0 profit). Currently, public school costs $7000/child or something in that neighborhood. This amount will be given in voucher form to all students, so all private schools will most likely cost $7000 or more. Assuming the school operates at 0 profit (not going to happen, of course), that means each teacher can be paid $175,000. Now, obviously, this is an extremely fat salary, and there are additional expenses. You can pay each teacher $50,000 and have 2.5 million dollars left over for other things. This is enough to make a school profitable. Even with less students, it can still be profitable.
No school would run with only teachers, nor would it be that simple. There are hundereds of administrative and overhead fees to consider. Also, a major benefit of private education is small class size, which is known to benefit students. a 25 person classroom is not good. It should be closer to 15 ideally (not gonna happen, I know). Also, what of states that spend more on education? My state spends over $10000 a student. Vouchers would crush our education system and force us to go back to the level of states that are currently failing.
And $50,000 a year? Thats pretty damn paultry. So much for more good teachers.


I don't think that Honda would want to put their factory in Gerlach, Nevada. In all reasonably-sized towns that are not extremely far away from everything else, all students will not only be educated, but they will be better educated than under the public school system.No, not in a small town. But you also said that special ed should be dropped (which actually services some of our smartest students who would otherwise fail). Also, people move. The student who is educated in Gerlach could be the employee anywhere in the country. The entire population must be educated to remain competitive.



Doesn't the state mandate the guidelines that every public school must follow? All deviations from that guideline must be accepted at the state level. Yes, the state does have some guidelines. And how restrictive those guidelines are depends on the state. Some dictate which textbook, others leave that to towns or even individual schools or teachers, as is usually the case. The majority of curriculum decisions are made at the local level. The state simply sets graduation requirements.



Really? I'm pretty sure that standardized testing does not take more than a week. Ever hear of teaching to a test? That is the inherent problem with the system under NCLB. You teach what the students will be tested on, rather than teaching the students how to think. Although a school system does amazing on a standardized test, it could still be failing its students. The first real test is if those kids get into college, and even then, the actual test is where they get a job.



Do you see private schools spending their money on ad campaigns? No. They spend the money on teachers and facilities to attract more students. They do not rely on ads now or will they rely on ads if the system is privatized.What is to stop them? Ads would bring in more students, same as any other business. Private schools cater to a select group currently, who do research on where they are sending their kids. Not every family can or will do this, therefore, advertisments make sense. And yes, I do see schools advertise. Alot actually.



Again, back to the heart example. The heart (education system) does not create the society (body). However, the body cannot function well without the heart. If the body becomes sick because a heart transplant is needed, we should not fix the body and hope that fixing the body will fix the heart. We should have a heart transplant and hope that fixes the body.The analogy is false. We have studies that show that the education system is the product of society. Parents who value education, respect the teachers, etc. have students who do remarkably better. NERVUN cited that fact. America does not value education, nor does it respect its teachers. Untill that happens, don't expect a change.



No, a private school is going to thrive by teaching what the parents want taught. If the parents live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speakers, then perhaps they will want the school to focus on Spanish more instead of French or other languages. If they live in a mining area, perhaps they want the school to focus more on mining techniques and the like instead of classic American literature.And this benefits the students how? When they want to go to a university and have little background in literature and formal writing, but damned if they can't dig a hole in the ground? When it comes to electives, that decides itself. If a school has 12 russian students, but 50 spanish students, then they won't hire more russian teachers. That is in public schools.



What infrastructure? The schools are already in place. They only need to be sold to the highest bidder.And it isn't going to cost a business money to buy the schools, same as it would to build them?

Or what - they put you in jail? :rolleyes:
somewhat. They will have child services or the police bring the student to school. If it is found to be the parents fault, the child will be removed from the home.

Private schools currently perform better for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is that they have high standards and may not accept those that fall below their standards, yes. However, there is another thing that makes them better -- competition.
Did you bother to read what I posted, or did you just miss the part that stated competition leads to very modest gains? And the part that also notes that private schools have multivariables when it comes to student selection and performance, including invloved parents?


The schools have to compete with public schools, which is an uneven fight. To do this, they hire better and more experienced teachers and better students. Competition will makes schools better no matter what other external factors influence them.
Prove it. You haven't shown one ounce of proof of these grand proclamations and pronouncements.

Private schools must fight against each other for each student while public schools don't care where each student goes, and might even prefer to have less students. Public schools have no need improve or attract students, so their standards will lag behind those of private schools. The best way to give them an impetus to attract students and good teachers is to privatize them so they benefit from doing it. Why would they try hard to do something if they have nothing to gain from doing it?
Which doesn't explain the raising rate of test scores nationwide, or the explosion of students in college. Or are you suggesting that students are somehow magically doing this regardless of public schools?


Yes, vouchers are an excellent solution to the problem. Currently, we are paying taxes that go to the schools. Wouldn't it be much better if our taxes went to the students? We would be giving a chance for those students that live below the poverty line to choose which schools to go to. Currently, they have to go a public school because they cannot afford a private one. With vouchers, they will have more private schools to choose from, and the quality of their education will improve. We can't just keep funneling our money into the sieve that is the public education system, and by extent, the government. Why not give the power to the people? The power to choose where they want to spend their money and where their children will go to school.
*sighs and points out the part where vouchers were shown to have moderate impact and over mixed grades/subjects. Also points out, again, the point of there may not be choice in smaller areas.*

But, at least you're admiting that poor students may not be able to aford private school fees, we'll return to that.


Those numbers are the total number of public school children who live in those particular areas. A profitable school could be build if there were 2500 children in a given area. Heck, even more than that could be built.

2,500 is the TOTAL population, not the STUDENT population. We're talking town of 2,500 or LESS. I currently live in a town of 16,000 or so, we have a total student population of 1,500 (The lopsidedness is due to our town suddenly becoming a bedroom community for a larger city, it ended up inflating the elementary school to a gigantic size).


Those adjacent to a metro area could go to the school there, so the only ones left to worry about are those in rural areas which are not adjacent to metro area. There are only ~462000 students in that situation, which is 1% of the total public school students in the country (<1% of the total students, that is). Of those <1% of students, the majority live in towns with populations of over 500 children, in which case profitable schools could be built.
And where do you get THAT number from? Carlin, Nevada is not next to a metro and does not have 500 students and yet has more than 2,500 people. Where the hell do you pull these numbers from?

The majority might also live near another rural area, meaning that the two could be consolidated into one if necessary. Those left out should be <0.01%, which is negligible.
Gee, aren't you glad YOUR child isn't negligible? Please, go up to the nearest parent and tell them that their child is negligible in the eyes of America and therefore may not attend school. After you get out of the hospital, come back and we'll talk some more.

Anyway, they win. The private schools will teach whatever the parents in that particular area want without involvement from the state. Big Brother doesn't always know what is best to teach our kids.
Schools already teach what parents want, you didn't read that part either, did you? And the federal goverment has yet to dictate what a chool has to teach, mainly because it cannot. It has no power to do so.

Yes, mostly rich people go to private schools. But all that would change. Given two schools with the same amount of funding, which would you expect to perform better -- the one that does not have any competition and does not care how many kids enroll, or the one that has competition and whose success depends on how many kids enroll? I'll take the latter any day.
Got proof?

So basically, the dumb and the poor should not be given a choice because they are too stupid and poor to make the best of that choice? Only the rich and smart should be afforded a choice because only they can make a wise decision?
No, but it shows that your vision of private schools being able to keep stratification from occuring is false. You have repeatedly said that the poor would be able to find sponcers or scholarships (but above you said that they won't) so we wouldn't go back into a system of seperate and unequal.

The argument there is that there will not always be competition between private schools. There is 0 competition currently, so any competition will be better.
No competition?
Private schools currently perform better for a variety of reasons. One of the reasons is that they have high standards and may not accept those that fall below their standards, yes. However, there is another thing that makes them better -- competition.
Nice. Please make up your mind.

And then please tell the 9 million (US Census) students who attend private schooling in the US that they actually don't.

No, I so callously propose to give them a better education. You propose to send them to public schools without a choice, to force them to be educated at a sub-par institution instead of a better private school against their will. And to add insult to injury, you make them pay for a school to which they do not want to go. Public schools are failing, but you still continue to ship students off to them to receive a bad education and call the opposition "callous."
No, I propose to improve the public schools because we need them. I understand that every child is worthy of an education no matter where they live or how much money that they have. I do not take away their choice for I have no qualms with private schools, home schools, charter schools, or however a parent may educate their child. I just note that private schools cannot serve the entire population of this country and that the private sector cannot command the resources of the government, and that the private sector has no accountability to the public at large.

When JC Penney's decides to close, it closes. Doesn't matter if towns lose their only source of shopping. Companies can and do go bankrupt because of idiotic decisions. What happens if this is the middle of a school year and the school goes belly up? If that was the only school in town (You seem to be of the opinion that schools will suddenly breed like rabbits should it be made private. I have yet to see this even in mid-sized cities, let alone towns)? Where do the children go then?

Such a thing happened in Reno. A CITY. A private school turned out to have an owner who stole the money and ran. The school closed midyear, guess where the students ended up? Public schooling, the only system willing to take them in the middle of the year because they have to.

That's like saying that if somebody is sick because he/she has a failing heart, you must first cure him before giving him a heart transplant. No, you must give him/her a heart transplant to cure him/her. The same is true of our educational system -- it is the failing heart of our society. We do not need to fix society to fix the educational system.
Bullshit. Who decides what is to be taught? Society. Who decides how schools should be set up? Society. Who decides how much funding school sgets? Society. Who sets the 'value' of education? Society. Where do teachers and students come from? Society (Yes, we're not grown in vats under San Francisco). Schools are not the heart of soceity, soceity is the heart of the schools. We do everything in responce to the demands that society makes of us.

We see students for around and about 6 hours a day, five days a week, 180 school days a year, for, maybe, 13 years starting at age 5. Who the hell do you think gets them the rest of the time? Who is making the TV and movies that they watch, the music they listen to, the games that they play, and teaches them the values of the society at large?

We mirror society, YOU do not mirror US.

It's a myth, and a nice myth. People love this myth (especially politicians). It makes it so much easier that all you have to do to cure society's ills is to fix the schools. Well, we've been trying for many, many years now. We have chater schools, we have private schools, we have homeschooling, we have just about every conceivable form of education that we can devise. We have tried every teaching method from community, to lecture, to math and science, to (now) testing to death. And yet, society still seems to be screwed up.

Face facts, you got to fix society before you can even attempt to fix the schools.

So if the people wanted to teach alchemy in science class, they could? If the people did not want their school to teach any math, they could? If they wanted to teach the Bible in an English class, they could? No, the state sets the standards that every public school must follow, and the parents cannot change that.
I've yet to run into anyone silly enough to request that a school not teach math and teach alchemey but...

Parents in Dover, PA got the school board to teach Intelligent Design, and when other parents didn't like that, they got voted out and new standards put into place. In Nevada, there is a proposed constituitional amendment (I still can't believe that) for the same purpose. The Kansas State Board of Education once again changed standards in responce to parents to include ID.

When Washoe County School District and Carson City School District were writting their standards, they held many, many public meetings for and on them for parent imput on what would be taught in their schools.

So, yes, actually parents CAN have the curricula set. The ONLY place where this has failed is in regards to the teaching of religion due to the establishment claus. However, do you seriously think private schools will escape that? You requested vouchers for poor students, the minute you accept goverment money, you fall under all goverment laws, including that one.

Can you name a country with a privatized school system? Public schools may work well in other areas, but in the US they are failing, despite all the money we are putting into them. Public education is like a sinking ship, and we are desperately trying to plug the holes with money, but it's not working. For other countries, yes. For us, no.
Prove that the US is so unique in all the entire world that it and it alone cannot educate its students via public education. Since money doesn't seem to be the answer, how does that figure into the private system. As I said, the key seems to be that in other countries, education is actually valued and everyone understands this.

I don't ignore that fact. We have to pay tax money for failing public schools. The rich can afford to go to private schools because they have enough money. The poor, however, have no choice and cannot go to a good school because they are paying tax money for a bad school. The system favors the rich.
And you would just make that system worse.

Of course there will be costs when reogranizing a system as large as the educational system. But they are worth it. Maybe I misunderstood what they were trying to say, but I saw no reason against private schools. I don't know what "burden" they are talking about. The burden will be the same as it always was.
No, you seem to be of the opinion that we can magically throw a swich an make every school in the nation private. It doesn't work that way, you're talking about thousands of schools streached nationwide, millions of employees, and 57 million students whom you must switch over. The costs would be in the billions (and how many venture companies would be willing to front THAT?), and the disruption to the school system... You're talking years of work, what do we do with the kids in the mean time? Just let a generation go uneducated?

First, sorry about my brick wall comment. rough day.

Lol, no problem. It gets tiring playing Devil's advocate, too. :)

Private schools actually have a larger base to pull from. They are not restricted by districting, and can pull students from anywhere. Additionally, Chote is not a school that will be affordable, even with vouchers. It is the one of the most expensive private schools, hence why it pulls from all over the world. Almost no schools that would be affordable to vouchers would be any better than public schools. They would be dealing with the same funding. Funding does make a large difference. There is no proof that a private school will be any better than a public school. Additionally, it would take atleast 4 years, if not a full decade before results show up. It would be easy for a school to hire many cheap teachers without any results appearing.

I'm not arguing that they do not have a larger base to pull from -- they do. However, I don't see how that is a bad thing. If you want to go a school that is not within your district, you can. There will be schools that are too expensive, even with vouchers. Those schools are unaffordable even in our current system, so nothing will change, except that they will be slightly ($7000) more affordable after privatization. Private schools should be better than public school, even if they are given the same funding. This is because private schools need to be streamlined as much as possible to fit the needs of the students and the teachers. Public schools do not care that much about the students (they don't need to, seeing as how they do not have an incentive to) and care more about the teachers (scary unions). Private schools, on the other hand, care more about the students. Also, if they are a good school, they will receive more funding (more students), while if they are a bad school, they will receive less funding and might go out of business. There is no proof that private schools will perform better than public schools once all schools are privatized, but they perform better now. Schools can't just get away with hiring cheap teachers and hoping the results won't appear except in a couple of decades. Concerned parents may spread the word that the school is bad to other parents, and the school may get a bad reputation. Additionally, good schools will probably have their students take some form of standardized test to show how well they perform. There are many methods to see how well a school is performing without waiting for decades.

Whos going to pay for this transportation? If you are paying the same rate as every other student, why should the school pay for you to travel an hour?

The school will. What's the cost of transportation in comparison to the $7000+ that each student is going to pay? If they provide transportation, the school will appeal to more students, increasing enrollment.

First, low populated areas aren't going to have more than one school.

No, I acknowledge this. These areas are probably going to be the same as before.

Second, you have a choice, if your district has many schools, to go to a different one. Boston allows students to choose between a vocational school, a Latin school, a traditional high school, charter schools, etc.

Of course, all these school are within the public school system, right? They all probably receive the same amount of funding and are equally good or bad, otherwise all the students would go to one school. There is more choice, but the choices are basically the same. There is no competition among the schools for the different students, so not that much is different.

Bullshit that people in education don't care about the people. We don't go into education for the money, that is for damn sure. We don't do it for prestige either, as it is one of the most disrespected professions. We do it for the kids we teach.

I'm not saying that the teachers don't care about the students -- the system doesn't care about the students. The system doesn't care if the students and parents don't like it because they're stuck. If they don't like it, too bad. It's not like they have a choice. Many teachers, on the other hand, care greatly about their students and that's why they choose to enter into that field. This will not change even if schools are privatized.

Additionally, board members are ELECTED. if the people are unsatisfied, they don't get elected back. A private corp. serves its board members and shareholders who are not elected. There is little, if any, accountability. You have any idea how much swing a loud parent holds? A loud parent who can get other parents behind them can get entire curricula eliminated.

Board members are elected, but they don't have as much sway over the curriculum as they should. The basic curriculum is decided at the state level, and only minor adjustments can be made at the district level. A private corporation must serve its shareholders by delivering profits. A loud parent holds sway over the company because if their child leaves, that results in less profits, which will in turn disappoint the shareholder. A loud parent holds just as much sway in either system.

What don't you understand about what I am saying?

You seem to be saying that corporations do not care at all about their customers, which is obviously false. They must care in order to turn a profit. Parents do hold sway.

Private institutions seek to make money. Public institutions seek to serve the public.

Private institutions make money by serving the public while public institutions neither make money nor serve the public well. The idea of a public school system is good just like the idea of communism is good. But it will always fail. Competition is needed to spark a system into performing well, not a monopoly and stagnation.

However, welcome to exactly what I meant about "white flight". We had it happen already with cities. The rich will go to evermore elite institutions, leaving the poor in *gasp* underfunded schools.

If the rich have more money, they can always go to better schools. However, the schools the poor go to need not be underfunded. If each poor person can afford to pay $7000, then the schools they go to will not be underfunded anymore. A poor neighborhood will not necessarily mean a bad school, because the poor will have more money to pay for the school.

No school would run with only teachers, nor would it be that simple.

No, that's why there was an extra 2.5 million to account for all of that.

Also, a major benefit of private education is small class size, which is known to benefit students. a 25 person classroom is not good.

Currently in my public school, we have 40 people in one class. Without pouring more money into education, there is no way to reduce the class size to 15 students. And a 25 person class can be effective as long as the teacher is effective. In many of the countries you cited as having a better public education system that the US, many have high class sizes (40+). When I went to school in a Romanian public school, there were ~45 people in every class, but our school still performed extremely well. While smaller class sizes are better, they are not the most important issue.

Also, what of states that spend more on education? My state spends over $10000 a student. Vouchers would crush our education system and force us to go back to the level of states that are currently failing.

The more the merrier. How would giving each child more to spend on education crush our educational system? Or are you saying that the schools that are currently failing should not be helped out because that would drag the rest of the schools down with them? Privatization will allow more to be done with less and all schools will benefit, not only those which are currently failing. You have a greater influence over how well your state school system performs because you can choose to spend your money only on good schools instead of funneling money into those that are failing.

And $50,000 a year? Thats pretty damn paultry. So much for more good teachers.

I thought that was how much they were paid now. In 2003-2004, the average US teacher salary was acutally under $50000:

http://www.aft.org/salary/2004/download/releases/SalarySurvey-NJ.pdf

Paying $50000 per teacher will maintain the same level of teachers as we have currently.

But you also said that special ed should be dropped

I'm not sure what to do about special education, since I really don't know anything at all about how many people fall under that category, how severe the cases are, etc. It is possible that special students should receive education in special public schools.

Ever hear of teaching to a test?

Yes, and that is a major problem in our current educational system. At least private schools don't need to teach to the test. They can, however, choose to if they so desire. If parents don't want their children to be taught how to perfrom well on some test, then the school will not teach to the test. The same cannot be said about public schools.

What is to stop them?

Nothing, really. However, I'd think word-of-mouth would be a better and less expensive business strategy for something as important as a school instead of relying on ads.

And yes, I do see schools advertise. Alot actually.

Are you serious? I don't see any ads. Here, private schools rely only on word of mouth, and they are doing very well for themselves.

The analogy is false. We have studies that show that the education system is the product of society. Parents who value education, respect the teachers, etc. have students who do remarkably better. NERVUN cited that fact. America does not value education, nor does it respect its teachers. Untill that happens, don't expect a change.

And this benefits the students how?

Because they can choose what they want to learn instead of having the state impose graduation requirements and the like on them.

And it isn't going to cost a business money to buy the schools, same as it would to build them?

Yes, but there would be no building or anything required, and the price the schools are sold at may be lower than the price to actually build a school.

Lots of stuff.

I just realized that I missed one of your posts. Sorry about that. I'll reply to both of them tomorrow -- typing this much is tiring for me.

If you are below the poverty line, with public schools you are forced to go to one school if you are unable to move. With private schools, there may be more schools in your area or you may take school or other transportation to go to another school that is nearby.
You also have that option in public schools. Children can and do switch schools in the public system as long as there is room for them. No one says you HAVE to attend the school in your area. Your argument also assumes that they can afford said transportation. They may not have a car and they may not have pubic transportation. The only reason they can get to school now is due to the school bus system mandated by law for any child outside of a mile radius from their school.

You have more choices than you had before. And public schooling does not give the power to the people as much as private schooling does, for a very simple reason -- public schooling does not care about the people. If the people are unsatisfied...tough luck. Who cares? What's the worst they can do, write an angry compaint letter or vote somebody else in during the next election?
Parents have remarkable ways to do so. They call school offices and guess what, schools bend over for them. The also have a weird tendancy to sue schools. No, they are very responsive.


As for making a profitable school with 500 children, I also estimated. Assuming that there are 25 people/class (a fair class size), that means there will be 20 teachers required. Each teacher will then cost at most 25 times what a student pays to enter (assuming the school has only teachers, this means it will operate at 0 profit). Currently, public school costs $7000/child or something in that neighborhood. This amount will be given in voucher form to all students, so all private schools will most likely cost $7000 or more. Assuming the school operates at 0 profit (not going to happen, of course), that means each teacher can be paid $175,000. Now, obviously, this is an extremely fat salary, and there are additional expenses. You can pay each teacher $50,000 and have 2.5 million dollars left over for other things. This is enough to make a school profitable. Even with less students, it can still be profitable.
Go look at actual numbers and the costs of running schools. The per pupil cost for the US is $8,109. The total cost (Thousands of dollars) is $440,316,023. And that is the national average, districts are all over the place in actual spending.

Doesn't the state mandate the guidelines that every public school must follow? All deviations from that guideline must be accepted at the state level.
Depends on the state, but most state guidlines are rather broad and vague afairs (Have you even looked at your state guidelines? They're here: http://www.state.nj.us/njded/cccs/ go read). The individual school districts take those, which usual say something like "Building upon knowledge and skills gained in the preceding grades, by the end of Grade 12, students:
18. Write for real audiences and purposes, such as job applications, business letters, college
applications, and memoranda.
19. Write a research paper that synthesizes and cites data." (NEW JERSEY LANGUAGE ARTS LITERACY CURRICULUM FRAMEWORK, New Jersey Department of Education) and actually makes something a wee bit more concreate. Teachers then that those and make actual lesson plans from them.

Really? I'm pretty sure that standardized testing does not take more than a week.
Don't get me started on the worthlessness of standardized testing.

You've said this, but the article was trying to discredit the notion of competition.
No, the paper was dealing with what the actual research shows on the effects of competition on students and school performance. You know, actual data instead of wishful pipe dreams.

No, a private school is going to thrive by teaching what the parents want taught. If the parents live in an area with a lot of Spanish-speakers, then perhaps they will want the school to focus on Spanish more instead of French or other languages. If they live in a mining area, perhaps they want the school to focus more on mining techniques and the like instead of classic American literature.
Schools do so now.

What infrastructure? The schools are already in place. They only need to be sold to the highest bidder.
Oh? Who? Like I said, there's nothing stopping them from being built now, and yet the number of private schools has remained rather constant in the US. So where is all this money going to be coming from to take over all these schools?

I just realized that I missed one of your posts. Sorry about that. I'll reply to both of them tomorrow -- typing this much is tiring for me.
Fair enough, fair enough. Enjoy your night and sleep well.

Private schools should be better than public school, even if they are given the same funding. This is because private schools need to be streamlined as much as possible to fit the needs of the students and the teachers.

Do you think state schools are swimming in money they just throw around the place. I can tell you that schools are very careful with their budgets, even well funded comprehensives like the one I went to. They think very carefully about what they can afford. And think about this: A private school is out to make profit, yes? That streamlining (if it really is that effective without harming standards) is not so as to serve pupils and teachers but to cut costs as much as possible to make greater profit. With the same budget a private school already has what I would call a inefficiency built into its budget; the need to make that profit. Less of that equal sized budget is available to pay for the teaching and other vital costs. A likely result is that they will employ as few staff members as they possibly can, especially among those non-front line members (ie, non teaching staff). This will mean more pressure on the remaining members of staff, resulting quite possibly in a loss of morale. It is a well known rule that people with low morale dont work as well as those who are perfectly happy with their work. And if they cant cut anymore non-frontline staff, whats to stop them buying fewer meterials, hiring fewer teachers and not paying enough fot such important but less apparant costs such as maintianance? At the moment they dont do this as they are aiming for the top end of the market, where such stuff will not be tolerated, but those less well off people are less likely (due to lack of time, less confidence to interfere in such stuff, lack of expectations of anything better etc etc) to complain about. In the case where this is the only school available to the locals, even if they do complain there is nothing they can really make the private school work.


Public schools do not care that much about the students (they don't need to, seeing as how they do not have an incentive to) and care more about the teachers (scary unions). Private schools, on the other hand, care more about the students.

Erm...? Where do you get this idea from. The state education system is there to serve teachers' unions? Erm... what? The state education system is there to serve the public. Who controls the education systems budget? Elected officials, not the teachers. Those elected officials are there to serve the public (whether they do or not is another question, but has nothing to do with teachers' unions).


Also, if they are a good school, they will receive more funding (more students), while if they are a bad school, they will receive less funding and might go out of business.

Erm... What happens to the pupils of that school? What happens if it is the only school in an area?


There is no proof that private schools will perform better than public schools once all schools are privatized, but they perform better now.

For reasons that have been covered I dont know how many times, very few of them, if any, to do withsomthing intrinsic in being private.


Schools can't just get away with hiring cheap teachers and hoping the results won't appear except in a couple of decades.

Erm... you should look at the stupid things private companies do for short term profits.


No, I acknowledge this. These areas are probably going to be the same as before.

And even worse. Not only they going to have a monopoly supplier, but one that wants to make a profit. That monopoly will then squeeze whatever the fuck it can out of them. At least if the monopoly isnt interested in profit it will not try to squeeze as much money as it can out of those unable to go somewhere else. Look at tesco metro shops. Those in deprived areas actually charge more than those in wealthier areas as there is less competition, which in a private system is the only thing keeping prices down. They dont give a fuck that the locals have less money to spend. On the other hand a public service is there to serve the public, and so will take into account the wealth of those is is providing for.


I'm not saying that the teachers don't care about the students -- the system doesn't care about the students. The system doesn't care if the students and parents don't like it because they're stuck. If they don't like it, too bad. It's not like they have a choice.

In a private system there would be pressure for profitabilty, not something I would be keen to see influencing education. And again the system doesnt care at all. All private schools are interested in is profit. If to make profit they have to account of people's opinion and success rates, it will, but not because it actually cares about students. It cares about profit.


Many teachers, on the other hand, care greatly about their students and that's why they choose to enter into that field. This will not change even if schools are privatized.

True.


Board members are elected, but they don't have as much sway over the curriculum as they should.

So, if the parents want it the school should teach whatever they want...?


A loud parent holds just as much sway in either system.

Unfortunately this is true. Loud, bossy, and often idiotic, parents are a problem. They always will be unless parents have no influence over a school system, and they arent allowed into a school. Now that aint going to happen, so....


You seem to be saying that corporations do not care at all about their customers, which is obviously false. They must care in order to turn a profit.

Correction: They dont care one iota about their customers. They just have to take account of them and their wishes to make money. Not the same thing.


Private institutions make money by serving the public while public institutions neither make money nor serve the public well. The idea of a public school system is good just like the idea of communism is good.

Erm... many state schools will be serving the public well. In fact all schools are, just some less successfully than others.

And the two are not comparable. State schooling is something that has been proved in many examples to work. Communism is an unattainable utopian ideal.


Competition is needed to spark a system into performing well.

erm... again, no proof.


If the rich have more money, they can always go to better schools. However, the schools the poor go to need not be underfunded. If each poor person can afford to pay $7000, then the schools they go to will not be underfunded anymore. A poor neighborhood will not necessarily mean a bad school, because the poor will have more money to pay for the school.

Bleh? If the same amount of pupils are going to a school after privatisation (in a poor area), and they are getting the same amount per pupil (through this voucher system) then how are they getting more money. That means that if they were underfunded before they still will be. And why are the poor better able to afford education. Now, instead of the state paying for them through the bedget for the school, the state gives them the same amount of money. Erm.. that is the same amount of money being spent on poor pupils, not more.


Currently in my public school, we have 40 people in one class.

Feck, thats one big class. And this is in the states? Now I can see the effect of underfunding. And we complain about classes of 30 in Britian. Well, looking at that, I can certainly agree with the Labour Defense Minister who said "I am proud to live in a country that spends more on education than it does on defense". And over here many people think our system is underfunded. Looks like American schools would love to have the budgets many of our schools have.


And a 25 person class can be effective as long as the teacher is effective.

This I can agree with. Most of my classes were 20/25, and my school did quite well.


Or are you saying that the schools that are currently failing should not be helped out because that would drag the rest of the schools down with them? Privatization will allow more to be done with less and all schools will benefit, not only those which are currently failing. You have a greater influence over how well your state school system performs because you can choose to spend your money only on good schools instead of funneling money into those that are failing.

Wait... first you accuse him of helping out failing schools, and then you say failing schools shouldnt have money funneled into them and so let them fall bust? Erm... isnt that a bit of hipocracy?


Paying $50000 per teacher will maintain the same level of teachers as we have currently.

Knowing British teachers' wages that does actually sound not a bad wage, especially with lower prices and taxes in the States, but if there are these schools springing up all over the place wont you need more teachers? So the same level wouldnt be sufficient.


Yes, and that is a major problem in our current educational system. At least private schools don't need to teach to the test. They can, however, choose to if they so desire. If parents don't want their children to be taught how to perfrom well on some test, then the school will not teach to the test. The same cannot be said about public schools.

Erm... but how will private schools be able to show their performance in s easily digestible form that most people rely on? Oh, yeah, tests. And then the pressure to make sure figures look good will increase, quite possibly leading to increased teaching to the test, and pressure on teachers to make sure people dont fail, even if it means cheating


Nothing, really. However, I'd think word-of-mouth would be a better and less expensive business strategy for something as important as a school instead of relying on ads.

But if there is increased competition marketing grows in importance, and so spending on advertising will incrase. With only a few private schools in an area, people will all know which ones are which. If they are all private they will all have to produce advertising to attact people to them.


Because they can choose what they want to learn instead of having the state impose graduation requirements and the like on them.

So we are going to have verying graduation requirments in different schools, making it difficult to compare how schools are really doing. And we are going to allow people to decide what is taught just on what their parents want? So are we going to have schools teaching that the world is flat, that blacks are actually bald monkeys or whites are shaved sheep?


Yes, mostly rich people go to private schools. But all that would change. Given two schools with the same amount of funding, which would you expect to perform better -- the one that does not have any competition and does not care how many kids enroll, or the one that has competition and whose success depends on how many kids enroll?

The one with better teachers and more motivated pupils. Nothing to do with competition.

Baloney, schools can and are closed when the target population drops below a certian level, assuming that the children can be resonably placed in another school. San Francisco just shut down a number of schools due to declining population because of space at nearby schools.

But who cares if the school gets shut down or not? The only people who pay are the teachers and the students, not the state. The state can always send the children to a different school and does not care about profits or quality of education because they don't need to. The state does not care if a public school is shut down. A private school does care if it is shut down, however, since it loses money if it is.

Is that need far out numbered by the need of qualified special education teachers? Oh yeah. It would be even better if we could get said special education teachers to last longer than a year.

What is your solution to this problem, then? If there are not enough of those teachers, then the only way to get more of them would be to pay them more. Private schools can afford to hire those kinds of teachers if there are sufficient students that need special education. Otherwise, students may be forced to move to another area to get a special education, or perhaps we should have a public special school system.

Teaching in JAPAN of all places, I have had punches thrown at me, things (sharp pointy things) thrown at me. Had to break up a few fights where one kid was beating the other. Delt with broken glass (Or windows get smashed reguarly), blood, tears, and other fun things.

Can't you expel or even arrest a student for doing some of those things? I mean, if you have students that throw punches or sharp, pointy things at teachers, they should be expelled since they obviously don't take the education system seriously and serve to ruin it even futher.

And now I am an adult and a member of my society. The system works.

If there are insufficient kids who fit the needs of special education, if they are too widely dispersed, etc., and the private system cannot accomodate them well, then it should be turned over to the public system.

Prove it. You haven't shown one ounce of proof of these grand proclamations and pronouncements.

It's hard to prove something without trying it out first. However, private schools are currently outperforming public ones. According to an NAEP report, “students in private schools scored significantly above the national average in grades four, eight, and twelve."


Which doesn't explain the raising rate of test scores nationwide, or the explosion of students in college. Or are you suggesting that students are somehow magically doing this regardless of public schools?

No, that is because public schools are lowering their standards so that more students can pass the bar. According to NCES, “private high schools typically have more demanding graduation requirements than do public high schools. Compared with public schools, private schools required more coursework (in 4-year high school programs).”

2,500 is the TOTAL population, not the STUDENT population.

Yeah, you're right. However, I just looked at the statistics for private schools, and it turns out that they don't need 500 students to be profitable. In fact, the average private school only has 193 students. That means that even such small towns will probably have a profitable school built there. Non-sectarian schools have an average of 144 students, and 1/3 of non-sectarian schools have 50 students or less.

Gee, aren't you glad YOUR child isn't negligible?

The government has a history of calling people negligible and doing much worse to them than this. The Indian Removal Act considered thousands of Indians negligible and killed them. Japanese-Americans were put in internment camps. Heck, even now, people can be indefinitely detained for doing nothing at all. The governemnt will pay for the family to move to another district and give them some compensation.

Got proof?

As I said before, private schools which have less funding than public schools consistently outperform them.

No, but it shows that your vision of private schools being able to keep stratification from occuring is false.

No, stratication would occur, as it does right now. It's not a bad thing, though -- if you can afford enough money, you can go to an expensive school. If not, you can't. The only way to stop stratification is to keep rich people from going to good schools and shoving them into bad ones. That's certainly unreasonable.

No competition?

Among public schools.

And then please tell the 9 million (US Census) students who attend private schooling in the US that they actually don't.

Huh? When did I say that?

I understand that every child is worthy of an education no matter where they live or how much money that they have.

Every child is still worthy of an education, regardless of how much money they make. They will each get vouchers for private schooling which will easily pay for most schools. The average price of a private school is ~$4000 now, and each public school student costs $8000. There is a lot of leeway there for private schools to improve, namely $4000 extra per students. Furthermore, the government can compensate those that live out of the range on private schools and they will be able to afford to move to another area and get another job.

When JC Penney's decides to close, it closes.

But JC Penny will not close if it turns a profit. How many private schools have closed thus far?

What happens if this is the middle of a school year and the school goes belly up? If that was the only school in town (You seem to be of the opinion that schools will suddenly breed like rabbits should it be made private. I have yet to see this even in mid-sized cities, let alone towns)? Where do the children go then?

If it is the only school in the area, how could it possibly go belly-up? I mean, it has all the children in the area going to it and little-to-no competition. Such a school would be bought by another company if it goes bankrupt because they are in an excellent position and have a near-monopoly on the population. And schools will breed like rabbits, more or less. On average, private schools have 1/3 of the students that public schools have, so 3 private schools should spring up to accomodate the students coming from a public school.

The school closed midyear, guess where the students ended up? Public schooling, the only system willing to take them in the middle of the year because they have to.

If a school closes mid-year, the students can go to another school and will get their money back. The government should heavily penalize any school that does this or take measures to prevent this from happening.

Schools are not the heart of soceity, soceity is the heart of the schools. We do everything in responce to the demands that society makes of us.

Yes, but schools shape society. Who votes? Society. Who teaches the people who vote? Schools. Schools heavily affect what choices a person, who is a member of society, makes. Schools shape society by shaping students. If you can fix the next generation of students, then they can in turn fix society as a whole.

Who the hell do you think gets them the rest of the time? Who is making the TV and movies that they watch, the music they listen to, the games that they play, and teaches them the values of the society at large?

But TV and music do not help them succeed in society. Usually, those who succeed are those who do best in school, which means that school has played a large role in their lives. The ones that are capable of reshaping society are probably going to be in that position because of a good education.

You requested vouchers for poor students, the minute you accept goverment money, you fall under all goverment laws, including that one.

Well, that's for the courts to rule. I'm pretty sure that governemnt vouchers have been used to help students go to religious schools in some state while they have been banned in others.


Prove that the US is so unique in all the entire world that it and it alone cannot educate its students via public education.

The other countries have higher class sizes, spend less on public education, yet they still have better test results. Private schools will revitalize the system and give the students and parents more of an interest in education by giving them a choice.

You're talking years of work, what do we do with the kids in the mean time? Just let a generation go uneducated?

No, we keep the children in public education and slowly give control of public schools over to private schools or just give all public schools over to private schools at the end of the school year. It's not going to take years of work or anything.

Well, since you obviously put a lot of thought and research into your posts (you even added a bibliography for one, damn) and I put in next to none and still don't have time to write an adequate reply, you win. :)

No, stratication would occur, as it does right now. It's not a bad thing, though -- if you can afford enough money, you can go to an expensive school. If not, you can't. The only way to stop stratification is to keep rich people from going to good schools and shoving them into bad ones. That's certainly unreasonable.

Well, that might actually be what we should do. About the most important determiner in success from what I have seen is economic/social class (in studies carried out in Britain it has been shown that people of similar economic class basically do pretty much the same whether they are in private of state school. In fact, this is now accepted so much that parents now make claims of the "intangible" benifits of these schools. Yeah right... they just dont want their kids mixing with the hoi poloi). There has also been evidence that if a school has the right proportion of middle class students it brings everyone's performance up (as there is a an atmosphere of academic aspiration throughout the whole school, which can make a real difference. Do you think you would value education if you go to a school where everyone hasnt seen the evidence of good education? Also, middle class parents are more likely to get involved in school, another factor that usually helps boost educational performance). So if we made sure every school had that right proportion of middle class peope, we should see a rise of performance across the board.


If it is the only school in the area, how could it possibly go belly-up? I mean, it has all the children in the area going to it and little-to-no competition. Such a school would be bought by another company if it goes bankrupt because they are in an excellent position and have a near-monopoly on the population.

Yes, and monopolies out to make money usually finacially abuse the population they are meant to serve. That problem doesnt exist if they are a monopoly not out to make money.

It's hard to prove something without trying it out first. However, private schools are currently outperforming public ones. According to an NAEP report, “students in private schools scored significantly above the national average in grades four, eight, and twelve."
this is still heavily related to the fact that they kick out failing students and have involved parents. The school systems are still not comprable.



No, that is because public schools are lowering their standards so that more students can pass the bar. According to NCES, “private high schools typically have more demanding graduation requirements than do public high schools. Compared with public schools, private schools required more coursework (in 4-year high school programs).” see above.



Yeah, you're right. However, I just looked at the statistics for private schools, and it turns out that they don't need 500 students to be profitable. In fact, the average private school only has 193 students. That means that even such small towns will probably have a profitable school built there. Non-sectarian schools have an average of 144 students, and 1/3 of non-sectarian schools have 50 students or less. uh huh...and what is the average spending per student? I can promise they spend more than public schools.



The government has a history of calling people negligible and doing much worse to them than this. The Indian Removal Act considered thousands of Indians negligible and killed them. Japanese-Americans were put in internment camps. Heck, even now, people can be indefinitely detained for doing nothing at all. The governemnt will pay for the family to move to another district and give them some compensation.a) that doesn't make it right and b) why would, or should the government compensate people for moving if they no longer have a direct interest in education?



As I said before, private schools which have less funding than public schools consistently outperform them.smaller class sizes, dedicated parents, kicking out failures, and the difference in per student funding. Those are what it comes down to.


Every child is still worthy of an education, regardless of how much money they make. They will each get vouchers for private schooling which will easily pay for most schools. The average price of a private school is ~$4000 now, and each public school student costs $8000. There is a lot of leeway there for private schools to improve, namely $4000 extra per students. Furthermore, the government can compensate those that live out of the range on private schools and they will be able to afford to move to another area and get another job.where do you get that figure of $4000? I find it to be impossibly low.



But JC Penny will not close if it turns a profit. How many private schools have closed thus far?many. And many more would under increased competition, even mid semester.



If it is the only school in the area, how could it possibly go belly-up? I mean, it has all the children in the area going to it and little-to-no competition. Such a school would be bought by another company if it goes bankrupt because they are in an excellent position and have a near-monopoly on the population. And schools will breed like rabbits, more or less. On average, private schools have 1/3 of the students that public schools have, so 3 private schools should spring up to accomodate the students coming from a public school.Because the guy running the company took the money and ran. And no, they wouldn't spring up like that. There is no evidence as to why they would aside from the fact that private schools attract people by having lower class sizes.



If a school closes mid-year, the students can go to another school and will get their money back. The government should heavily penalize any school that does this or take measures to prevent this from happening.Who will give the money back? The BANKRUPT company? And why should a private school take in these kids mid semester?



Yes, but schools shape society. Who votes? Society. Who teaches the people who vote? Schools. Schools heavily affect what choices a person, who is a member of society, makes. Schools shape society by shaping students. If you can fix the next generation of students, then they can in turn fix society as a whole.schools teach societys values. Schools don't create new ones.



and I need to go

But who cares if the school gets shut down or not? The only people who pay are the teachers and the students, not the state. The state can always send the children to a different school and does not care about profits or quality of education because they don't need to. The state does not care if a public school is shut down. A private school does care if it is shut down, however, since it loses money if it is.
The process is more complicated than that. A school MAY close in the public system IF there are schools in the area that have space. If the schools in the area are at capasity or if the area is farther than a set distance (That depends on state and district laws/rules. I know in Nevada the rule of thumb is anything longer than an hour and a half drive is considered too far away) that school will not close, even if it is educating 10 students. A private school, if it cannot turn a profit, will close, no matter if there is another school or not.

And believe you me, the decision to close a school is not taken lightly. The San Francisco papers had a lot of articles about the war that went on when the Board voted to close some schools.


What is your solution to this problem, then? If there are not enough of those teachers, then the only way to get more of them would be to pay them more.
Money is part of the issue, but much of it is stress. Better support for the special education program needs to happen. Flooding that market with teachers looking for a buck isn't going to really help all that much.

Private schools can afford to hire those kinds of teachers if there are sufficient students that need special education. Otherwise, students may be forced to move to another area to get a special education, or perhaps we should have a public special school system.
Part if the current problem is that the number of students eligible for special education is growing. Federal and state laws govern actions in dealing with these students. Private schools have a tendancy to either not admit them (because in all honesty, special education covers children who are gifted and talented, physically disabled, mentally disabled, learning disabled, and very, very scary, the emoutionally disabled), or will not provide services, very expensive ones, covered by law. Actually there was a fight in Reno a few years back where parents enrolled a special education child in the local Catholic private high school. The child required a speech therapist and that private school did not have one on staff and would not hire one just for one child. The question was whether said child, now in the private school, could have access to the Washoe County School Districts speech therapists and if WCSD could provide a tax payer paid service to a religious school.

Eventually it was decided yes, but again, by law public schools MUST provide such things. Private schools can say, "Sorry, you're SOL here".

Can't you expel or even arrest a student for doing some of those things? I mean, if you have students that throw punches or sharp, pointy things at teachers, they should be expelled since they obviously don't take the education system seriously and serve to ruin it even futher.
Actually, no. Not in the Japanese system (And that's actually America's fault). Even in the American system, it really is hard to expell a student, there's a lot of laws on the books to keep schools from expelling students that they don't like and do not want to teach, special education students for example, or ESL students, or (as was the case down South) Black students.

If there are insufficient kids who fit the needs of special education, if they are too widely dispersed, etc., and the private system cannot accomodate them well, then it should be turned over to the public system.
They already are. Like I said, the public system handles them all, irregrdless of status, race, location, or other.

It's hard to prove something without trying it out first. However, private schools are currently outperforming public ones. According to an NAEP report, “students in private schools scored significantly above the national average in grades four, eight, and twelve."
And they do, but that same report I quoted earlier (and I have a sneaking suspision that it's the same as yours), also shows that public schools have improved.

Sadly though, I have been unable to find any difininative research on college performance, which is how I would actually measure the effects of primary/secondary schooling or dollars earned of public vs private school students.

No, that is because public schools are lowering their standards so that more students can pass the bar. According to NCES, “private high schools typically have more demanding graduation requirements than do public high schools. Compared with public schools, private schools required more coursework (in 4-year high school programs).”
The bar is going up, not down. NCLB hs done THAT (while damaging other things. It wasn't very well thought out).

Yeah, you're right. However, I just looked at the statistics for private schools, and it turns out that they don't need 500 students to be profitable. In fact, the average private school only has 193 students. That means that even such small towns will probably have a profitable school built there. Non-sectarian schools have an average of 144 students, and 1/3 of non-sectarian schools have 50 students or less.
Look at the cost charged per students for those smaller schools. Also, you should be aware that the total cost of private schools are often not stated too well. The per pupil cost often do not reflect the support given to the school (For example, a Catholic private school will recieve funding from the Roman Cathloic Chruch, which is not reflcted) as well as other costs that parents are expected to bear.

The government has a history of calling people negligible and doing much worse to them than this. The Indian Removal Act considered thousands of Indians negligible and killed them. Japanese-Americans were put in internment camps. Heck, even now, people can be indefinitely detained for doing nothing at all. The governemnt will pay for the family to move to another district and give them some compensation.
That doesn't mean that was right you know.

And you keep invoking the government to come in and provide monies and other services to actually make this work. Keep this up and you'll end up with a public school system. ;)

No, stratication would occur, as it does right now. It's not a bad thing, though -- if you can afford enough money, you can go to an expensive school. If not, you can't. The only way to stop stratification is to keep rich people from going to good schools and shoving them into bad ones. That's certainly unreasonable.
Please look at cross busing, which is being used to aleviate this. Also, given that schools take in from a feeder area, you can (and do) end up with schools that take from all over the stratta.

My high school did that. I went to school with people who lived in trailer parks all the way up to the daughter of the govenor and the kid who's parents owned two casinos in Reno and Lake Tahoe.

Among public schools.
Believe you me, there is indeed compitition between the public schools. There always has been, there always will be.

Furthermore, the government can compensate those that live out of the range on private schools and they will be able to afford to move to another area and get another job.
So you're going to PAY people to give up their job and move to another area?

I'd love to see the bill on that.

But JC Penny will not close if it turns a profit. How many private schools have closed thus far?
The JC Penny's in Ely, Nevada was, they were the only game in town, but the corporate HQ decided that it wasn't worth it. In Carson City, Nevada, the Super K-Mart closed, even though it was one of the few in the nation making a profit, when the company went belly up, left Carson City in a bit of a lurch.

As for schools closing down:
Rheault agreed the judge could rule that the school should remain open for the rest of the year so students would not be displaced. The school, however, has long-term fiscal programs that could force its closure for the 2006-07 school year, Rheault said.
http://news.rgj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060330/NEWS10/603300362/1002/NEWS

If it is the only school in the area, how could it possibly go belly-up? I mean, it has all the children in the area going to it and little-to-no competition. Such a school would be bought by another company if it goes bankrupt because they are in an excellent position and have a near-monopoly on the population.
If the owning company goes BOOM... and yes, it MAY be bought out, it may not. There's nothing saying that it will, and nothing saying that it will do so before the school closes OR is shuttered for a year. That's one of the reasons behind public control of utlities, it makes sure that the lights stay on.

If a school closes mid-year, the students can go to another school and will get their money back. The government should heavily penalize any school that does this or take measures to prevent this from happening.
Like I said, keep bringing in the government and you'll end up with public schools, doing what they're doing now.

But TV and music do not help them succeed in society. Usually, those who succeed are those who do best in school, which means that school has played a large role in their lives. The ones that are capable of reshaping society are probably going to be in that position because of a good education.
And people say that I'm a dreamer. TV and music effect them, a lot. Not only that, like I said, we don't get them all the time. The children who actually take school seriously are the ones who seem to get the value of education drilled into them by their families. This is not to say that schools can't do better or that we do not have an effect, because we do, but it really isn't the overriding the effect that many people assume.

Look at it this way, how much effect does your job have on you? I mean, to the point that it effects how you vote, how you live your live, what your values are, what your religion is, and so on?

Well, that's for the courts to rule. I'm pretty sure that governemnt vouchers have been used to help students go to religious schools in some state while they have been banned in others.
There still hasn't been a definative SCOTUS decision, no. But the establishment clause IS there and it WILL be fought.

And usually courts have a tendancy to suspend laws until the rule, which takes years. Then what?

The other countries have higher class sizes, spend less on public education, yet they still have better test results. Private schools will revitalize the system and give the students and parents more of an interest in education by giving them a choice.
Still doesn't address why you think the US is different enough that it cannot reform its public schools and instead needs to abolish the schools in favore of private schools.

No, we keep the children in public education and slowly give control of public schools over to private schools or just give all public schools over to private schools at the end of the school year. It's not going to take years of work or anything.
Right... creating companies from the ground up won't take years. Finding companies to take over thousands of schools streaching from Alaska down to Hawai'i over to Florida and back up to Maine (Not to mention DoD schools all over the world, they are technically public). It's going to take a very long time to get them private.

Well, since you obviously put a lot of thought and research into your posts (you even added a bibliography for one, damn) and I put in next to none and still don't have time to write an adequate reply, you win. :)
Win? There's a win on NS General?!:eek: I thought we kept going till either one of us got bored or we got annoyed enough to put our opponet on ignore. ;)

Well, you argued well. I enjoyed it. :)

Well, since you obviously put a lot of thought and research into your posts (you even added a bibliography for one, damn) and I put in next to none and still don't have time to write an adequate reply, you win. :)haha...well, we both work within the system, so we might have had a slight advantage there. And aside from my little flipout on you, I enjoyed this quite a bit. You raised some decent (thats not meant to be belittling. I just like the word decent as a positive right now) points that I hadn't considered.
And NER, excellent work. Truly, great.
It has been a pleasure.

One of the huge obstacles of privatizing education is that the townies can’t get over themselves. All the people who make it possible to have cities: farmers, miners, forestry, fisheries, and other resource workers don’t tend to live in the cities, the only place where privatizing education would have any chance of working (despite screwing the poor more than normal).

Even if privatization of education can address every other shortcoming, it’s not going to be able to address the needs of communities that are too small to attract schooling for profit businesses. You’d be putting parents in a position where they would be forced to relive the Residential School experience or have a parent stay at home to do Home Schooling. Surely, nobody is naïve to think that a mining corporation is suddenly going to start paying for the establishment of a private school out of it’s own pocket?

Worse, you decide that the State will continue to operate public schooling only in the unprofitable areas of the State. Now suddenly these schools lose the larger support structure that occurred when the State operated the majority of the schools. People in smaller communities are always going to have fewer opportunities than schools at larger communities, but without the programs made possible across the State by the existence of larger schools, education would be a joke for those smaller schools. At that point you might as well send your children to the Third World where they might have a better chance at a decent education.


The Bruce