I think what you are looking for is "the government". I am not talking about things that don't matter: race, gender, etc.

What are you talking about then? Are you arguing in favor of taking special needs kids out of "gen pop" and putting them in special classrooms (or schools)?

I am saying there is no one curriculum to suit all students, yet thats the only way the government works. We definitely need to separate our learning system. It already fails 1/4 of all students.

It's very fascinating to me that this issue is being brought up both on the Romney campaign trail, and in this forum, at this point in time.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/...HvU_story.html

All the union teachers have certification. Still many of them can't teach.
Some who can't teach are loved by their students. That's what happened in D.C. Michelle Rhee fired many of the loved teachers, who can't teach. Scores improved. Then the union spent millions and beat Mayor Fenty on the next election. Parents of students of the improved schools voted against Fenty(Rhee's backer). There is really no hope of fixing this. Vouchers wont help either.

Well, some form of universal education has been around for hundreds of years. Over time, and in different places, people have argued about how old the child should be before they can stop paricipating in mandatory education, but the idea that the government should provide a basic education for free for everyone up to a certain age is not a new one. Hmm, maybe this idea has stuck around for so long in so many places because it's a good one?

Even voucher advocates are acknowleging the value of broadly educating the entire population, or they wouldn't even support a voucher system (which, btw is still taking tax dollars and shifting it from one person to give to someone else). If you really want a libertarian laissez faire society where every person is an island, then eliminate vouchers, get rid of the public schools entirely and just let everyone send their kids to any school they can afford (according to the free market advocates there will be enough private enterprise and charitable individuals to supply schools to every child at every price point, right?)

I am for teachers and for teachers union (some of which need to be reformed, but not busted up), but man this is so true. Where I went to high school the most useless, lazy, piece of **** teachers that did literally nothing to help us understand the world were beloved by all the students, especially the popular ones for some reason.

I did not fit in well, as you might imagine. I was a bit of an overachiever, not that popular of a thing to be in high school.

Phoenix University Elementary School FTW!

b

i just dont get the argument that vouchers are bad because private schools wont take special needs kids. i dont think this is true, but even if it was, why couldnt the public school just continue doing what it is doing and educate these kids? the private school will be trying to make money. if there is demand for a really good program for special needs kids, why would they not offer it?

this is like you saying "Well, Mcdonalds will not want to sell flavored french fries even if people are lining up outside waving $12,000 french fry voucher checks".

also, did that guy seriously suggest that cause Google built a super school that cost 30k per child that they could never match the ability of the government to publically school our children? lol, wtf?

when it comes to people paying property taxes, remember, taxes are paid on commercial business as well. almost everyone with a residential home is being subsidized by those evil business owners.

like previously stated, public schools segregate children on ability. so what is the big deal about having multiple private schools with different entrance requirments? this is the same thing you have in public school only its all under the same building.

Open enrollment already exists in tons of states. No matter where you live, you can go to any school of your choice. Mind blown?

rofl

Clearly, we are trying to achieve different mandates with our systems. I agree with you that private companies could build some very good schools that would provide very good educations to some students.

However, if we relied on private companies to fulfill the same mandate that the government currently has (ie providing a compulsory basic education to every child in the country), market mechanisms would fail.

- There can never be perfect competition in the education market:

Many rural areas simply do not have enough potential customers to attract multiple schools nor do they have enough good teachers to permit 20 different schools to operate even if the demand were there. Given that there are fixed costs associated with running a school, if you only have enough teachers or students to profitably support one school in a given market, then, guess what, there will only be one school in that market.

- It costs no more to make a hamburger for you than it does to make a hamburger for me. However, the cost of our education might be very different because of the nature of the classes we want to take/the amount of 1 on 1 instruction, whatever. If a voucher is paying out the same amount for every student, for profit schools will naturally tend to accept the low cost students and reject the higher cost students so that they can make more profit, right? This seems pretty self evident to me.

- It is not as easy to switch schools as it is to decide to buy my hamburgers at Five Guys instead of McDonalds. Kids develop attachments to other students and teachers and may not want to switch schools even if another school is better. Parents often prefer schools that are closer to home or work over ones that are farther away. Different curricula might mean that switching schools between grades could put a student at a disadvantage relative to their peers because the new school teaches material in second grade that the old school didn't plan on addressing until the third grade.

- Finally, wrt the Google example, you threw out a simple statement, unsupported by any facts, that Google could do a better job at education than the government. I provided concrete proof that Google has already tried to get involved in education and that its experiment succeeded on one metric (quality) in failed in two other key aspects (cost containment and universality).

So, if your argument is that private companies can produce good schools, I agree. If, however, the argument is that voucher systems would be a feasible way of fulfilling the government's current responsibility to provide basic universal education to every child, I don't buy it.

For-profit heath care is the nuts. Obv for-profit schools will work too.