Sure, but why assume that the politicians who fit your description are more likely to skew away from the general trend and send their kids to private school?

Well, for one politicians that fit that description are going to on average represent more dysfunctional public school districts, and their political philosophy and policy choices are part of the problem, not the solution.

The bottom line is that you have no reliable data in support of your allegations of hypocrisy. And the only data I was able to find mostly points away from your hypothesis.

And I have said it before and I'll say it again. If you want to fix public schools (especially in big blue cities where elites live) force elites to send their kids to those schools, and they will find a way very fast. As we see with all the legally "creative" ways the Establishment is going after Trump, when elites are properly motivated they can actually accomplish a lot.

Yeah, we need more profit taken from our education fund for the private sector.

The idea is to minimize the governments involvement in education which they have proven for decades that they are a more expensive and worse product than their competitors in the private sector. This idea would lead to private companies paying the government for their current schools and other private companies starting other schools and all of these schools working hard to provide the best education for the cheapest price.

I know you may have trouble envisioning a world where the government has a very limited role in education, but just remember that there is a reason that the government doesn't build cars, make cheeseburgers, doesn't run a plumbing company or create the official hockey puck of the NFL and it is because they aren't capable of doing so as well or efficiently as the companies that are already doing these things.

I have to imagine that they could at least handle the hockey puck.

And baham still believe the world and the US is a real free capitalistic market …

Why do you believe the US government is incapable of delivering education at the same level of other governments that do it better for less money?

From my observations, I'd say that it could be beliefs like yours that actually hold your education system back, by creating what is effectively a multi-tier education system where those with the most resources have access to better education than those with less.

I think it is in part a lack of skin in the game from so many people throughout the process that leads to the gov't being incapable of delivering a quality education. When people at the top of an organization know that if they don't deliver a quality product at a reasonable price they are going to go broke that is great incentive to work hard. The people at the top of those organizations in gov't don't have that kind of pressure.

Even people in a kind of middle management type of position in government aren't dealing with the type of pressure people in those positions in the private sector are. This goes all the way down the latter.

I have never suggested the US is a free market. It is pretty dang free, but pretty dang free is not free. I'm not even sure why you would say the above.

Which is the same in other countries that are able to deliver.

U do by constantly giving the conclusion by leaning on capitalism model to resolve cost inefficiency.
True Capitalism and free market isn’t alive in the US for a very long time now .

And just watch many places around the world , many countries how far more cheaper cost for healthcare and education while mainly being funded and manage by governments compare to the US .

Your conclusion do not hold empirical Evidences .

Btw , why you think lower cost necessarily translate to better quality and qualified services to the citizen ?
Does paying CEO the lowest wages bring forth the best labour from them ?
If lower cost is better why we always keep hearing we need to pay millions of dollars to get the best to have the best ?
It’s contradictory .

I absolutely believe the US govt is capable like much of the rest of the modern world of running a competent public school system. However, it has completely dropped the ball over the last 50 years, with no expectation things will turn around anytime soon.

The main problem is that the people running the system have been pushing policies that make themselves feel better, but do not serve their communities at all. And for ideological reasons (and a heavy dose of insulating themselves so they dont have to pay the costs for their failures) they are mostly indifferent to the extreme dysfunction they are fostering.

In the case of education it isn't some unknown mystery. It is pretty easy to tell that the end result of private and quasi-public education is vastly superior at a much lower cost. In big blue cities there are entire schools where most of the children are failing academically, despite the cost/pupil being astronomically high.

There is at least 2 universities in my province I would take my education vs any overcosting private school in US with no shame at all .
And it’s pretty darn cheap comparing to the US .

The beliefs because u pay more magically gives a better education is nonsense .

U pay 50$ to learn how to calculate 2+2 or u pay 10k for it just doesn’t changes anything about the value of 2+2 u acquired .
Education , like healthcare , got massive schemes in the US .
Private sector exist to make money not to give you the greatest education worth for Pennie’s on the dollars.
Which a government could because the government can extract cheap education given through taxes from future employment which the private sector could never do .
So the private sector charges you while they can .

Unless the word "university" has a different meaning in Canada than the US, we are clearly not talking about the same thing.

College too

montreal.... I believe that Kelhaus has been talking about kindergarten through 12th grade.

I see .

All one has to do to verify the failure of education in the US is start watching Youtube videos of people being asked simple questions, sometimes on the strip and Fremont street, such as 'name a country' and a college graduate COULDN'T ANSWER! What continent are you on? don't know. How many weeks in a year? don't know, who did America win their independence from? don't know. OMG, we are in the idiocracy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2oMv93EUpY

FTFY.

This morning Fox News Sunday focused on the education failures in the USA

They had the states that spend the most on education and the least. New York and Washington DC spend the most per Child over $25,000 while Utah was at the bottom 3 at $9500 roughly.
When they looked at math scores which states faired the best and which faired the worst Utah was in the top three while Washington DC was at the bottom. The other shocking stat was in Washington DC 25% of kids never show up for school .

I look at Canada were I think we do better at k-12 education each province has sole responsibility over education . As well our teachers are well paid. AS a parent you can go online and see what your child is taught or the curriculum . Were we fail as provinces have two education systems in some provinces were you have Public and Catholic . So your building two schools for each level. Total waste of $$$

this is dumb.

if i get to pick and choose among only the kids that can afford to pay my rates, and give scholarships to the smart kids that cant, and you get just the random kids in a certain area and half to take everyone. no wonder one sides testing outcomes are considered better..

in general capitalism/free market is good for things people WANT and pretty terrible for things people NEED. privatizing education just leads to schools competing for the best students and refusing to take any kids below the best because it would affect their metrics. there would be absolutely zero incentive to take kids and work with them to improve their scores over just taking kids from higher starting points.

eta- i actually think i'd support dunyain's idea of abolishing private schools entirely before i thought the dumb voucher idea was a worthwhile one.

To your bolded, this might not even tell the full story.

You'd have to check the source data to find out of this means 25% of kids are habitually truant, or if, on average, kids don't show up school 25% of the time. There's a big difference in those two things.

School curriculum is not designed to be something you can skip chunks of and still stay current. Kids who just randomly miss several days at a time are missing a large number of educational building blocks that aren't being recovered later. Ask any teacher in DC about how many of their students actually grasp the material being taught by year grade 4 or 5, and the answers will disturb you.

If 25% of the class is a lost cause, then fine, whatever. The prisons aren't going to fill themselves.

But if a majority of the class misses enough time to get you to an overall 25% absence rate, every single one of those kids are screwed.

Most of the first world cannot fathom a reality in which large numbers of parents give zero ****s about their children's education, but that's what the United States is working with. There's nothing the schools can do to solve problems that begin and end at home.

What are some examples of some things people NEED that the US government is better than the free market at delivering?

This is the equivalent of saying no company is going to come along and try to sell watches to the middle class or poor people because everyone knows that rolex already sells the best watches. Or to use another industry it is the equivalent of saying all of these car brands are going to go out of business soon as Mercedes is the best car manufacturer and there is no reason for any of the other car companies to exist.

It is just beyond silly to think more competition and options for consumers is somehow a bad thing for consumers.