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FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

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Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#31

Post by wisty »

natrius wrote: post #24
tsally wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider this. Money is directly related to the quality of education. New Trier is a school in the area where I grew up. It is one of the best high schools in the nation. New Trier spends more than $15,000 yearly per student, compared the the state average of $8,786 [1]. Now in a private system we could just provide vouchers to everyone for $15,000 and everyone would have an excellent education. Except this would cos…

Changing the education system will inevitably have a tiny effect on the people who can already throw as much money as they want at education. They have choices. Poor people don't. Giving them choices will likely improve their educations. My school district spends ~$7000 per student. I'd say I got a pretty good education. Vouchers would not have to be ridiculously high to provide a quality education as you imply. Not…

What would they be improving? Their marketing, sales, operational efficiency, quality of education, or teaching the test?

The first 2 are irrelevant, efficiency is good, better education is great, and teaching the test can be quite bad.

There are plenty of educational reforms that could improve things without the need to privatize everything:

* Funding for open source text books, lesson materials, etc.

* Make teachers observe each-others' classes occasionally.

* Tutoring vouchers - more flexible than school vouchers.

* Abolish homework (that's contentious though).

* Publish school budgets and make the principle defend them to parents, to expose waste.

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#32

Post by dhume »

natrius wrote: post #9
tsally wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is guaranteed under article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the US signed and helped author. Not providing a public option for education would mean redefining what we believe to be fundamental freedoms. How are you going to provide education to the poor without public schools? Will the government give the poor money for education? Will you subsidize the "private" schools with governme…

"Will you subsidize the "private" schools with government money? That would defeat the whole purpose of having private schools as you aren't allowing them the operate in the free market." I don't understand this. The most common proposal I've heard is a voucher system that would allow people to defray the cost of an education at a school that has some sort of certification. In what meaningful ways is that not a free…

It is clear to me that restoring choice to the education market will allow competition to occur, which will likely result in increased quality.

Except in this area, the quality of the student seems to matter quite a bit more than the quality of the school. When Chicago Public Schools used a lottery-based system for granting spots in the top-performing schools, it turned out that students who won the lottery didn't turn out significantly better than those who lost.

http://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/CullenJacobLev...

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#33

Post by tsally »

natrius wrote: post #30
tsally wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My school district spends ~$7000 per student. I'd say I got a pretty good education. Vouchers would not have to be ridiculously high to provide a quality education as you imply. Not everyone is going to get a gold-plated education, but the minimum could be far higher than it currently is at the same price. So you are basically ignoring the market failure I point out then? Take your pick of any celebrity clothing line…

The vast majority of the benefits of an education accrue to the person who gets the education. That makes it a private good in the economic sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be provided privately. I had already replied to the "teaching to the test" issue in the thread you linked to. Public schools already do this, yet somehow that's what we should fear private schools doing? From the very beginning,…

Ugh, I had to reply. :-p

First, that's an incorrect (or at least not complete) definition of a private good. A private good is rivalrous OR excludable. Education is non-excludable because raising the education level of economic actors benefits society, which benefits even the uneducated. Two reasons education is (largely) nonrival: (1) we can have more than one student in a classroom and/or host classes online and (2) there are not a finite number of diplomas a highschool can issue, they cannot be permanently consumed. Therefore, education is a public good.

You'll be tempted to nitpick about the nonrival part. After all, diplomas can't be consumed but seats in a classroom can. However given enough seats and enough qualified teachers, education truly is nonrival. This would be a meaningless statement (after all, who cares about situations with unlimited resources) except that making education nonrival is actually fairly cheap compared to the benefit received by society.

And because education is a public good it should be provided by the government, just like national defense. Private education disgusts me almost as much as the idea of private militias. But that's neither here nor there in the context of our current discussion.

I don't understand how you can think you're doing poor people a favor by forcing them to attend their crappy neighborhood schools instead of giving them choices.

They wont have choice. They are contained by geography in a public system. They are constrained by money in a private system. If they go to a poor school they go to an ineffective school, regardless of whether it is public/private. I fail to see why you think schools on average will have more money in a private system. I've already pointed out that free market forces are operating on the public system.

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#34

Post by walkon »

tsally wrote: post #6
vyrotek wrote: post #2

How about the idea that there shouldn't be any public schools?

Education is guaranteed under article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the US signed and helped author. Not providing a public option for education would mean redefining what we believe to be fundamental freedoms. How are you going to provide education to the poor without public schools? Will the government give the poor money for education? Will you subsidize the "private" schools with governme…

Part of article 26, section 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory...

I simply disagree with this. It is not a right that everyone have a free education anymore than it is a right that everyone have a free pair of underwear, but people get confused because one seems noble and the other silly. Why do they use the word "free" here when obviously it isn't?

Also is this really a guarantee, as you state? If so, I am sure the UN (which gets 20-25% of its funds from the U.S.) is failing to back this guarantee, as I am sure there are millions around the world not receiving their compulsory elementary education. Perhaps the U.S. should focus on making their education system work and be well funded before signing declarations that "guarantee" every human, no matter how matter how exponential their procreation, receive a "free" elementary education?

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#36

Post by natrius »

tsally wrote: post #33
natrius wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of the benefits of an education accrue to the person who gets the education. That makes it a private good in the economic sense, but that doesn't necessarily mean it should be provided privately. I had already replied to the "teaching to the test" issue in the thread you linked to. Public schools already do this, yet somehow that's what we should fear private schools doing? From the very beginning,…

Ugh, I had to reply. :-p First, that's an incorrect (or at least not complete) definition of a private good. A private good is rivalrous OR excludable. Education is non-excludable because raising the education level of economic actors benefits society, which benefits even the uneducated. Two reasons education is (largely) nonrival: (1) we can have more than one student in a classroom and/or host classes online and (2…

By that logic, pizza is a public good. When I eat pizza, I become a much more pleasant person in my interactions with others, which benefits society. Most things that are good for an individual benefit society as a whole. It's a matter of degree. Education benefits individuals far more than it benefits society, which leads me to place it in the excludable column. Your justification for non-rivalrous is circular. Since education is valuable to society, we should be willing to pay enough for it to be non-rivalrous. I don't think that's a valid argument. It's irrelevant to my point anyway.

The whole point of vouchers is to reduce the constraint of money on one's educational choices. Poor people will still have limited choices, but they'll have more than one, which is a significant improvement.

I don't think a privatized school system would necessarily have more money in it. (It likely would at the higher end, but not at the lower end.) The benefit doesn't come from money; it comes from competition for that money. Money gets wasted on ineffective programs and teachers in public schools because there's little incentive to improve effectiveness. We're talking about an industry in which merit pay is a controversial topic! When there is a fairly direct relationship between the quality of education imparted and the monetary rewards received by teachers and principals, it seems pretty likely that performance will improve.

Good discussion.

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#37

Post by Empact »

tsally wrote: post #21
natrius wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In reply to your edit: Your entire argument rests on the assumption that private schools that poor students attend will be worse than public schools that poor students attend. You haven't presented any evidence for that, and it is contrary to what a naive analysis would suggest. Today, poor students have absolutely no choice when it comes to schools. They live where they can afford, and they go to the schools they ar…

Consider this. Money is directly related to the quality of education. New Trier is a school in the area where I grew up. It is one of the best high schools in the nation. New Trier spends more than $15,000 yearly per student, compared the the state average of $8,786 [1]. Now in a private system we could just provide vouchers to everyone for $15,000 and everyone would have an excellent education. Except this would cos…

For every student of New Trier (which I've never heard of) there are 1000 in DC or New Jersey, where charter school spend fully half that of the "fully public" i.e. "monopoly" schools.

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#38

Post by scythe »

walkon wrote: post #34
tsally wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is guaranteed under article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which the US signed and helped author. Not providing a public option for education would mean redefining what we believe to be fundamental freedoms. How are you going to provide education to the poor without public schools? Will the government give the poor money for education? Will you subsidize the "private" schools with governme…

Part of article 26, section 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory... I simply disagree with this. It is not a right that everyone have a free education anymore than it is a right that everyone have a free pair of underwear, but people get confused because…

>I simply disagree with this. It is not a right that everyone have a free education anymore than it is a right that everyone have a free pair of underwear, but people get confused because one seems noble and the other silly. Why do they use the word "free" here when obviously it isn't?

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/what-happened-t...

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#39

Post by walkon »

scythe wrote: post #38
walkon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of article 26, section 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory... I simply disagree with this. It is not a right that everyone have a free education anymore than it is a right that everyone have a free pair of underwear, but people get confused because…

>I simply disagree with this. It is not a right that everyone have a free education anymore than it is a right that everyone have a free pair of underwear, but people get confused because one seems noble and the other silly. Why do they use the word "free" here when obviously it isn't? http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/what-happened-t...

Does your link explain how education is a human right or free? It might be a good investment, but that hardly makes it free.

When anything that requires significant effort (skills, capital, services, etc) is pronounced as a right to be given to all, that right, by definition, necessitates payment or enslavement of others to be fulfilled.

Re: FIXME: zero ideas in the dept. of education's open government idea board

#40

Post by scythe »

walkon wrote: post #39
scythe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I simply disagree with this. It is not a right that everyone have a free education anymore than it is a right that everyone have a free pair of underwear, but people get confused because one seems noble and the other silly. Why do they use the word "free" here when obviously it isn't? http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/what-happened-t...

Does your link explain how education is a human right or free? It might be a good investment, but that hardly makes it free. When anything that requires significant effort (skills, capital, services, etc) is pronounced as a right to be given to all, that right, by definition, necessitates payment or enslavement of others to be fulfilled.

Please stop mincing words; you know as well as I do what the phrase "free and compulsory education" refers to. Yes, it's tax-funded. No, taxes do not constitute enslavement. (And before you mention that you said "payment or enslavement of others", let's both agree to admit that you included the word "enslavement" solely for dramatic effect.)

I'm not going to play the "human rights" game, because you have no rights [1]. I'm going to say that providing education to everyone has been proven time and again to be good for society [2]. The attitude of "oh well it's not a right" is perhaps the greatest piece of sophistry I've been subjected to in some time, in that the definition of a "right" is entirely subjective and consequently useless. It is a right as much as the freedom of speech, in that it's provision helps to provide a basic framework that is necessary for a free society. An uneducated populace cannot perform simple democratic tasks, like, say, voting.

Speaking of which, why is voting a right? Doesn't counting several million ballots require "significant effort"? I certainly couldn't do it in an afternoon! Are you "enslaved" by having to pay for people to count ballots?

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWiBt-pqp0E#t=4m0s

[2] http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/want-a-stronger...

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