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HappySqurriel on 25 September 2008
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Jackson50 said:
rocketpig said:

School is a terrible example. I've been a registered Libertarian for almost a decade but even I have to recognize when the party is flat-out wrong about something.

School should be available to everyone. The greater the education level of a society, the better off everyone in that society will be. This is doubly true for our current global economy. We're no longer competing with ourselves but upstart countries like China, India, and Brazil as well. The government needs to ensure proper education for all its citizens for in the end, it will receive a return on that investment in higher wages and, ultimately, taxes. Education has a great ROI if it isn't completely bungled (don't get me started on teacher's unions and administrative problems in our K-12 system).

Change "school" to "social welfare" and I'll agree almost every time. But education is different. It's an investment in the future. An investment the government needs to make.

 

I agree we should provide education, but we need to change the way we provide it. Hitherto, our nation subsidizes the producers of education (schools). This is the wrong way of providing education. We need to subsidize the consumer and allow the consumer (parents and children) to choose the education they desire. Whether this is done through school vouchers or tax credits is up for debate, but subsidizing the producer is nonsense. We do this with foodstamps as opposed to government run grocery stores...so why  do we not do it with something much more important?

I agree that allowing users to make their own choice is one way to make the education system better ... Indirectly, Alberta has a system (somewhat) like that in that Public, Charter and Catholic schools all receive funding in proportion to the number of students they teach; and students can go to schools that are not (necessarily) their closest school if they choose to.

Another problem that people don't really pay attention to is that 1/4 to 1/3 of students don't finish highschool, and less than 1/2 of the remaining students ever go onto college or university, and our secondary education system is focused on preparing students for university. Certainly, we need secondary schools to prepare students for higher education, but we also need to start preparing other students for the "real world" with tradeskills and apprentice training; students may still need training after highschool, but having a reason to remain in school (or to excel in school) might make the education they receive more valueable.

Edit: just to plug Alberta Eductaion a little bit ... This news story is a couple of years old, but it seems that every couple of years the study's findings are replicated:

http://corporate.studentsachieve.com/HTML/NewsItems/Journal%202004-12-07/Edmonton%20Journal%20-%20Story%20-%20canada_com%20network.html

EDMONTON - A new international study says Alberta's 15-year-old students not only outshine their peers across Canada but also rank among the world's best in math, reading, science and problem solving.

The study, released Monday by the Council of Ministers of Education and Statistics Canada, tested students in 41 countries and showed Alberta's teens placed second in math and reading, fourth in science and problem solving.

In every subject they handily beat their peers in Canada's nine other provinces. In math, for example, Alberta teens ranked second to Hong Kong-China, while Canada ranked seventh.