@mrstickball:

You assume that schools are a zero-sum product. In the public system, this is the case. In the private world, it is not the case. Since there is no limit on the number of schools available in an area, more can be built and sustained, as there are no forced laws as to how many students a school can or cannot accept.

Who cares about private schools? We're talking about public schools.

As for the admission process, I'd imagine it works like it does now. Parents/kids are screened and they usually select the ones that meet their criteria. The criteria can be anything, which can allow for multiple types of schools with different types of focuses. For example, Cornerstone in Detroit focuses heavily on black kids and parents on welfare. Cornerstone is a great example of a private school. What happens when they get overcrowded? They build a new school in a new part of town that accepts local kids. Since they have a good model for discipline and teacher requirements, most schools have very similar performance standards (which yield graduation rates 3 times higher than that of public schools in the same city).

With admission criteria like this I'm not surprised you Americans NEEDED affirmative action.

The biggest losers won't be the kids. Private schools already greatly out-perform public schools by wide margins, even with the same kids and demographics. You are grossly mistaken to attack a system you know nothing about.

If you want to send your kids to private schools do that. The tax money that goes to public education and the money you'd pay to private school should be separate issues.

No. No. And No. Putting more money into a school to make it better is exactly why our schools are failing. More money does NOT yield better success in American schools. Its been proven time and time again. The best state in America in terms of scores is also the state that spends 1/2 the national average (Utah). In fact, spending less money usually results in better education because of less resources, they focus on efficencies which usually yield better students.

Actually Iowa is the best state in terms of score. Utah is 20th. The whole less resources leads to better efficiency thing is bogus, as private schools (who outperform public schools) have more resources. Romanian schools are severely underfunded, and I can assure you that the results show. Motivation theories say that while better envirnomental conditions don't necessarily assure more motivation and better performance, poor envirnmental conditions definately screw up everything.

http://blog.bestandworststates.com/2009/08/25/state-sat-scores-2009.aspx

And yes, new schools would 'magically' pop up. Its called acquisition. If you have a product such as a good school, you put yourself in a position to grow the business and make more. As long as the staff and administration is picked properly, it will likely be of similar quality. Many businesses do this

We're talking about the public sector, no?

Without making specific statements on fixing the schools, you really aren't proving anything. With any research into American schools, you will find that we keep spending more money on schools, and face stagnating quality in terms of graduation rates/student proficiencies. You use the same stupid argument the schools do: "Oh, to fix our schools we need money to buy X, Y and Z! We need more computers! More pay for teachers! A new school building!". And despite these things given to schools time and time again, they never actually help student performance.

It's not my job to fix American schools. I don't have solutions for Romanian schools, I'm not gonna spend my time trying to find solutions for your school system. What exactly would you say are the reasons why your educational system is so lacking? What are causing the problems?

As for the voucher system, you haven't really proven in any quantifiable way that it'd be bad. You offer unproven theories as to how it would be bad using faulty, zero-sum logic that assumes that good schools must be of a limited quantity, thus bad schools must be of a limited value. The problem is that in a free market, capacities can be added or reduced as needed. Good school programs can grow and the proper techniques can be emulated at a rapid rate, which is not possible under our current system that is monopolized by the government.

The Governemnt isn't monopolizing anything. You're free to send your kids to private schools if you want to. Vouchers are unecessary.

Why would this piss me off?

Because you see missioanries as a con job even though nobody is actually forced to learn about education.

I'd think a school that mandates learning about the catholic religion and tests you on it like it were math or history would piss you off.

Well, it would, if it were Governemnt funded. or if people were forced to go there. However it's a private institution and people aren't forced to send their kids there (I know I wouldn't).

And missionaries are con artists.

I don't see the difference.  People aren't forced to accept missionaries help... and hell, even if they want the help don't have to listen to it.

Versus Catholic schools, where if you do want the help of supeiror schooling you do need to listen to their religious teachings.

Either way, people should look harder at those schools and see why they do so much better.

...And its for the reasons I've been preaching to Sapphi's deaf ears.

In a market system, bad schools fail. If a Catholic school provides a horrible education, no one will send their kids there, and it dies. With a public school, it usually gets more and more public funding to fix the problem, despite the problems never getting fixed.

The problem is that you can rarely emulate private school successes, because they don't have teachers unions, and have a much more flexible system for providing education to students.

Well paritally.  I mean Catholic Schools do outperform regular private schools, who in turn outperfrom Charter and Magnet schools, which outperform  normal Public schools.

Holy shit though.  I live in Las Vegas now....

Clark county school district?  Graduates 47% of it's children.

Baically you HAVE to pay for your kids to go to a private school or magnet or charter school.

And thats why I think the voucher system is much needed. If you have abysmal school districts like those in Vegas, Detroit, or Cleveland and the only way to get an education is to spend money on private school, then why can't the government take the money it was spending on your child's education in a public school, and transfer the dollar to a private school?

Again, the example I give is Cornerstone in Detroit. They are servicing poorer kids than the public schools are. Yet despite that, they are graduating over 90% of their kids with most going to college (Detroit's public median is 33-35%), and they spend less per pupil than Detroit does by about $3,000 per student per year. Why can't we save money by teaching our kids better? Its a crazy frakked up thing to keep spending money on what doesn't work.

Well so far as science goes race isn't an issue, it's my understanding that humans today are a success of a combination of various similar hominids of the pasts.

Gender issues remains  as so far as science is concerned there is a difference between the male of almost every species and a female of the same species.

Class is the meat and potatoes though, this one is a social issue and it's wierd how folks continue to muddle it up with the other two.  Class works on a falacy of ad populous and that may be the underlying culprit, it's a hard work and a great deal of our species have our work still ahead of us to move out of needing to be correct or have done things right or at least better than someone else has.

I am a college student who is writing a paper on discrimination. I ran across your post on google, and I created an account just so I could make a comment upon what you have asked... I do believe that racism/ discrmination is an issue in this country, but i do believe it is on the opposite side of the spectrum that you are illuding to. Now just to clarify, I am a full blooded Native American, and I see this problem as if I were a mixture of all races.. I feel that reverse discrimination is becoming a bigger problem then racism itself. I feel that people no longer make judgments based on someones skin color, in my own experiences I make judgments on how affirmative action seemingly "hands everything to minorities on a peddistal" I dont think anyone should be treated on a higher  spectrum then everyone else.  "75% of minorities that are accepted into Law schools would not make it if it were not for the laws set fourth by affirmative action" a professor from the University of Michigan.. how can we as a people expect to grow passed discrimination if everything we do has a restriction because of discrimination?