Then there would be special education schools that focus entirely on the needs of their kids, as it'd be a very special, niche market without much competition. The free market dictates as long as there is a demand, there'll be some way to find a supply. Since special education students need more, the govt would (obviously) need to pay more for them, thus it would be very profitable to teach such students = more money for the special ed school.

The problem is that the government is mandating a be-all-end-all solution for both normal kids, troubled kids, and special kids, lumping them all together, not focusing on their specific needs for schooling. This causes the troubled and special kids to fall through the cracks, as the programs focused on them aren't designed for them, since the school is forced to do offer education for everyone, thus it's watered down.

Life is inequal. We get that. The issue is that you can't rob a rich, smart guy and give it to a dumb, lazy guy 100% of the time and expect them to use the wealth equally. This is why 33%+ of all multi-million dollar lotto winners wind up filing bankruptcy within 2 years of claiming their earnings: They just can't handle it. This is the same reason that those of us that work for a living don't like paying excessive taxes to subsidize poor behavior. We understand people are inequal. We want to help them reach for equality. But we don't believe that forcing solutions on everyone works, because not everyone wants to put effort into achieving a successful life. You yourself said that Mafoo was blessed with motivation. How is that a genetic trait? Desire, motivation, and the drive to succede in life are not given by the government. They are established by every person on if they want to contribute to the betterment of their society, and their own life.

On a side note...

...Why is it that EVERY SINGLE person on the pro-government side is in college and most do not have jobs? How can you complain about the welfare of others when you aren't even paying into the system you supposedly support?

“Then there would be special education schools that focus entirely on the needs of their kids, as it'd be a very special, niche market without much competition. The free market dictates as long as there is a demand, there'll be some way to find a supply. Since special education students need more, the govt would (obviously) need to pay more for them, thus it would be very profitable to teach such students = more money for the special ed school”


That is not what he is proposing---he is saying here is 20k k paper for you to give to the school that teaches your child—that’s the only government money they get

Now if in that school district you have 4000 students and of them only 275 are special needs and your district is over 4000 square miles how can you support those children with that system?

b/c all private schools severely limit the amount of special need students that they let in b/c it will reflect on the test scores and the over all standing of the school

b/c the sad truth is more parents would care about getting x student into x school b/c it looks better then they would about weather the other children get a chance at an equal education

and those numbers only get worse as you move towards intercity schools

“The problem is that the government is mandating a be-all-end-all solution for both normal kids, troubled kids, and special kids”

You nailed it on the mark there

In my wife’s school district due to no child left behind they are not allowed to hold a student back unless the parents consent (even if they are at a third grade reading level going into the 5th grade) and they punish the teachers b/c that student is not at grade level

They figure b/c student x that has a great gene stock, wonderful home life, loving and caring parents, and the family network to increase education drive every student should be able to be like them

Regardless of the fact that some student have no home life, have to worry about the next meal, have no family support, and sometime don’t even have a home to go to….

But according to the government and many ill informed adults that shouldn’t effect the kid, it must be the teachers fault for that

Red - That's what Mafoo is proposing, which may not be the best idea (although it's better than what we have now, which is to give every school near the same amount of money, regardless of how good/inefficient they spend it, demanding across-the-board results). But that's not what I would do. I would merely offer an 'education voucher' which would ensure that, regardless of your childs needs, the right to a competent education by a well-trained, private staff of individuals. 

In the case of 'regular' students, their parents would do their best to pick the best local schools available, based on the cirriculum sets they offer, sports they allow, and various other aminities. Private/Business-run schools would compete for YOUR child's education, and not the other way around: your kid competing for his education.

In the case of troubled/developmental difficult students, there would also arise special schools suited for their needs. Although they may involve more difficult manpower projections, you would have a class of teachers suited for such developmental difficulties. The greatest atrocity we're comitting is by forcing every teacher to teach students of different backgrounds the same stuff, even if they're autistic or have major developmental/behavioral issues...All without proper education on handling those problems. In a free market, you develop specialist skills based on the teacher, and pay accordingly. With more money available for special ed/troubled kids, teachers would get paid more, therefore want to have the special skillsets needed to education such kids...And both sides benefit - the teacher, the student, and the taxpayer, because we're not forcing strict, mandated laws for every school, even if they all face different problems and student compositions.

Black: And I agree there are way too many issues with how the govt. handles education. That's why I have an issue with the government monopolizing education. If your in a bad neighborhood, your pretty much SOL for your education, and will be forced into a bad life - a urban/rural caste system if you will, where suburban kids get the best, urbans get the worst, and rural get whatever they have. Why is it that way? Because there's 1 school in the district, and they have no real economical motivation to do better. If there was more competition, then they would have to hire the best, teach the best, and help the worst, in order to survive.

It's kind of the way that we see the retail chain work: We have botique stores (Gamestop), general stores (Wal-Mart) and discount stores (Dollar General/Odd Lots). They all sell retail goods, but they have unique ways of presenting their services, and attending to their customers needs. Education could be the same way. In your example of the 275 spec-ed kids in one very large district, there are multiple ways you could handle such an issue..You could build smaller spec-ed schools suited to handle only a few dozen kids, and work out different hours/staff rotations to suit them, or many other ways...At any rate, if it's a business, and there's money to be made, then business will find a way to be profitable. Worst case scenario, then the government steps in and has public spec-ed schools that are funded by the government. But in that scenario, we are still paying far less than we are now thanks to more efficent schools, and our kids are getting better education.

Mesoteo - Does your state have state-required insurance? I think that's a good example of how to look at the difference between govt-monopolized education, and a govt-mandated requirement. In Ohio, we have many kinds of insurance companies that fight tooth & nail over your insurance dollar...We have online companies like E-Surance which are blindingly cheap, Safe Auto, which only specializes in state-minimum insurance, and many others. Our insurance rates are pretty low, and we benefit from the saftey of insurance, and the advantages of competition. I believe the same could be done with education, among other areas.

i am not sure about insurance, since my wife is a government employee in Indiana (teachers are here) she gets special insurance through blur cross

and the only thing i know about it is that its really good

I was referring to car insurance, BTW, Mesoteo, not HC insurance.

State-given benefits are awesome. I know that teachers get great pensions and HC. Such a sad state that the government doesn't allow states to offer their citizens the HC and pensions, rather than force it at the federal level.

I think they require it

a little off topic but great news and i hope it passes

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090326/ap_on_bi_ge/states_welfare_with_strings

I don't think fully privatizing schools is a smart thing to do. I definitely think there needs to be reform in the education system, but simply handing it over to private business would in the end be disastrous. For the record I think most things should be privatized, but there are certain areas where business is not going to seek the same goals as government, and it's in the best interest of everyone to let the government do it.

Business doesn't act in a way that is the most beneficial for the country or for society, they act in such a way that is the most beneficial to them as an entity. They give people the product that they want in the way that they want it, and they do so in the brightest, most efficient cost effective manner possible. Which is often beneficial to many, other than just the business. But Given what America wants in education, and how business acts America would become a thousand times dumber.

Imagine if there were two schools across the street from one another, one is offering to teach courses that include the most up to date information from the most respected members of their fields, evolution, philosophy, economics, mathematics, ect. The other school is offering to teach that God created everything as you see it 10,000 years ago,and what jesus would think about america today and would have a fantastic mathematics course, computer labs, ect ect because that school would be ten times richer than the other one. Once something becomes privatized it has no public interest, only competitive interest. Which often times benefits the public, but in education it would be incredibly easy for it to go down a very bad road.

A disturbing amount of americans believe that faith is a better way to understand the world than rationality or empiricism. Schools getting donations from the Discovery institute to re-christianize america, or sponsored by coca-cola to teach the benefits of drinking coca-cola brand products. Schools funded by political groups to teach specific ideologies. The culture war would take over schools pandering to whichever ideology is most prevalent (and thereby profitable) in the area .

So obviously the government would have to have oversight to ensure that something resembling fair and balanced education could exist, instead of choosing the propaganda school of your parents choice. But how much oversight? Obviously curriculum would have to be standardized so you don't have entire states teaching that modern biology is a lie from the devil, or that Coca-cola has better health benefits than water. There would still need to be standardized tests to insure that schools don't drastically lower their standards in order to say "95% of our students are straight "A" students, and yours can be too!" in order to take short cuts. This would fly because a large portion of parents are more apathetic or status driven than you might think.

You may say "private schools aren't like that now, why would that happen all of the sudden?" Private schools now have minimal competition.

The amount of privatization you could give to the education at large would have to be very small to insure that the majority of kids have at least a chance to get a decent education instead of being force fed the ideals of their parents. I think alot of work needs to be done to our school system, but it's one area that I would not trust to money hungry corporations.

a lot of people seem to just operate under the idea that all kids can reach the same goals regardless of obstacles

*wake up please*

Just like there are bad teachers in this world there are bad kids
And no matter how good a teacher is if the child and his family don’t value education and want to make a better life, the teacher will fail

Programs like this are just further incentive to breed a generation of entitled slugs


“why should I get a job when I can just live off the government check, why do I need to work to get health care if the government will just provide it for me, why should I worry about paying for things, I can just rack up credit then file bankruptcy”

I have said it once so far and I will say it again,

WE NEED TO STOP THE HAND OUT AND START THE HAND UPS!

We need to stop letting people just live off each other, they are parasites, we need to stop helping every one out of every mess they get themselves into, people can fail and they should be allowed to do so

Mr. M is right in this fact, every one with enough hard work and grit you can have a great life, the only thing that ever holds you back is yourself (and perhaps a freak act of nature)

You forget that the government already has oversight on private schools. Every child has to take the same year-end standarized test that the public schooler does.

As a homeschooler, I still took every single major public school test. That's how we get data that shows that private/homeschoolers have much better grades that public schoolers.

The ultimate goal of a company is to ensure profitability. And the way to ensure profitability is to produce a product that is satisfactory for their consumer, so that they buy their product. In this case, it's education. If a school offers education that is poor, no one would 'buy' the product, and go elsewhere, thus bankrupting the company.

There are various state, and national school tests that most, or all students take:

- ACTs
- SATs
- State-wide tests

So the precedents are already there for standardized testing in private/home situations.

And you also assume that the government, if education was privatized, would not have a role. They always would, in the same way they do with the FDA, EPA, or other organizations: They would act as a consumer watchdog, ensuring that education was good.

Oh, and culture wars in the schools? They're already there. Look at universities and the studies that have been done with how they skew students thinking.