Public School Education System Thread

[C-Mag]

So ... abolishing mandatory education of the citizenry strikes you guys as a good idea, in a world where technology driven economies will rule the day?

I’m not seeing how fewer educated citizens helps us compete ... and I’m on the record as being highly critical of public education and teacher unions. So it’s not like I have a soft spot for the SoE. But less education sounds like a one-way ticket to irrelevance and destitution to me. Take a gander at the nation’s with poor education and low literacy rates and where they stand i. The world.

That’s where you want to go?

I can only speak for myself. My main issue is that education is controlled at the State and County level, no Coercian or Compulsions from the Federalis. Xth Amenment Forever. If Alabama wants cypherin to end at age 12, Cool, if Washington wants to adopt Evergreen College SJW dogma, Cool.

[Fife]

So ... abolishing mandatory education of the citizenry strikes you guys as a good idea, in a world where technology driven economies will rule the day?

I’m not seeing how fewer educated citizens helps us compete ... and I’m on the record as being highly critical of public education and teacher unions. So it’s not like I have a soft spot for the SoE. But less education sounds like a one-way ticket to irrelevance and destitution to me. Take a gander at the nation’s with poor education and low literacy rates and where they stand i. The world.

That’s where you want to go?

Say what? Who's against more education here?

Are you so deep in the weeds that you are thinking that what we are currently doing in such a profoundly stupid way is the only way education supply will be optimized?

Just because someone suggests that the state is not the best delivery device for a good or service does *not* mean that someone is suggesting that said good or service should not be provided.

Muh NEA doe.

:goteam: :drunk:

Is Education a Public Good?

There are many problems with this public good argument. The most glaring problem that should be noted immediately is that, assuming that education indeed cannot be provided optimally by private means, what in the world would move someone to believe that government can better determine the optimal amount? Buchanan (1975) correctly notes that many economists, as soon as they believe that they have diagnosed a public good, fail to consider critically the role that government can play: "It was as if the alternatives for public choice were assumed to be available independently from some external source; there was no problem concerning the behavior of [government] suppliers and producers."

. . .

Another problem with the public good argument — one which is not entirely independent from the above problem — is that it is doubtful that the only motive of the state in operating schools is one of concern for optimal provision. Above it has been demonstrated that public schools were founded as a means to attack the culture of certain immigrant groups. Also, as Holcombe (1997) observes: "…the government has the incentive to create the impression among its citizens that its actions are legitimate…. [It can do so by] creating propaganda that brainwashes citizens to respect government institutions and processes."

Government desires to educate because it can foster an obedient and loyal citizenry. "One has no trouble understanding why dictatorships demand government control over mass media, or why freedom of the press is viewed as a fundamental check on government's power…. Governments can still control the flow of ideas without controlling the mass media if they control the education system" (Holcombe, 1997).

The public good argument for public schools lacks any strength when examined. It assumes that government can provide optimal levels of a service without any justification for such an assumption. Also, the argument assumes that the state is motivated solely by creating an optimal provision. However, government has ulterior motives which work against any presumed motive towards optimality.

[DBTrek]

So ... abolishing mandatory education of the citizenry strikes you guys as a good idea, in a world where technology driven economies will rule the day?

I’m not seeing how fewer educated citizens helps us compete ... and I’m on the record as being highly critical of public education and teacher unions. So it’s not like I have a soft spot for the SoE. But less education sounds like a one-way ticket to irrelevance and destitution to me. Take a gander at the nation’s with poor education and low literacy rates and where they stand i. The world.

That’s where you want to go?

I can only speak for myself. My main issue is that education is controlled at the State and County level, no Coercian or Compulsions from the Federalis. Xth Amenment Forever. If Alabama wants cypherin to end at age 12, Cool, if Washington wants to adopt Evergreen College SJW dogma, Cool.

... that would make it extremely difficult to compete with India and China as they crank out a million unemployed college STEM grads a year.

[DBTrek]

Say what? Who's against more education here?

Are you so deep in the weeds that you are thinking that what we are currently doing in such a profoundly stupid way is the only way education supply will be optimized?

Just because someone suggests that the state is not the best delivery device for a good or service does *not* mean that someone is suggesting that said good or service should not be provided.

Muh NEA doe.

:goteam: :drunk:

Is Education a Public Good?

...Another problem with the public good argument — one which is not entirely independent from the above problem — is that it is doubtful that the only motive of the state in operating schools is one of concern for optimal provision. Above it has been demonstrated that public schools were founded as a means to attack the culture of certain immigrant groups. Also, as Holcombe (1997) observes: "…the government has the incentive to create the impression among its citizens that its actions are legitimate…. [It can do so by] creating propaganda that brainwashes citizens to respect government institutions and processee

Extremely specious. Playing the “government has alternative motives “ card while completely ignoring the fact that private enterprise also has its own motivations, none of which are philanthropy towards students. If we’re discarding institutions on the grounds that they have agendas then it’s time for anarchy to reign, because all institutions private and public have their own agenda.

[Fife]

Perfection is non-existent, broheim.

What is "specious," exactly, about pointing out the fact that when we list the prioritization of the clients/consumers of the compulsory State Education Leviathan, and see that students and taxpayers are at the bottom of the list?

[C-Mag]

I don't know DB. I have reservations too, but I realize it may be my own biases.
Look at the test scores, are we really much competition right now ?

I'd like to give states the opportunity to come up with their own education models. It would bring a lot of diversity in how education is done. De-Regulation breeds innovation. Right now all knowledge needed for success through bachelor degree programs is available for free, on line. Education is going to radically change by the time we reach a new century, seems to me having 50 states looking for the solution instead of one slow moving bureaucracy seems to increase our chances at finding a better way.

[DBTrek]

I’m open to better ideas, just not hearing any.

Let everyone get an 8th grade education, then fuckit isn’t the policy of any first world nation I’ve ever heard of.

How does that lead to an increase in the education among the populace, and not the obvious decrease implied by the policy? Maybe I’m not seeing the genius of the plan.

[Speaker to Animals]

We should do it ourselves. The idea that the government has to solve problems literally is the problem.

[C-Mag]

I’m open to better ideas, just not hearing any.

Let everyone get an 8th grade education, then fuckit isn’t the policy of any first world nation I’ve ever heard of.

How does that lead to an increase in the education among the populace, and not the obvious decrease implied by the policy? Maybe I’m not seeing the genius of the plan.

We are so programmed is hard to figure out how it would work without Big Brother directing the show. Stossel has done more than one piece on education and different options, I can't list them, been a while. I just think we need to break out of the mind set and understand we can do it. IMO, we let Big Brother tell us what to do because we are lazy and don't want to do the work to figure it out for ourselves, and we are willing to expose our kids to less than the best education possible and a lot of Big Brother indoctrination.

It's pretty damning of us.

[DBTrek]

Africa is full of independent, non-governed tribes that haven’t educated themselves worth shit.

The idea that Alabama could be released from the yoke of Federally mandates education and somehow produce highly educated geniuses seems foreign to me.