Minnesota’s pet wacko


What do you do with a local politician who claims that public education is her #1 issue, while accepting money from supporters of the Alliance for the Separation of School and State? That’s our Michele Bachmann, claiming to be a supporter of education while endorsed by people who say this:

I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in education.

Take a look at the people who favor completely gutting public school education at the Separation of School and State site, too: D. James Kennedy, Tim LaHaye, Tom Monaghan—it’s like a chorus line of the freaky religious right. And our little Michele fits right in with them.

Comments

  1. speedwell says

    It would be nice if there was such an organization that was secular (that is, an organization dedicated to returning control of education choices to the children’s parents). Anyone know of one?

  2. says

    I agree with a lot of libertarian issues, but this is the most idiotic thing they say. Privitizing education would cause the literacy rate to plummet. Only the wealthy would be able to educate their children. That will not be good for society. If you think so, check out just about any 3rd world country. Or any European country before the enlightenment.

  3. makhita says

    I’m from a third world country. Our education is definitely controlled by the government, and our literacy rates are among the highest you can find. I shudder to think if education was completely privatized and you would have to justify spending money to help along disadvantaged (read poor) children. When it becomes a money-making business (is there any other business?) education goes down the drain.

    However, since it appears that low levels of education coincide with high levels of theism, maybe there is something to be said for keeping the population as uneducated as possible??

  4. says

    Is she a Republican? Because Republicans are always getting the two concepts “I want to save X” and “I want to destroy X” confused. (Where X might be education, social security, Iraq, the environment, etc.)

  5. JamesR says

    These are the same people who pull out “Thomas Jefferson did not receive a public education”. That is correct. It is also correct that Jeffersons slaves did not receive any education as at the time only the landed gentry received any education. And only at the hands of the landed gentry. So if we want to return to the days of slavery I guess then we should listen to this retarded nonsense. I know that is the simple version but in a nutshell that is it.

    The worse thing about public education today is that people think that the parents know best what to teach their children. In my opinioin I think that a well educated teaching staff is the best approach to teaching. Duhh? How else do we stay current? Or is that a problem?

    Oh well, the children of todays children will need to be good at taking direction because they will be unable to think for themselves.(slavery)

  6. Dark Matter says

    Have these people realized the acronym for
    their group is ASSS?

    This is a joke, right?

  7. says

    there’s no doubt the education system needs an overhaul (up here in canada, anyways), hence home-schooling and private schools growing by leaps and bounds over the last 20 years. i never had the patience to home school, if i did it would not have involved ‘belief systems’ unless i was prepared to tackle and teach as many religions and belief systems as possible.

    don’t know, maybe the fundies are best left to educate themselves with NO TAX OR GRANT money from government coffers. ‘they can have themselves’ is a saying that comes to mind. ‘sheeple, who need sheeple , are the luckiest sheeple in the world’. barf.

  8. flame821 says

    I’d like to see an overhaul of the American school system.

    I moved from a fairly large city to a tiny little hamlet (or maybe its a bourough) for the schools. I find the difference in the two school districts amazing.

    My children were at the top of their respective classes in the ‘big city’ and nearly failed out their first quarter in the ‘little town’. These areas are within an hour’s commute of one another and the big city gets a LOT more funding than our little town.

  9. says

    I’m a bit of a literalist. As such, I think that she “claims that public education is her #1 issue” isn’t inherently misleading. At least, no more so than advertising lingo (“the quality our meaty-tasting product is unsurpassed”).

    It makes no claim as to why it’s her #1 issue. In this case, she may be working ceaselessly to destroy public education to the exclusion of all other priorities.

  10. JamesR says

    I looked at their site, ASSS. Here is what they had to say about Bill Gates in reference to having received Buffets money. And about the Gates’s supplementing public education. Spelling left intact.

    –As an aside, we have to shake our heads at a college drop out chosing to fund our disastrous education system at any level. Clearly, he didn’t learn the real lessons taught in school.

    And these people want a say in our education system? Maybe they need to relearn the lessons.

  11. says

    No, Jefferson didn’t graduate from a public school. But he learned the value of education, and he realized that the only way to keep from having a snooty, oppressive aristocracy, was to create public schools.

    The rich, and the stupid, have never forgiven Jefferson for that.

    In other news, perhaps: George III not so bad after all, anti-education group claims. Who could challenge them?

  12. says

    Am I the only one in the US who is happy with the public school system where I live? The public schools are much better than the parochial schools. We have a motivated faculty and relatively low teacher to student ratios.

    I could move a half dozen miles and get into an even better district, or I could move into a worse district, but that is as much social and economic differences in that community as anything. If the parents are involved in educating their children and the community is willing to support the schools, the children get a good education. If the parents can’t educate their children or the community doesn’t support the schools, the children suffer.

    Some things my school/district do well:

  13. Parents as teachers program
  14. Restaurant fund raisers – where the restaurant donates a portion of the nights receipts to the school. The school lets the parents know of which restaurants are doing this when
  15. Special weekly classes for gifted children
  16. School fair fund raiser nights with auctions
  17. says

    ** by the way, I’m not suggesting that the school system is fine everywhere, but it is working in many places, as long as it receives proper funding.

    The schools that are having problems need more than just money thrown at them, they need the help from schools that are successful for ideas, programs, etc., especially the parents as teachers programs.

  18. QrazyQat says

    Michele Bachmann welcomed Karl Rove, White House advisor to the Water Street Inn in Stillwater today for a campaign fund-raiser. Minnesota State Senator Michele Bachmann is the Republican-endorsed candidate for Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District.

    Condi Rice informs me that the above could mean anything. For instance, while the question was “is she a Republican” the above merely says she’s “Republican-endorsed”, and Rove could be raising money for anyone, after all. So, you have given no proof that she is in fact Republican, but now you’ve covered your ass, but let’s get serious and watch me hit this golf ball…

  19. Torbjörn Larsson says

    ASSS proudly presents its antiscience antieducation position:

    “When a few parents in Palmdale, California learned that their children’s school had permitted researchers to interview first, third and fifth grade students about such things as sexual urges and fantasies, they became outraged and took the matter to court.” (“Is there a problem?”, http://www.schoolandstate.org/parentrights.htm )

  20. Jim says

    A secular institution which would support the same goal would be The Cato Institute, a non-profit public policy research foundation that is very libertarian. See, for example:

    http://www.cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp-023.html

    I believe that the only way to make a major improvement in our educational system is through privatization to the point at which a substantial fraction of all educational services is rendered to individuals by private enterprises. Nothing else will destroy or even greatly weaken the power of the current educational establishment–a necessary pre-condition for radical improvement in our educational system. And nothing else will provide the public schools with the competition that will force them to improve in order to hold their clientele.

    No one can predict in advance the direction that a truly free-market educational system would take. We know from the experience of every other industry how imaginative competitive free enterprise can be, what new products and services can be introduced, how driven it is to satisfy the customers–that is what we need in education.

    I believe where Cato and the Alliance for the Separation of School and State would diverge is in the expected result of privatization. The Alliance for the Separation of School and State undoubtedly expects privatization to produce primarily religious schools and instruction that would gradually move the country towards theocracy. Cato’s scholars undoubtedly believe for all intents and purposes exactly the opposite.

  21. quork says

    Have these people realized the acronym for
    their group is ASSS?

    This is a joke, right?

    I’m willing to laugh at them.

  22. says

    The Alliance for the Separation of School and State undoubtedly expects privatization to produce primarily religious schools and instruction that would gradually move the country towards theocracy. Cato’s scholars undoubtedly believe for all intents and purposes exactly the opposite.

    The million dollar question then becomes: assuming all government involvement in education is ended, which group’s postulated outcome is more likely to happen?

  23. No Nym says

    Cato and folk like them variously endorse charter schools and voucher systems as a stop gap between public and private funding. Their basic argument is that because the gov’t school has a de facto monopoly, administrator pay and teacher pay/retention are in no way linked to pupil performance. At the federal level this leads to NCLB nonsense, even if the argument has some merit.

    Basically, Cato is pushing an anti-trust action against gov’t schools. If per pupil funding (ala vouchers) were available and portable, it would certainly give admins. incentive to improve schools. Right now, US education is like Ford and GM in the 1970s: quality sucks but no one is getting fired, and no one is innovating. Sadly there is no Toyota to push them forward.

  24. No Nym says

    Note, however, that the fact that gov’t schools suck in general is not an argument against gov’t schooling per se.

  25. quork says

    I believe where Cato and the Alliance for the Separation of School and State would diverge is in the expected result of privatization. The Alliance for the Separation of School and State undoubtedly expects privatization to produce primarily religious schools and instruction that would gradually move the country towards theocracy. Cato’s scholars undoubtedly believe for all intents and purposes exactly the opposite.

    I’d have to say that the data currently available supports the outlook of ASSS (rhymes with Madrassas).

  26. plunge says

    Yes, Bachman is a nutcase. Unfortunately, she comes from a district that is fairly conservative and is a hard win. And, even more unfortunately, the Dems nominated Patty “Batty” Wetterling to run against Bachmann instead of a more moderate candidate with some actual experience winning elections and working as an elected official in the district. Democrats? Meet your feet. Now start shooting!

  27. says

    Note, however, that the fact that gov’t schools suck in general is not an argument against gov’t schooling per se.

    In what way has it been established that this assertion is fact?

  28. Jim says

    I’d have to say that the data currently available supports the outlook of ASSS (rhymes with Madrassas).

    I’m not saying I disagree, only that I lack adequate information to form a reasonably educated opinion with respect to this particular conclusion. Can you point me with a link to such “data currently available”? I would be happy to look it over.

  29. Fritz Sands says

    I know and support the Alliance for the Separation of School and State. I knew the founder, Marshall Fritz, many years ago as a friend and as a fellow libertarian. He is a fine, fine man and is not a fundamentalist at all. The Alliance is not a religious organization. It is supported by people who do not want the government responsible for the education of children, but wants parents to be in charge. Some (OK, many) of the people who support its goals are religious fundamentalists because they, as a group, feel unserved by the public schools. This does not make the general goal a religious one. I think secular education (with actual biology classes that don’t skirt around evolution as the fundamental principle in bio) for most kids would be much more possible if it were easier/cheaper for fervently-religious parents to educate their young as they see fit.

  30. says

    D. James Kennedy featured a really sorry example of a Christian educator on his radio program this month. I liked the part about Christian calculus and how the speaker managed to win a debate by acting out both sides. Killer.

    My report is here

  31. Kaethe says

    You want parents to be in charge of education? Because they’ve done such an exemplary job with sex education you’d like to open it out?

  32. says

    Sounds like some nonsense we went through in Nashville recently. The school board rep in my district resigned to take a job in another state. The Metro Council in these cases appoints a successor till the next election. So the Republicans maneuvered a stealth candidate (our Council is incompetent, don’t ask), a woman who home schools her children, onto the board, instead of another candidate who was a retired school teacher and principal. Fortunately, we had an election last week, and the veteran teacher trounced the home schooler. Not all Republicans are anti-public education, but it says a lot that their party attracts those people. I think the “logic” of the local Republicans was that the home schooler would vote for smaller education budgets, leading to lower property taxes, which is what they really care about.

  33. quork says

    I know and support the Alliance for the Separation of School and State. I knew the founder, Marshall Fritz, many years ago as a friend and as a fellow libertarian. He is a fine, fine man and is not a fundamentalist at all.

    OK, so he’s not a Fundamentalist wacko, he’s just a toll of Fundamentalist wackos. Maybe that’s progress.

  34. Dianne says

    I used to live in Chicago. People in Chicago, with its notoriously corrupt politics, always used to admire and envy the sane, clean politics of Minnesota. Wrongly, apparently.

  35. says

    I looked at the (rude acronym deleted) website, and saw the note that the number of “independently educated” kids is equal to the number of kids in publich schools in our 25 smallest states plus D.C..

    I bellieve that claim to be false. There are at most 2 million kids not in public or parochial schools, nationwide. That’s out of a population of about 60 million kids in school. No way the smallest 25 states have only 3% of the nation’s students.

    Now, does (rude acronym deleted) claim that all private and parochial kids are also “independently” schooled? That would add about 9 million kids to their total, but that’s still just 11 million out of 60 million, about 18%. Half of our states have less than 20% of our population? Something’s out of whack there, I think.

  36. stogoe says

    The “Private Schools are Better” lie has been passed around for ages, and recent studies show that this is not the case when you take into account socioeconomic factors. This is only one reason why I think libertarians are wacko bonkers. Go read PZ’s “I think I despise anti-environmentalists…”
    (http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/06/i_think_i_despise_antienvironm.php). It’s one of my favorite posts, right up there with “Planet of the Hats”.

  37. says

    Half of our states have less than 20% of our population? Something’s out of whack there, I think.

    Well, according to the 1990 census data (old, but came in a convenient table form that made this easy to calculate) that is more or less correct – the states listed on ASSS’s web site contain about 17% of the US population according to census figures. (For reference, California alone contains 12% of the population!)

    I’d assume that ASSS counts all non-public-school children as “independently schooled”, too.

    But the question I would ask of ASSS is this – so what? What difference does it make that there are more of these children in the entire country than there are in states that represent about 17% of the population?

  38. BlueIndependent says

    I attended private Catholic school most of my young life, but did spend a year in a public high school. It could have been my particular area (a mostly white suburb), but IMO the public school wasn’t any worse than the private schools I attended. There were still good kids, in-the-middle kids, and the problem children in both. Both had perfectly-good teachers. The private schools were more disciplined overall, but not by much, and it was likely mostly a function of uniforms (which I happen to be in favor of).

    The public school certainly wasn’t unruly by any means, and I would say the number of kids from broken households or other such problematic backgrounds were equally numerous between the two. Conversely, there were kids in the private school that smoked, did drugs, drank, cussed like sailors, etc. The only difference was they were weaing uniforms.

    I haven’t seen any hard data one way or the other, but my life experience tells me public schools aren’t that much different than private schools when it comes to instructional quality. In fact I have friends brought up in public schools that were more knowledgeable than I on certain subjects because they had science and other studies when I was forced to take religion for a class period every day.

    America’s public schools have issues no doubt, but abandoning them is not the answer, and they have proven their worth historically.

  39. Angela says

    Michele Bachman’s number one issue isn’t education. It’s working to keep gays from getting married (gasp! the horror!). For those of you non-Twin-Citians, her own family members have written letters to the editor practically disowning her.

  40. Todd Gutschow says

    Regardless of what other beliefs Ms. Bachmann might hold, I believe that her proposition that we end the government’s involvement in education deserves to be taken seriously. Why shouldn’t parents be allowed to choose what, where, and how their children will be taught? Wealthy parents have that choice now, and many choose to exercise it. Does anyone really suppose that poor parents are less concerned about their children’s welfare than their rich counterparts? or that either group is less interested in the question than professional educators?

    And as to the fear that we would suddenly devolve into a third world country, wouldn’t the example of pre-Revolutionary America, in which the literacy rate was as high as 90%(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literacy#Examples_of_highly_literate_cultures_in_the_past), serve as contradictory evidence? Furthermore, eliminating government intervention in the regulation and operation of schools would seem to provide a swift and satisfactory resolution to most of the debates that plague our current system such as the teaching of evolution and creationism. Even if most people chose sectarian institutions in which evolution was strictly denied, it seems absurd to imagine that everyone would, and regardless, those decisions would have absolutely no impact on the validity of the science supporting Darwin’s theory.

    Does anyone have any evidence to support the contention that government schools as a group outperform private schools? There is at least one study that suggests the opposite (http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/08/07/private-schools-better-nces-study-bunk-harvard-profs/). Furthermore, even if public schools were as good as, or slightly better than private schools, wouldn’t the sacrifice of personal liberty entailed in entrusting education to the government argue against that course of action? If our children fail to learn because we have not been vigilant enough in securing them a proper education, at least we would have only ourselves to blame, and if they succeeded we could share more directly in their triumph. As the situation currently stands, most of us feel practically impotent, and I doubt that is helping anyone.

  41. Angela says

    I don’t know about anybody else, but I don’t want the average Wal-mart shopper entrusted with educating their children. We’d become a country full of people who say “I seen that” and “Math is hard.” Let’s leave educating kids up to a partnership between educated professionals AND the parents.

  42. plunge says

    I think there is a very trong case to be made that governments should subsidize and require education. I happen to agree, however, that this doesn’t mean that the governments have to own, manage, and run the schools.

    However, glurge like this is just unhelpful: “Does anyone have any evidence to support the contention that government schools as a group outperform private schools?”

    Even if private schools and homeschool outperformed public schools by wide margins, taking this as a sign of anything is just foolish. Homeschooling parents generally have a great luxury in having the time and energy to school their children directly (a class size of one! why wouldn’t that do better). However, most parents simply do not have that luxury. And being rich enough to hire tutors or send a kid to a private school is also not helpful as a demonstration of the effectiveness of private schools. In both cases, we are talking about highly self-selected populations of kids and parents where there is often both ample time and money as well as that being associated with all sorts of other factors that give the kids a far better chance. Private and secretarian schools also get to select their students (tossing out all the hard cases). In fact, homeschooling has the same phenomenon: problem kids that don’t homeschool as a well and are thus then dumped back into the school system in frustration.

    None of that is evidence that if we just got rid of or sold all public schools, that we’d suddenly have a system where all the slack was taken up and everyone would get a good education.

  43. says

    I was a bit surprised by Scout’s comment regarding Canadian schools. While my Jr. High experience (grades 7-9) was hellish, I have relatively fond memories of Elementary and High school, both standard public education schools. I was able to take advantage of the advanced education features, I learned civics, government, biology, physics, chemistry, as well as dabbling inin art, drama and music. Because of my grades, I was able to attend “specialty” english classes, dealing with Fantasy and Mythology.

    Granted, the computers were a few years out of date; my class in “Q Basic” was useful more for programming logic than any direct application. But all in all, I have no complaints about my academic experience with Public Education.

  44. Fritz says

    Kaethe rather sarcastically asks why parents should be in charge of educating their children. By the same logic, one can ask why parents should be in charge of feeding their children. In both cases, I would state that parents have the responsibility for raising their children unless and until gross abuse can be documented. (So I suppose some would state that a lack of exposure to the tenets of modern biology is a form of child abuse. But, no, I would not buy that one.)

    I am nervous about education being run primarily by the government for the same reason I don’t want radio stations and newspapers run by the government. If we could get rid of government-run schooling then we wouldn’t have these stupid battles (OK, except in places where the population and educational opportunities are really thin) about who gets elected to school boards for what covert reasons.

    There is a rather ugly streak of elitism in a lot of the comments on this thread — that “Wal-mart shoppers” (apparently you have to be stupid to pay less than retail for goods at WalMart, except that you can be smart if you pay less than retail at CostCo) are too stupid to pick appropriate education for their kids so they must be forced to accept “help” from their betters. I have a pretty strong visceral reaction to this kind of patronizing attitude.

  45. Todd Gutschow says

    Stogoe, I’m sorry to hear that citing a Cato study as support makes you suspicious about my claims. It may very well be the case that study is flawed, it may even be the case that Cato has a history of producing such flawed studies (though I do not believe either is true), still it would seem a poor exercise of logic, equivalent to an ad hominem argument, to discount my position before investigating the material for yourself.

    Plunge, I am aware of the self-selection bias, which is why I chose the report I did. I believe the author attempted to address that concern and illustrate that private schools still fared better in educating their students. Secondly, regarding the issue of “problem cases”, there are often instances in which public schools “dump” those children into private institutions specifically designed to meet those kids’ needs. I believe that cutting out the government middle man, and allowing parents to apply directly to those schools would be a preferable situation. I should also note that I agree with the proposition that governments should subsidize the education of the poor and that there are numerous ways in which this could be accompolished without turning over ownership, management, or operation of schools.

    Also, I agree with Fritz that there is a disconcerting level of prejudice displayed by many in this thread. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of where to begin building a computer, car, or home, but I still consider myself capable of and entitled to the right to make my own decisions regarding the purchase of those commodities. Furthermore, regarding those “Wal-mart shoppers”, my guess is that they possess a kind and quantity of knowledge that would astound most of their detractors.

  46. Todd Gutschow says

    Rick,

    Thanks for your response. I do recognize that more of the nation’s disabled students are enrolled in public school. However:

    “Under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), that escape valve became a right.

    A pair of unanimous U.S. Supreme Court decisions interpreted the law to require that school districts that fail to provide a “free appropriate public education” for each child with a disability must do so at public expense in private schools.” http://www.heartland.org/article.cfm?artId=16890

    As for a specific example, take a look at the Washington, D.C. School District: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/04/AR2006060400973.html

    I ran across both of these citations here: http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2006/06/05/when-going-gets-tough-public-schools-get-private/

    Thus, even if the public schools do retain most of their learning disabled students, it seems that at least every now and then a few are sent outside the system.

    So now the question is, why are we allowing some children with “special” needs to seek individually appropriate solutions when it seems clear that every child is unique and could benefit from the opportunity to choose his own school?

  47. Xanthir says

    There is a basic problem with educating your own children on a wide-spread basis – most people don’t have the time or the education to do so.

    Do you think you can teach calculus? Do you think the average person can teach calculus? The average person (I’m most definitely *not* talking about ‘walmart shoppers’ or anything, but the actual average person) barely knows trig, let alone calc. I’ve met many people who are otherwise quite intelligent who have no clue how to work with fractions or percents!

    And this is what you want educating our children? As it is, if you don’t learn math it’s because you didn’t listen. If you have your way, you’ll be doing an EXTREME disservice to all the extremely bright children of America who *don’t* have extremely bright parents. Or have parents who don’t have time. Or don’t have skill as teachers.

    We can assume parents will feed their children correctly because it’s hard not to feed a child. We can’t assume parents will teach their children correctly because it *is* hard to teach a child. Ask any teacher. And then consider what it would mean for America if an entire generation just lost the majority of their schooling.

  48. Interrobang says

    My argument for keeping public schooling basically revolves around civics. I think it’s really important to teach a core curriculum to the vast majority of students (my experiences in the Canadian public education system have shaped this view), as it helps create cultural cohesiveness. Canadian students don’t have to write university entrance exams (e.g. SATs or GRE), because the broad general curricula are federal, although there are differences provincially and municipally. Nevertheless, university administrators know that graduates from public institutions will be able to meet certain basic standards.

    Contrariwise, you only have to look at the British educational system to see how it has enforced and continues to enforce class distinctions — the upper classes get a very different education from the lower classes, and you’re as likely to be streamed into an “appropriate” track from an early age regardless of your actual potential as not. The real high achievers, as well as the scions of the upper classes, go to Oxford and Cambridge (there’s even a particular Cambric word to distinguish the two — anyone who’s obviously there because of academic performance as opposed to social standing is a “narg,” for Not A Real Gentleman). The rest go to the redbricks, if they go on past sixth-form college at all. It’s all very compartmentalised and determined in large part by a series of standardised do-or-die exams. The major saving grace to the UK educational system is the comprehensive schools…

    I think a privatised US system would end up being even more like the British system than it is now (Dubya’s “gentleman’s C” ring any bells?) — highly fragmented and polarised, with postsecondary education largely out of reach of most people, and xenophobic subcultures (like the funnymentalist Christians) intentionally isolating themselves and their offspring out of the mainstream culture, which might, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist. Why anyone would actually want to live that way is actually beyond me.

  49. Fritz says

    When I say “responsible for educating their children”, I mean, for the most part, responsible for picking a school. I say parents are responsible for feeding their children without expecting most parents to be personally harvesting the wheat for the cereal.

    With modern technology, there is no obvious reason why post-secondary education should be out of the financial reach of most people. To the extent this is true, I blame it on entrenched institutions that have kept the cost from dropping.

    Yes, some xenophobic subcultures will isolate their children. And, yeah, those children will pay the cost of their parents’ decisions. But that is part of “live and let live” — and I think it is reasonable to let them raise their kids and let the rest of us raise ours.

    Anyone who thinks it is hard not to reasonably feed a child has not tried doing so.

    As long as there is a government school system then educational philosophy (of which biology is regrettably one part) will be a political football. I find that unpleasant.

  50. Todd Gutschow says

    Xanthir,

    I don’t know about the other people who have posted on this thread, but I am certainly not advocating that professional educators be banned or that all parents homeschool their children–far from it. I am merely advocating that parents be allowed to decide for themselves the type of education their children receive. For some, that would no doubt mean homeschooling, but I imagine their numbers would remain small, since, as you rightly point out, few people have the time or werewithal to provide what they themselves would consider to be an adequate educational experience for their kids. On the other hand, by restoring the power to make those decisions to parents, a broad array of different types of schools would likely develop overtime to meet the different needs and expectations of their customers. Some parents may not ultimately be as intelligent as their offspring, but seems unlikely, and a bit condescending, that all or even a majority of them would willfully condemn their children to subpar education out of spite, jealousy, or plain stupidity. It might also be worth noting that your encounter with “otherwise quite intelligent” people who find some elementary math concepts difficult may indicate that even the most commonly agreed upon “core elements” of our national education curriculum are unneccessary and perhaps even detrimental to the lifelong success of some individuals. Further arguments for privatization.

    Interrobang,

    First of all, I do not believe that your civics/core curriculum argument holds water. The odds that every third grade teacher everywhere in Canada presents the exact same set of basic information to all their students without exception year in year out seem small indeed. Instead, it seems much more likely that even within a highly organized national curriculum, certain key components will be omitted, forgotten, or ignored by even the best meaning students and teachers. Yet society continues to function. In fact, society flourishes precisely because of these differences in experience and taste. Cultural cohesion can often serve as a cover for authoritarian imposition of despised behavior. Ask the survivors of China’s Cultural Revolution.

    Secondly, why do you think privatising education necessarily implies the swift devolution into a caste system? Why would post-secondary education suddenly become vastly more unaffordable simply because universities were receiving their payments directly from citizens instead of the state? How would providing vouchers, or tax credits to impoverished families lessen their ability to pay? And why, unless they begin infringing upon other people’s rights, should xenophobic subcultures be feared or condemned? Shouldn’t everyone be allowed to live his life as he best sees fit? I also do not except your contention that government schooling as we now have it is responsible for establishing a “mainstream culture”. Most people’s decisions about what music they like, or what tv show they are going to watch are unrelated to what their history teacher thinks about the Civil War. The fact that it impossible for you to imagine why someone would want to live in this way is all the more reason to allow it. Society relies upon the innovation of the few to discover new and better ways of doing things.

  51. says

    Thus, even if the public schools do retain most of their learning disabled students, it seems that at least every now and then a few are sent outside the system.

    Very, very few. You need to look at the rule here, not the exceptions.

    The point you’re running away from is that private schools by and large are not serving LD/ELL students. They appear to choose to avoid serving these students. Why is that?

  52. Fritz says

    I’m a bit suspicious about the stat that 22% of public school kids are either learning disabled or deficient in English. I believe public schools get extra money for such students from the state and feds. Do private schools get extra government money for such kids? If not, then there would be a strong inducement for public schools to make sure as many kids as possible achieved that status. And private schools may not have the same economic motivation therefore.

  53. Todd Gutschow says

    Rick,

    I would argue that the reason you don’t see private schools serving the majority of disabled students is because they are not being paid to. If the parents of disabled students were given vouchers, or tax credits, or simply not required to pay for the education of their children twice, chances are good that many of them would opt to look for a school that specialized in educating disabled students. Under a truly free-market, you would also be more likely to find schools designed to handle your child’s particular disability. Do you doubt that such demand would fail to stimulate such a response? The rule here is simple supply and demand.

  54. Jim says

    I wanted to jump back in with a comment regarding special needs children. If a private school elects not to take in a special needs child or on policy special needs children, does that simply mean that special needs children will end up locked in a closet . . . or the attic, given scraps of food an alienated from society until they devolve into madness?

    It does not. What it means is that the private school is acknowledging that as a business model it can’t adequately serve the needs of the special needs child and its regular student body. Does that mean that there would be no suitable private education available for special needs children? On the contrary, schools in a private system that profess expertise in special needs education would likely be substantially better because of their focus.

    Right now the integration of special needs children and the requirements related to their funding are putting a strain both on school districts and teachers. I think a dose of capitalism-inspired creativity may be just what is needed.

  55. Uber says

    I can only speak from the experiences I have had in my area as an HS science teacher but the students we receive from the local private schools are always at least 1-2 years behind in science.

    Home schoolers are even worse. We frequently have troubled or failing students leave to go to home school to stay out of trouble so as not to be placed in alternative schools.

    Simply put the numbers of parents who can successfully teach a full HS curriculum is, I would guess, between 1-5%. At the elementary level your odds increase but honestly folks look around at the people you see day to day and ask them the most general of history, science, math or english questions and they will often struggle to get them correct. Do you want these people in charge of teaching science to the nations future?

  56. Jim says

    Perhaps the tools available to home-school parents will significantly mature is there is a bigger aggregate market for business to cultivate. Technology might also allow such parents access to resources that would assist them. You are looking at the current model and merely extrapolating it without factoring in any change. Other posters have done a sufficient job pointing out that the freedom of a parent to choose should be their right.

  57. truth machine says

    It would be nice if there was such an organization that was secular (that is, an organization dedicated to returning control of education choices to the children’s parents).

    No it wouldn’t. But I understand why some people think so, given the dogmatic nature of libertarianism and free market worship.

  58. truth machine says

    Perhaps the tools available to home-school parents will significantly mature is there is a bigger aggregate market for business to cultivate.

    And perhaps pigs will grow wings and fly.

    Other posters have done a sufficient job pointing out that the freedom of a parent to choose should be their right.

    What “should” be depends upon one’s goals. If you want a well-educated populace, it shouldn’t be.

  59. truth machine says

    And in any case, parents already have that right. What they don’t have a right to is my tax money to fund their bad choices, which is what vouchers are. The issue here is the removal of government from involvement in education, and no positive argument has been given in favor of that; government involvement in education, even if not perfect, is overall positive, and there is considerable evidence of that, regardless of the quasi-religious views of the libertarian trolls who have descended upon this thread.

  60. truth machine says

    Serendipitously, here’s a NYT editorial that touches upon home schooling as a public health threat. Of course, it will have no effect on the beliefs of “wacko bonkers” (as stogoe puts it) libertarians, because libertarianism is an ideology, a matter of faith and dogma, not amenable to reason and evidence.

  61. Todd Gutschow says

    Truth machine,

    Perhaps you could cite some of the “considerable evidence” that government schools are better than private alternatives.

    I think your disparagement of people who express libertarian viewpoints is unwarranted and insulting. I think that there has been ample evidence in this thread to show that libertarianism in not a matter of faith and dogma. Quite to the contrary, it is an appeal to reason and evidence. I’m not saying that there is never a case in which government intrusion into the marketplace is not justified, just that considerable evidence should be mounted to illustrate that society is much better off, and that the intervention is explicit in the costs and benefits it entails. Why do you assume that it is the government that grants people their rights, and not the other way around?

  62. says

    The real high achievers, as well as the scions of the upper classes, go to Oxford and Cambridge (there’s even a particular Cambric word to distinguish the two — anyone who’s obviously there because of academic performance as opposed to social standing is a “narg,” for Not A Real Gentleman). The rest go to the redbricks, if they go on past sixth-form college at all.

    Ummm…. You do know it’s not the ’50s any more, right? Coming from a solidly working-class background, and going to a “bog-standard” comprehensive (though, admittedly, one with some very good teachers), several of my classmates (children of mechanics, electricians, or the long-term unemployed) went on to Oxbridge, and never mentioned any predudice. I’d be surprised if anyone has used the word “narg” in 50 years…

    Of course, as the lase several governments have done everything they can to ensure that if an Eton student gets into Oxbridge with 5 A’s, while an inner-city working-class student with the same excellent grades is turned down, the press will scream bloody murder about it. It’s true that the Eton student is still likely to have gotten a better education, and is more likely to do well at the interview, but it’s been a long time since having the right parents was a guarantee of a place at a good university.

    And then, you have to bear in mind that, in many subjects (for example, anything involving computers or business, or pretty much anything that isn’t ancient Greek literature…), an Oxbridge degree just isn’t as good as one from many of those redbricks that you’re so distainful of.

    But given that British universities are all private institutions (basically, the government pays you to go to univeristy, but doesn’t provide the education itself), it wouldn’t really be any different from Yale or Harvard charging so much that only the rich can afford to go, and then giving priority to “legacies”, would it?

  63. says

    scout: At least higher education is grossly underfunded in Canada. It was bad enough a few years ago, but my sister (at Dalhousie) notes all the ridiculous tuition increases during her time there. It seems that one of the things we need is tuition price guarantees. Of course, I see the somewhat crumbling school near me (the one I went to as a child, by chance) and I think perhaps they are slighting the primary schools here too – and then there’s my high school, which was packed when I went and now has ~10-15% more students. Okay, yeah, Quebec is screwed up.

    Jim: Regardless of the secular (or not) result of privatization of education, our friend from the developing country is exactly right. Privatization of education is a recipe for disaster. (okay, okay, more of a disaster).

    What I would want to see is better research in schools of education. It seems that there isn’t sufficient attention paid to the psychology of learning and so on; that instead they reinvent the wheel (badly) instead of developing a technology and technic (see my usual terminology discussion elsewhere) from the basic and applied scientists in psychology departments.

    Todd Gutschow: There is a way to work towards getting what you want from public schools – lobby school boards, boards of education, the public and so on. The libertarian mistake is thinking “the government” is some entity distinct from themselves. Well, hey, we’re supposed to live in democracies. Who is the government? Us. Incidentally, literacy rate as high as 90% in prerevolutionary America? Even with the close to zero of the slaves? And weren’t there states who ran schools then too?

    The mechanism by which vouchers ghettoize schools is quite clear: an affluent parent can use the voucher and her money; a poor parent is limited to a place that can function on just the vouchers. We’re at two tiers of schools now.

    Another problem with (most) private schools is of course that they exist as a business. Whence there is a goal competing with their primary mission, viz. to educate. This sounds like a bad idea, especially as it is not clear that education (as a good) is even comeaurable with a strictly economic value.

    As for home schooling. Well, I am not likely to ever have kids, but I certainly don’t think I have the knowledge to do that beyond about grade 8 or so. Certainly I would be incapable if I had an artistic or musical child. (Though as it happens I tend to fall for that sort of woman, but …) Anyway, specialized subjects are next to impossible to teach at home, and one of those is social skills.

    Incidentally, I think one of the ways in which public schools can be improved is in the so called “alternative” model we use here. That is, public schools sort of modeled after private ones – focus on specific areas, some student selection, uniforms (though this is one area where I don’t think they have it right), etc. (Uniforms, as has been pointed out by an ex-vice principal of the alternative HS I went to, require enforcement, which takes away time from other duties of more directly educational value.)

  64. Flex says

    Interesting that with all this discussion of public/private/home schooling and the demon of government. There doesn’t seem to be any real discussion about the structure of the system.

    I may be wrong about it, but my understanding was that the intention for the creation of a local elected school board was to give the parents in a community some oversight of the educational standards of the schools in the community.

    The only requirement I know of to be elected to the school board is to live in the district.

    The purpose of the school board is to ensure the schools in that disctrict are adequately funded and provide an acceptable level of education. The community, through various taxes (millages if you prefer) pays for the educational level desired.

    In addition to the local community paying for local education, there are other funds provided as well as standards set by State and Federal governments.

    Some districts rely heavily on state funding because their community can’t afford much. Other discticts, in wealthlier areas, don’t need as much state money to meet the educational needs of the district.

    Now. When we are talking about privatizing public schools, what exactly are the changes we are talking about? Elimianting the school board and any state funding (and any State and Federal Standards)? Letting every school in a district compete for each parent’s dollars? Eliminating school districts (which usually but not always are linked to communities)?

    General education of the public is usually accepted as a benefit to any society. We should start there.

    So how do we achieve this goal? Well, every child has to be educated. That’s every child, not just the wealthy children, or even limited to those children who’s parent’s can afford it. Every child.

    If the citizen’s agree that for the good of the community every child should recieve an education, than the citizens of the community should provide that education.

    Not the parents. The citizens. All of them.

    How do you do this? Well, the community could use the free-market, hire an educational corporation, and pool their money to ensure every child gets a good education and no one is held back because the child’s parents are poor. Remember, this is for the good of the entire community, not just the children or parents.

    So the community pools it’s money and hires a corporation to provide education for the children in the community. The members of the community also want to verify that the corporation is providing the quality of eduation they are paying for. So they elect some members of this community to oversee the corporation which is providing the education.

    Pooling their money gives several benefits. Generally, they get the benefit of economies of scale. The cost per child is less, and they can afford to hire better instructors. They can build a structure specialized for the needs of the children in the community, and they might even be able to afford to transport the children from their homes rather than requiring the parents to arrange transportation.

    Some other members of the community say they distrust the educational corporation and decide to educate their children themselves. But it is still in their interest to see that the rest of the children in the community get at least some education, so they still contribute to the general fund to educate the children in the community.

    Does all this sound familiar? It should. There are only two differences between this scenario and my understanding of the current public school system.

    1. In the public school system the school board has not been elected to choose and monitor a educational corporation, it acts as a board of directors for the system. Thereby being held to a higher level of accountablity to the community. As elected officials, the community can remove them. A corporate executive cannot be removed by the community, at best a community could void the contract and start searching for some other educational corporation to take it’s place.

    2. I left out the state and federal funding and standards.

    Finally, there is one assumption that is not being discussed: It is a benefit to every member of the community for the children of the community to be educated.

    Those people who propose that since they home-school or send children to a private school they shouldn’t pay for the public schools in their community are implicity saying that they don’t feel it is a benefit that every child get an education.

    Cheers,

    -Flex

  65. says

    Here’s what I don’t understand: there seems to be an idea that government involvement in education is wrong. I don’t get that. As a supporter of public education, my biggest complaint is that there is too little federal and/or state involvement in education, and too much local influence. It is local school boards who promote ID and disavow evolution, and challenge texts and library books, it is local taxes that grossly underfund school districts.

    If the concern is choice for parents, and letting the market have sway, well, don’t most parents make a choice when they decide which district to live in? Again, the advantage of government involvement is to lessen the negative effects of local control and funding, and to compensate the poorest districts who have been totally screwed by the market.

  66. Fritz says

    Kaethe asks why some of us consider that government involvement in education is wrong.

    I have two main issues with it. First, I do not like the idea of government indoctrination. I don’t want government newspapers or radio stations (OK, I listen to NPR, but still…) or TV stations. And so I am also not keen on the government being the primary institution educating children.

    Secondly, when there is political control of education then people will wage political fights to take control of school boards in order to impose their points of view on all children. This is happening today. Not just in the ludicrous fights over biology curriculum, but on sex education, civics, history, etc. And it won’t go away, because there is no such thing as objective education.

  67. Flex says

    Fritz, could you define what you mean by government?

    There are several layers of the social organization known as government. Local goverment, you know the one that deals with your sewer and roads, has typically no input into the running of a school district. School districts often are contained in or cross local municipality boundries.

    School boards/boards of education are not typically directly tied to other government offices. They don’t share information with local government simply because there is no reason to. They serve completely different functions and are seperate entities.

    State and federal governments have education bureaus under the executive branch, but the funding comes from the legislative branch. These offices attempt to set general eduactional standards. These offices may also disburse state or federal funds based on criteria determined by the legislature (and occasionally executive) branch.

    Is the indoctrination you are afraid of coming from the local school boards or the state/federal bureaus?

    If you are talking about textbook purchases and other educational materials, these purchases are typically determined by the local school board.

    I remind you that in non-public schools, the parents do not have any input into the decision as to which educational materials are used. While a local school board can be removed from office for making poor decisions about educational materials.

    It seems to me that the risk of indoctrination is much higher at a school where there is no parental oversight (i.e. private), than at a school where the parents can collectively fire someone making a bad decision.

    Or are you just reciting the mantra, “Government Bad.”

    Cheers,

    -Flex

  68. Flex says

    Further Fritz wrote, “because there is no such thing as objective education.”

    Which to me means that’s it’s a good thing that there are fights over curriculum in our public schools.

    Those fights you complain about do serve a purpose. They serve to clarify and focus what areas of education the parents think are important for their children. While I abhor the attempts to place creationism into public school science classrooms, I think the dialog that ensues because of the battle is probably a good thing. The schools which have few battles are the ones which will teach dogma and indoctrinate children.

    Cheers,

    -Flex

  69. Xanthir says

    It’s a good thing I read the rest of the comments, because I was going to say the same thing as Flex. Two things will ultimately result from eliminating public education: either you’ll have large class-based differences in education, where the rich can afford to get good education for their children and the poor can’t, or you’ll have a private form of the public school, which would be indistinguishable in most respects.

    Seriously, widespread private schools is a no. Many parents see no good reason for anything past middle school. I’m certain that some of them would like to stop after elementary school or earlier. But widespread education is a good thing. Just like widespread immunization, it’s something that *needs* to happen. Immunizing one person doesn’t do too much good. There is still a good chance that they can get infected – immunization just decreases the chance of it. If everyone around them is spewing disease, though, they’ve still got a good chance of getting hit.

    If you immunize *everyone*, though, then the disease has a much harder time getting hold. Rather than every infection automatically infecting everyone around the person, it might infect only one, since everyone is so resistant. That person also infects one person, and so on. Rather than spreading exponentially, it moves very very slowly, and can be controlled and cured. It’s called “herd resistance”.

    This is stretching the analogy, but the same thing applies to education. If some people are educated and others aren’t, bad ideas (diseases of the brain!) can spread very quickly among the uneducated (unimmunized). On the other hand, if everyone recieves a good education, bad ideas never spread very far, and they get eliminated in time.

    It’s worse than this, though. Diseases don’t reach out and infect vaccines. They don’t spread themselves through the very things we’re trying to use to protect ourselves against them. Bad ideas, however, *can* infiltrate education. If they gain enough power, they won’t be limited to only the stupid – they’ll force themselves into the educated as well. This is why developing good herd immunity is so very, very important in education.

    Privatizing education will almost certainly have good effects. It would almost certainly result in some things being better than they are in public education. But you have to take the good with the bad, and the bad of losing universal public education is *really* bad. I don’t want to play dice with my descendants and the future of my country like that.

    Btw, thanks for elaborating on the homeschool vs. private school distinction. I assumed you were arguing for widespread homeschooling. However, my above post was written with the assumption of private schools.

  70. Todd Gutschow says

    1) Where is the evidence that supports the contention that the government is capable of delivering a “good” education to “every” citizen?

    2) Where is the evidence that shows the government involvement has indeed eliminated large class-based differences in education?

    3) If government run schools deliver poor education to the poor and mediocre education to the wealthy, what would “society” have to lose from eliminating government involvement in education?

  71. Fritz says

    Actually, my kids have all, at one time or another, gone to private schools, and I can assure you that they solicit and process input from parents. I found private schools to be very concerned with parental attitude toward the school and the curriculum — I suspect the dependence on parents as customers has a lot to do with that.

    I would prefer that the aspect of society that legitimately initiates force (government) not be welded to the institutions that mold opinion — be it media or be it education. That is a recipe for massive unpleasantness.

  72. Jim says

    Wait, this is priceless:

    And in any case, parents already have that right. What they don’t have a right to is my tax money to fund their bad choices, which is what vouchers are.

    So it is not ok for a parent to use your tax money through a voucher system for them to be able to choose the path of their child’s education, but it is ok to force them to use their tax money on an educational system they believe is broken–not just to support the education of their own children but everyone else’s as well, with tax money that, had they been allowed to retain it, they would be better able to afford private education for their own children.

    No, sir, no elitism there. No contradiction there. Nothing to see here. Move along.

  73. Jim says

    I remind you that in non-public schools, the parents do not have any input into the decision as to which educational materials are used. While a local school board can be removed from office for making poor decisions about educational materials.

    Because, obviously, it would be impossible for me to move my child from one private school that I believed was using inappropriate textbooks to one that I believe is using appropriate textbooks.

    Which system is more flexible? Me being able to move my children to another school with my own money, or having to wait for the next school board election and hope I can rally enough parents to influence enough school board seats to make a difference?

  74. Jim says

    Here’s what I don’t understand: there seems to be an idea that government involvement in education is wrong. I don’t get that. As a supporter of public education, my biggest complaint is that there is too little federal and/or state involvement in education, and too much local influence. It is local school boards who promote ID and disavow evolution, and challenge texts and library books, it is local taxes that grossly underfund school districts.

    And when more power is consolidated with the federal government, wtf do you do then when a conservative-controlled government starts making noice about wanting to “teach the controversy”? Suddenly the problem is significantly bigger than just a couple localities, a couple districts.

    People who favor federal power do so always on the assumption that their preferred position will be the one that holds sway.

  75. Jim says

    Two things will ultimately result from eliminating public education: either you’ll have large class-based differences in education, where the rich can afford to get good education for their children and the poor can’t,

    And that is different from the status quo how?

    Bad ideas, however, *can* infiltrate education. If they gain enough power, they won’t be limited to only the stupid – they’ll force themselves into the educated as well.

    “force”? How, pray tell, would that happen if education were privatized?

  76. Flex says

    ‘Elitism’ Jim? How is it elitism to require everyone to share an egual load to educate the communities children?

    It seems we are arguing two different points.

    You appear to be arguing (correct me if I’m wrong) that the responsibity for education lies entirely on the parents. No one else in the community should be concerned with helping educate the children in that community.

    From this viewpoint, I shouldn’t have to pay any educational taxes at all because I don’t have any children. The parents should be responsible for choosing the school (without community input), and be responsible for paying for that school.

    Although I’d like to point out that many religous private schools get additional money from their community (read congegation) to support these schools and keep the costs to parents down. Is this acceptable? Is the difference that the congregation is donating freely rather than the community voting to fairly spread the cost across it’s population?

    When the community steps in provides an educational service for all children, it is (in your view) an act of force to tax parents who have already provided for their children’s education because their children don’t need it. (And an act of force to tax childless people like myself.)

    That’s an interesting, if selfish, viewpoint.

    Let me try another tack, the taxes you pay to support the public schools are not being paid to educate your offspring. The public schools are available for your children to use, but your taxes are not paying for your specific children. Your taxes you pay are being used to ensure all children in the community get some education.

    Now, maybe you think that the community shouldn’t provide that service. That a child’s education should be of no concern to the rest of the community, only the parents should care. Even though we know that communities which have poorer educational levels generally experiance higher crime rates and higher unemployment. (Not to mention more magical thinking.)

    What I find reprehensible about this position is the lack of community thinking and the lack of compassion. But even beyond that, it shows a lack of foresight. Even Adam Smith argues that businesses should be interested in improving the educational level of their workforce because an educated workforce is a more efficient workforce.

    Now, I don’t have any problem with you taking your children to a private school because you feel that they would recieve a better education. I have a problem with you thinking that just because you are removing you children from the public educational system you no longer have any obligation to get the rest of the children in your community. From purely selfish motives you should want to reduce the possibilities of crime and unemployment in your neighborhood.

    Or are you really saying that you have no commitments or obligations to your community?

    Cheers,

    -Flex

  77. Flex says

    Todd:

    1) Where is the evidence that supports the contention that the government is capable of delivering a “good” education to “every” citizen?

    Who is making that claim? The claim is that it is in the best interest to a community to educate all it’s children. A practical solution to this problem is to have a local group, a school board, work toward this goal. The school board, in order to serve every member of the community equally needs government support to operate. It is not practical to rely on say, religious groups, to educate all children of a community simply because some members of the community may be excluded. Whatever system is developed it has to cover all members of the community.

    Where is the evidence that local school boards are ‘always’ incapable of providing ‘good’ education? Some do better than others.

    2) Where is the evidence that shows the government involvement has indeed eliminated large class-based differences in education?

    Hmm, the Civil War, court ordered de-segregation of schools, school bussing spring to mind. Or are you suggesting that education differences between classes didn’t exist at those times?

    3) If government run schools deliver poor education to the poor and mediocre education to the wealthy, what would “society” have to lose from eliminating government involvement in education?

    How about no education to the poor?

    Or can you not see the problems society would face with a large, growing, uneducated population only suited to the meanest level of jobs, and an income level to match.

    Cheers,

    -Flex

  78. Flex says

    Jim,

    Which system is more flexible? Me being able to move my children to another school with my own money, or having to wait for the next school board election and hope I can rally enough parents to influence enough school board seats to make a difference?

    Yes, plenty of flexibility if you can afford it. If you can afford it, you have that flexibility now. If you can’t afford moving your child what do you do? Homeschool? If you can’t afford the tuition does your child just not get an education?

    Maybe you are having a hard time understanding.

    The money you pay in taxes to fund public education is for the good of the community.

    -Flex

  79. Todd Gutschow says

    Flex,

    Taxation is not voluntary. Taxation is coercion. It is the confiscation of a person’s income enabled by the threat of violence in the event of non-compliance.

    In your assertion that people have an obligation to support their communities, you seem to assume that communities are readily identifiable, distinct entities that encompass and benefit everyone. I do not find this assumption credible. In my experience, “community” is a very nebulous and protean concept. At best, it refers to a group of individuals which inevitably demonstrate vast differences in their preferences, capabilities, and opinions who happen to be connected through one or more circumstantial conditions of life, usually geographical. In such usage, the term “community thinking” appears to be an oxymoron. At worst, community is a term exploited by one collection of individuals with similar perspectives to appropriate political power and benefits themselves at the expense of those with whom they disagree. Call this the tyranny of the majority, though in today’s political climate it might more appropriately be called the tyranny of the special interest who are usually in the minority. This is not the vision of political harmony upon which our country was founded.

    I believe that Xanthir implicitly made the claim, through his analogy with immunization, that government is capable of providing everyone with a “good” education. However, I find it interesting, and revealing, that you do not consider the quality of the education provided to be relevant, choosing instead to emphasize quantity by insisting that is in the best interest of the “community” that everyone merely be “educated.” Your usage of “educated” in this instance sounds suspiciously like “indoctrinated.”

    I am also confused by your rebuttal of my contention that government has not eliminated large class-based differences in education. Certainly, you have provided examples of instances in which specific types of inequalities have been addressed (though do you really believe that “school bussing” has been a positive development). However, as you recognize in your subsequent post, wealthy people in this country have more choice as to how their children are educated, and that as a consequence, the parents of wealthy children often attend better schools. Thus, under the current system, there is still a large class-based discrepancy between the quality of education received: rich people, as a group, have more well-educated children than poor people.

    Where is the support for your contention that without government intervention, poor children would receive “no education?” It seems to me that under the current system, we already have “a large, growing, uneducated population”, the evils of which I am well aware.

  80. Jim says

    What I find reprehensible about this position is the lack of community thinking and the lack of compassion. But even beyond that, it shows a lack of foresight. Even Adam Smith argues that businesses should be interested in improving the educational level of their workforce because an educated workforce is a more efficient workforce.

    No one is saying that people cannot voluntarily contribute to schooling in a private system–private schools would accept donations and charitable grants from individuals, businesses and not-for-profit organizations. They might even conduct fund raising activities in the community as a mechanism to augment tuition or for capital expenditures.

    But underneath all of your claims about fairness and equal is the undercurrent of force. Taxes are an exercise in the brute force of the majority over the minority–noncompliance results in asset forfeiture and incarceration. Sometimes I think we forget that, it certainly is a fact recognized by America’s Founding Fathers.

    And to the extent my argument is that the parents are solely responsible for a child’s education, it does not mean that they cannot try to tap external sources of money such as other family members, lending institutions or charitable organizations. As Milton Friedman argued, it is impossible to accurately know how these structures would evolve, only that the would do so in a manner more efficient than government where accountability is a far removed concept.

  81. Jim says

    If you can afford it, you have that flexibility now.

    Or maybe I could, if I weren’t paying so much in taxes. Or if private schools under business pressure competed for my business with innovative and effective teaching.

  82. Flex says

    Ah,

    So this entire arguement devolves into an anti-tax position?

    With the old canard of business being more efficent in handling money than government. At times this is true, at other times business is far less efficient than government. Trust me, I’ve worked in both areas and I see a lot of waste in business.

    Invoking the founding fathers doesn’t impress me either. Apparently you feel that the Constitution is wrong and we should be operating under the Articles of Confederation where the federal government lacked the power to tax and was dependant on donations from the states. Ever wonder why it was broke all the time? The states didn’t contribute.

    I deliberately used the word community in an attempt disassociate it from the apparently strong negative opinion of government. However, I see now that this may be a mistake. Community is now as evil a word as government. What a freaky world.

    The problem of majority rule is mentioned, with the interesting twist of claiming that the minorities are punishing the majority through special interest groups. That’s a bizarre argument because the only place where minorities can claim redress for wrong is in the court system. Our system is configured such that the majority of voters will always have power over the minority of voters, but this power is tempered by the independant court system.

    A couple of points to clarify my position. I am concerned about the quality of education. But because of the various government interventions in the education of our youth over the last two hundred years, including school bussing, the variation in the quality is less than ever before. (Although I think the disparity is growing again.) I still think the quality of education can be improved.

    How do I know that some children would receive no education? Estimates for private education range from $2500/yr in religious schools subsidized by the attached church, to $12,000-$15,000 at a secular private school. These are not boarding schools, those are a bit more expensive. Private school attached to churchs are pretty common these days, their price will not likely drop with competition. The secular private schools may see a drop in price from competition, but more likely a middle range of secular schools would spring up with a middle range of quality.

    Regardless, let’s say that the price for all private schooling is $2,500? A minimum wage worker makes about $10,700/yr. So each child takes 25% of one workers pay from one job every year for 12 years to attend school? A family with two wage earners both working two minimum wage jobs with two children would earn $42,800/yr and have to pay $5,000/yr, 10% of their income, to send their children to school for 12 years.

    And I’m asked why I think some parents will choose to not pay for educating their children?

    Sure, they could take out loans, at interest, to pay. All that does is trap them in a hellish life for a longer time.

    There are people out there who have been in minimum wage jobs, with no hope of improvement, all their working careers. They are typically people with a lower level of education. Removing the state provided education will doom many of their children to the same life.

    Or do you keep the laws requiring children to be at school until they are sixteen? Throwing parents who choose not to pay a private school into jail? That will certainly help them pay for their children’s schooling.

    Now what? Is next argument that these poor parents should have exercised greater control over their reproductive urges and not had children? I hear that as an excuse for why poor people shouldn’t get any help quite a bit. The claim that it is the poor person’s fault they are poor. First, reality does not conform to your expectations. Second, the people who more likely to exercise control over their lives and urges are those with educations. The same education that you want to deny them.

    But ultimately, like many other arguments about the reasons and purpose of government, this devolves to a position on taxation. Our society has been subjected to the mantra of ‘taxes = bad’ for so long that it’s become an axiom in any argument. We have had twenty years of tax reductions, the ones of the last few years have gone to the rich, but everyone has benefited somewhat.

    But reducing taxes means reduced services. DMV (or in Michigan Secretary of State) offices are closed, resulting in longer lines and dissatisfaction with the government. Roads get less maintenance, and the government gets blamed. Water and sewer lines get less maintenance and fail more often and who gets blamed, the ‘inefficient’ government.

    But the most infuritating aspect is that school budgets have been cut. Some districts have been able to enact millages to continue, and even improve the educational services provided. Other districts have been unable to pass millages and the quality of the education has been declining.

    The decline in the quality of education makes it easy to say that all schools should be privatized even if it means that some children will not get any education.

    I’m not saying that all the problems in the school system can be fixed with more money available. But there is a very clear correlation between the quality of public schools in a wealthy neighborhood and those in a poor neighborhood.

    But nothing matters except lowering taxes.

    -Flex

    P.S. I’ve avoided discussing indoctination vs. education at any length because while there may be danger of indoctrination in a public school, there is nothing to suggest that there wouldn’t be indoctrination at a private school, at a religious school, or even by home-schoolers.

  83. Xanthir says

    To respond to something specifically addressing me:

    I believe that Xanthir implicitly made the claim, through his analogy with immunization, that government is capable of providing everyone with a “good” education.

    Not necessarily. The government is capable of providing everyone with an adequate education. I personally believe, having been through the public school system, that the government *is* more than capable of providing good education, and it does so. Even if you dispute that point, though, any education is good education, when compared to no education. Same with immunization – herd immunity doesn’t mean that it’s impossible for anyone to be infected, it means that everyone is less likely to be infected, which slows and helps control the exponential spread of infection.

    I know that this next part was addressed to Flex, but it was in the paragraph that mentioned me, and I wish to respond to it.

    However, I find it interesting, and revealing, that you do not consider the quality of the education provided to be relevant, choosing instead to emphasize quantity by insisting that is in the best interest of the “community” that everyone merely be “educated.” Your usage of “educated” in this instance sounds suspiciously like “indoctrinated.”

    No more so than “atheism” sounds a lot like “religion”. You’re trying to pull some sleight of hand here. Being educated means a specific thing – being taught facts about our world, and how to think critically about it. Schools accomplish this to a greater or lesser degree. However, this is no way, shape, or form comparable to “indoctrination”. In other words, not every point of view is equal – some ideas really *are* better than others. Saying anything else is dishonest relativism.

    Otherwise, I agree 100% with what Flex is saying. I find it very interesting that this has turned into a discussion of the morality of taxation, rather than the quality of our children’s education. I’m not even going to comment on taxes – no need to put my own irrelevant views into here – but seriously, that issue has fuck-all to do with making sure our children are educated as best as they can be. If taxation is evil, but necessary for our children and the children of the community, then we’d better get used to taxes, because it is *certainly* the lesser of two evils.