Ending Public Schools [W:961]

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Not in this thread, it hasn't.

I've said it a thousand times the means is private entrepreneurship. Private enterprise, when government gets out of the way, will meet the need. It is a sure as gravity. What about this is difficil for you to comprende, blue?

 

[Chiefgator]

Re: Ending Public Schools

I just cannot comprehend how a free market based school system would meet the needs of the poor. the free-market approach to education, would only cause an even wider gap between the haves and have-nots.

I am very much a free-market guy. In the business sense. However, I cannot support a free-market approach to the common welfare of the people. Police, fire, education, military...

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

I just cannot comprehend how a free market based school system would meet the needs of the poor. the free-market approach to education, would only cause an even wider gap between the haves and have-nots.

I am very much a free-market guy. In the business sense. However, I cannot support a free-market approach to the common welfare of the people. Police, fire, education, military...

Like I said, there is no reason not to have an "education stamp" program to give public funding to the truly needy.

I mean, food is privatized, right? And we give the impoverished food stamps. There is nothing about privatization that disallows a safety net.

And please stay on topic, we are only discussing privatization of EDUCATION.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Well that's a reasonable answer. I don't disagree.

But the first step is to get people talking about privatization as a serious option. As much as I would like to make the switch overnight, it isn't going to happen at all if not by incremental steps. The first step is getting people to wake out and take the idea seriously.

I've moderated my libertarian stance, on most issues.
However, public ed is where I remain pretty hard core lib.

The biggest walls your gonna face with this issue are, people not wanting to spend/lose income, people not wanting to devote the time, the assumption that public ed is the only way, the crappy understanding of the history of public ed and false stereotypes of education, before public ed's existence.

 

[Chiefgator]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Like I said, there is no reason not to have an "education stamp" program to give public funding to the truly needy.

I mean, food is privatized, right? And we give the impoverished food stamps. There is nothing about privatization that disallows a safety net.

And please stay on topic, we are only discussing privatization of EDUCATION.

You use the example of food, I use the example of the fire department. We are both on-topic just making our point with straw men.

The difference between food and education is that no matter how poor you are you have to have food. If a poor person has to make a choice between eating and reading, they will always go for the food. Always.

My father-in-law dropped out of school when he was 10 to feed his family. I am sure there are 1000 other examples of this on this board alone.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

You use the example of food, I use the example of the fire department. We are both on-topic just making our point with straw men.

The difference between food and education is that no matter how poor you are you have to have food. If a poor person has to make a choice between eating and reading, they will always go for the food. Always.

My father-in-law dropped out of school when he was 10 to feed his family. I am sure there are 1000 other examples of this on this board alone.

Well if you want use fire as an example, there is no reason not to privatize and employ the same system with "fire stamps" so the low income can pay for fire insurance.
Safety nets are really not the issue, privatization will provide an affordable option for all but the most impoverished, just as it always does in all private industries. A minimal government provided safety net is perfectly compatible.

 

[Chiefgator]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Well if you want use fire as an example, there is no reason not to privatize and employ the same system with "fire stamps" so the low income can pay for fire insurance.
Safety nets are really not the issue, privatization will provide an affordable option for all but the most impoverished, just as it always does in all private industries. A minimal government provided safety net is perfectly compatible.

You really sad part of this entire conversation is, you just cannot see how absurd that thought is.
And people wonder why I do not identify myself as a libertarian. When I am very libertarian in my social views....

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

You really sad part of this entire conversation is, you just cannot see how absurd that thought is.
And people wonder why I do not identify myself as a libertarian. When I am very libertarian in my social views....

I think it's kind of sad that your government dependence has you so blinded that you cannot understand something as simple as the free market at work.

 

[Andalublue]

Re: Ending Public Schools

I've said it a thousand times the means is private entrepreneurship. Private enterprise, when government gets out of the way, will meet the need. It is a sure as gravity. What about this is difficil for you to comprende, blue?

Well, you've provided no evidence to suggest that private entrepreneurship would take up the role of universal provider of educational services. Unless you were to rescind the requirement for all kids to receive compulsory education, how would you provide safety net guarantees of provision for people and for poor areas where people cannot afford to pay?

Secondly, in providing a service that cannot be allowed to disappear, what happens when companies providing a service find making a profit in a specific area is simply impossible? Who guarantees availability of service? And who is responsible and accountable when service fails?

There are a thousand more questions that are simply not answered by the glib response that "private entrepreneurship" will provide. That sounds more like a creed or a mantra than an argument.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

I've moderated my libertarian stance, on most issues.
However, public ed is where I remain pretty hard core lib.

The biggest walls your gonna face with this issue are, people not wanting to spend/lose income, people not wanting to devote the time, the assumption that public ed is the only way, the crappy understanding of the history of public ed and false stereotypes of education, before public ed's existence.

Indeed, these walls seem insurmountable sometimes. Even people who are libertarians or have libertarian leanings are pretty well brainwashed into thinking "public education is the only way.". I know in the past I have harped on how many self professessed libertarians are really closet authoritarians. It's sad that the level of statist indoctrination runs so deep that some people would ignore logic and reason out of blind devotion to government. I feel like an atheist trying to explain evolution to creationists sometimes.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Well if you want use fire as an example, there is no reason not to privatize and employ the same system with "fire stamps" so the low income can pay for fire insurance.
Safety nets are really not the issue, privatization will provide an affordable option for all but the most impoverished, just as it always does in all private industries. A minimal government provided safety net is perfectly compatible.

Because Privatizing Health Insurance has a great safety net

 

[ttwtt78640]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Well, you've provided no evidence to suggest that private entrepreneurship would take up the role of universal provider of educational services. Unless you were to rescind the requirement for all kids to receive compulsory education, how would you provide safety net guarantees of provision for people and for poor areas where people cannot afford to pay?

Secondly, in providing a service that cannot be allowed to disappear, what happens when companies providing a service find making a profit in a specific area is simply impossible? Who guarantees availability of service? And who is responsible and accountable when service fails?

There are a thousand more questions that are simply not answered by the glib response that "private entrepreneurship" will provide. That sounds more like a creed or a mantra than an argument.

The argument that you pose is indeed valid, but can be EASILY tested with a voucher program, where some (or all) of the per pupil public education cost is offered to the parents so that IF a private instituion is available and will accept their child they have that option. Care must be taken to ensure that ONLY accredited private educational instituions are eligible to cash these vouchers or many scams will result, simply to convert the vouchers to cash by moron parents that would rather by a new car or drugs. With the possible exception of the OP, nobody expects the public schools to completely disappear, rather that they would be improved since teachers NORMALLY get far better pay and benefits in the public sector. Many, including myself, see this as a likely win/win situation since private competition will FORCE needed, but otherwise unlikely, changes to be made in public education mainly in those high density inner city areas that need it the most.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Well, you've provided no evidence to suggest that private entrepreneurship would take up the role of universal provider of educational services. Unless you were to rescind the requirement for all kids to receive compulsory education, how would you provide safety net guarantees of provision for people and for poor areas where people cannot afford to pay?

Who said anything about universal? You certainly don't get universal education from the government. Privatizing education puts the burden of ensuring a child receives an education squarely on the parents, instead of allowing them to pawn their kids off on the state. this is the best way to make sure kids are getting the education they need. If the parents fail then they should be treated like any other parents who neglect their children.

Secondly, in providing a service that cannot be allowed to disappear, what happens when companies providing a service find making a profit in a specific area is simply impossible? Who guarantees availability of service? And who is responsible and accountable when service fails?

Not be allowed to disappear? Sorry, that's nanny state nonsense. Private enterprises must be allowed to succeed or fail. If it fails the. The customers just go someplace else.

And look, "bad **** might possibly happen sometimes" is not a counter argument. Public schools fail all the time, and those kids are stuck with no alternative.

There are a thousand more questions that are simply not answered by the glib response that "private entrepreneurship" will provide. That sounds more like a creed or a mantra than an argument.

Your thousand questions are like the questions of a two year old. You want to talk about mantras, you need to get over your government-reliance mantra and realize that free people are capable of doing things on their own, and in fact better than people who are being coerced.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Because Privatizing Health Insurance has a great safety net

So you come by out of nowhere with one vague, sarcastic pseudoargument, and I'm, what, supposed to reflect on you remarkable wisdom contained in your pathetic little attempt at sniping? Get out of here!

 

[Somerville]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Who said anything about universal? You certainly don't get universal education from the government. Privatizing education puts the burden of ensuring a child receives an education squarely on the parents, instead of allowing them to pawn their kids off on the state. this is the best way to make sure kids are getting the education they need.

"Privatizing education" is a surefire way to create a structure based on class, where those born into one social/economic class have little chance of moving up the social ladder. The United States, once famed for the opportunities available which allowed almost everyone to do better than their parents, has now fallen behind most other developed nations in measures of social mobility. Destroying public education would only make matters far worse. It almost seems as if some folks really want to create a nation based on plutocracy rather than democracy.

Harder for Americans to Rise
Benjamin Franklin did it. Henry Ford did it. And American life is built on the faith that others can do it, too: rise from humble origins to economic heights. “Movin’ on up,” George Jefferson-style, is not only a sitcom song but a civil religion.

But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

"Privatizing education" is a surefire way to create a structure based on class, where those born into one social/economic class have little chance of moving up the social ladder. The United States, once famed for the opportunities available which allowed almost everyone to do better than their parents, has now fallen behind most other developed nations in measures of social mobility. Destroying public education would only make matters far worse. It almost seems as if some folks really want to create a nation based on plutocracy rather than democracy.

:roll: If the quality of public education was not directly proportionate to the wealth of the neighorhood where the school is, you MIGHT have a point. As it stands,is income kids will have a much better shot at getting a quality education if the industry is privatized, because entrepreneurs don't see class, they only see a buck to be made. Even low income kids have profit potential. Whereas public education sees the poor as a burden, entrepreneurs see the poor as a cash cow to be milked. That will inevitably result in a higher quality of the product the poor will receive.

Compare it to food in Cuba vs food in the US. In Cuba the poor go to a state run grocery store, where there might be a bit of coffee one day, ome oranges another day, and they will be lucky if the governments provides them with basic staples. In a privatized food industry like the US, the poor eat McDonds, Easy Mac, RMen, all manner of cheap and effective food is available to them. That is the value of privatization, and why it is superior to government.

 

[Andalublue]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Your thousand questions are like the questions of a two year old. You want to talk about mantras, you need to get over your government-reliance mantra and realize that free people are capable of doing things on their own, and in fact better than people who are being coerced.

Your ridiculously combative attitude seems to me like the cry of a zealot. What you fail to recognise is that one can be in favour of minimal government but still not trust the private sector to provide essential services. You may argue, and have, that universal education is not essential, but those very private enterprises that you expect to provide all services would be the organisations to suffer from a whole swathe of uneducated potential workers. That's the very problem you seem to be wrestling with now, that the current system lets down the educational needs of the less gifted and/or socially excluded. There is no evidence nor any reason to believe that your proposal would improve things.

I'm not arguing that "if it's not bust, don't fix it", far from it, but I'm saying "if it's already bust, don't make it worse".

Here's a specific question: You're the POTUS elected on a libertarian ticket. Sketch out the legislation you'd take to Congress to implement your election commitment to abolish public education.

 

[Somerville]

Re: Ending Public Schools

:roll: If the quality of public education was not directly proportionate to the wealth of the neighorhood where the school is, you MIGHT have a point. As it stands,is income kids will have a much better shot at getting a quality education if the industry is privatized, because entrepreneurs don't see class, they only see a buck to be made. Even low income kids have profit potential. Whereas public education sees the poor as a burden, entrepreneurs see the poor as a cash cow to be milked. That will inevitably result in a higher quality of the product the poor will receive.

Compare it to food in Cuba vs food in the US. In Cuba the poor go to a state run grocery store, where there might be a bit of coffee one day, ome oranges another day, and they will be lucky if the governments provides them with basic staples. In a privatized food industry like the US, the poor eat McDonds, Easy Mac, RMen, all manner of cheap and effective food is available to them. That is the value of privatization, and why it is superior to government.

and just how will a private company manage to show a profit in a low income area when the majority of homes are barely scraping by, paying rent, buying food and worrying about medical expenses if something goes wrong - yep, right back to the early industrial age when low income working families put the kids to work at 6 or 7 years and life expectancy was in the mid-40s.

IF a company can make money by running a school in low income areas, just what would be on the curriculum? Do you honestly think they would provide college prep courses or would they make more by running basic apprenticeship courses in stuff like plumbing and carpentry?

Yeah, compare it to food in Cuba which has been operating under an economic blockade for 50+ years. Where's your idolised free market system when a country is kept from participating in it?

 

[MadLib]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Well, look, you said it yourself, correlation does not equal causation. The Chinese are making some excellent engineers in their state run system. They accomplish this by violating human rights on a widespread scale. I admire the result of producing engineers. Does this mean I want to copy their system? Hell no!

Admiring is different than using as evidence. The fact that other countries are doing better than us only actually supports your argument if they privatize schools. Otherwise you cannot say that the fact that we are using public schools is what's keeping us down.

 

[Gardener]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Admiring is different than using as evidence. The fact that other countries are doing better than us only actually supports your argument if they privatize schools. Otherwise you cannot say that the fact that we are using public schools is what's keeping us down.

Come on, man. Don't use basic logic on somebody. It isn't fair.

 

[sawyerloggingon]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Public education has morphed into liberal indoctrination so yes, it's time for the public school system to be abolished.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Admiring is different than using as evidence. The fact that other countries are doing better than us only actually supports your argument if they privatize schools. Otherwise you cannot say that the fact that we are using public schools is what's keeping us down.

That is hogwash. Other public schools can produce better results than they are producing here, but this is not the only way to produce good results. Privatization produces the BEST results. QED, now quit wasting my time.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Come on, man. Don't use basic logic on somebody. It isn't fair.

The fact that you mistake that highly fallacious reasoning as "logic" is laughable.

 

[Gardener]

Re: Ending Public Schools

The fact that you mistake that highly fallacious reasoning as "logic" is laughable.

Don't knock that high fellatio until you've tried it, son.

 

[Guy Incognito]

Re: Ending Public Schools

Don't knock that high fellatio until you've tried it, son.

Yeah, that about sums up my opposition in this thread.