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Privatize U.S. Schools

alphamale

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U.S. public schools are cesspools of academic under achievement. Their goals are "diversity" ("DI-versity" :lol: ), condom distribution, liberal indoctrination, historical revisionism, bad teachers, PC, crackpot teaching methodologies, on and on. They continue to exist because of the "iron triangle" of liberal politics, teachers unions, and deadbeat parents.

Enough. In the globalized competitive world, we just can't afford them anymore.
 
alphamale said:
U.S. public schools are cesspools of academic under achievement. Their goals are "diversity" ("DI-versity" :lol: ), condom distribution, liberal indoctrination, historical revisionism, bad teachers, PC, crackpot teaching methodologies, on and on. They continue to exist because of the "iron triangle" of liberal politics, teachers unions, and deadbeat parents.

Enough. In the globalized competitive world, we just can't afford them anymore.

:rofl Excuse me. Let me take a minute and pick myself off the floor where I collapsed after laughing so hard at this silly idea. Let me offer you two statements that will hopefully steer you in a better direction.

1. The supreme purpose of a private company is to make money

2. The supreme purpose of a school is to educate.


I sure hope you see the problem.
 
Quote:
Originally Posted by alphamale
U.S. public schools are cesspools of academic under achievement. Their goals are "diversity" ("DI-versity" ), condom distribution, liberal indoctrination, historical revisionism, bad teachers, PC, crackpot teaching methodologies, on and on. They continue to exist because of the "iron triangle" of liberal politics, teachers unions, and deadbeat parents.

Enough. In the globalized competitive world, we just can't afford them anymore.


Excuse me. Let me take a minute and pick myself off the floor where I collapsed after laughing so hard at this silly idea.

Hey!! You're insulting me! Ban yourself for five days!

Let me offer you two statements that will hopefully steer you in a better direction.

1. The supreme purpose of a private company is to make money

2. The supreme purpose of a school is to educate.

I sure hope you see the problem.

I DO see it. The purpose of the government schools is to provide employment for incompetent "teachers" and time serving bureaucrats. You are right that a company's purpose is to make money, but in a free market, they can only do that by satisfying the customer. This is in stark contrast to the government monopoly schools, with their tenured incompetent teachers. Why is it impossible for liberals to understand the free market?

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages."
-- Adam Smith
 
alphamale said:
Hey!! You're insulting me! Ban yourself for five days!



I DO see it. The purpose of the government schools is to provide employment for incompetent "teachers" and time serving bureaucrats. You are right that a company's purpose is to make money, but in a free market, they can only do that by satisfying the customer. This is in stark contrast to the government monopoly schools, with their tenured incompetent teachers. Why is it impossible for liberals to understand the free market?

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own neccessities but of their advantages."
-- Adam Smith

Where did I insult you? Kindly point it out.

You are incorrect. A school's purpose is to provide an education. That's it. There's no nefarious plot going on involving the government and the teachers, your delusions to the contrary.
 
Kelzie said:
:rofl Excuse me. Let me take a minute and pick myself off the floor where I collapsed after laughing so hard at this silly idea. Let me offer you two statements that will hopefully steer you in a better direction.

1. The supreme purpose of a private company is to make money

2. The supreme purpose of a school is to educate.


I sure hope you see the problem.

I don't see the problem at all. Companies intereseted in making money probably would run the schools far better than the government has done. It would bring back competition and promote high achievement for the sake of the almighty dollar. Schools that didn't generate results would be left behind and eventually closed down altogether.

It's no joke that 12th grade high school students in many states are having trouble passing a WASL exam written at an 8th grade level. It's a disgrace.

Furthermore since the public schools are government run they have also become a substitute social welfare program and that is a problem too. Schools are becomming more and more responsible for things like feeding kids breakfast. Maybe private companies would do a better job at figuring out the difference between teaching and parenting. Private schools must answer to parents in a way public schools don't have to.

How many members of congress do you think currently have kids in the public school system?
 
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talloulou said:
I don't see the problem at all. Companies intereseted in making money probably would run the schools far better than the government has done. It would bring back competition and promote high achievement for the sake of the almighty dollar. Schools that didn't generate results would be left behind and eventually closed down altogether.

Yes and see, therein lies the problem. Schools should not be concerned with making money. They should be concerned with providing the best education.
 
Kelzie said:
Yes and see, therein lies the problem. Schools should not be concerned with making money. They should be concerned with providing the best education.


Schools are very concerned with money as it is now. They constantly complain that they need more money, don't they? Yet no matter how much we throw at them they still aren't cutting it. Catholic Schools spend much less per kid than most public schools do yet their students out perform public school students.

It's not about money its about accountability. Public schools are not being held accountable. They don't have to provide results with the money we give them. Private schools do.
 
talloulou said:
Schools are very concerned with money as it is now. They constantly complain that they need more money, don't they? Yet no matter how much we throw at them they still aren't cutting it. Catholic Schools spend much less per kid than most public schools do yet their students out perform public school students.

It's not about money its about accountability. Public schools are not being held accountable. They don't have to provide results with the money we give them. Private schools do.

Actually public schools and private schools perform the same as long as they're in the same socioeconomic class.

And schools are concerned cause they don't have enough money to provide an education. As they should be.
 
This is my first ever post in Debate Politics! :2wave:

The US postal service was notoriously late and unreliable until they had to face stiff competition from FedEx and UPS. No one voted to privatize shipping. Fred Smith just decided "I want to start a shipping company" and he did it. Now all shipping is better, even the USPS, because it has no monopoly anymore.

The problem is that Uncle Sam takes your money for public education weather you want to chose it or not. It's not like buying stamps (to follow my above metaphor). How much business would Fed Ex do if USPS were free, paid for by taxes? Hmmm... Free vs. pay-a-lot. Usually I'd chose free given that choice, unless it were a really urgent/important package.

Education is required by law. Perhaps it would be an improvement if the government only paid for the education of people below the poverty line and simply required everyone else to educate their children by some approved means (of their free choice).

In that situation, the public school system would have to improve or no one would use it! That's the beauty of capitolism! A quality over equality approach would ultimately lead to better quality for everyone, rich and poor (refer to my shipping analogy above).
 
Kelzie said:
Actually public schools and private schools perform the same as long as they're in the same socioeconomic class.

Well actually I have seen some highly questionable studies that show that but they are strange studies where they say here are the scores for the Catholic school kids and here are the scores for the public school kids. It looks like the Catholic school kids are doing better butnow we adjust the public school kids scores for home environment, parental involvement, socioeconomic class, ect..... Now with the adjustments it's plain to see the public school kids are doing just as well if not better!

I'm sorry but what a load of crap! You can't adjust for home environment, money, ect.....

You get two groups of kids to take a test. One group outperforms the other. There's no adjusting. I know if I was poor and lived in a bad neighborhood I'd love a voucher to send my kid somewhere else, somewhere the kids test better without adjustments:roll:
 
SPLOGAN said:
This is my first ever post in Debate Politics! :2wave:

The US postal service was notoriously late and unreliable until they had to face stiff competition from FedEx and UPS. No one voted to privatize shipping. Fred Smith just decided "I want to start a shipping company" and he did it. Now all shipping is better, even the USPS, because it has no monopoly anymore.

The problem is that Uncle Sam takes your money for public education weather you want to chose it or not. It's not like buying stamps (to follow my above metaphor). How much business would Fed Ex do if USPS were free, paid for by taxes? Hmmm... Free vs. pay-a-lot. Usually I'd chose free given that choice, unless it were a really urgent/important package.

Education is required by law. Perhaps it would be an improvement if the government only paid for the education of people below the poverty line and simply required everyone else to educate their children by some approved means (of their free choice).

In that situation, the public school system would have to improve or no one would use it! That's the beauty of capitolism! A quality over equality approach would ultimately lead to better quality for everyone, rich and poor (refer to my shipping analogy above).

Welcome to DP. :2wave:

Hate to break it to you but your taxes support the postal service whether you use it or not.
 
talloulou said:
Well actually I have seen some highly questionable studies that show that but they are strange studies where they say here are the scores for the Catholic school kids and here are the scores for the public school kids. It looks like the Catholic school kids are doing better butnow we adjust the public school kids scores for home environment, parental involvement, socioeconomic class, ect..... Now with the adjustments it's plain to see the public school kids are doing just as well if not better!

I'm sorry but what a load of crap! You can't adjust for home environment, money, ect.....

You get two groups of kids to take a test. One group outperforms the other. There's no adjusting. I know if I was poor and lived in a bad neighborhood I'd love a voucher to send my kid somewhere else, somewhere the kids test better without adjustments:roll:

Actually you can hold socioeconomic status constant, and it is fairly easy to do so. Just compare public and private schools with the same economics makeup. They did and their performances were the same. Sorry if you don't buy it. The facts don't twist themselves to suit your belief.
 
Kelzie said:
Hate to break it to you but your taxes support the postal service whether you use it or not.

:roll: You spoiled my fun. I actually thought the government was running a somewhat efficient, self-sustaining business. :doh
 
alphamale said:
U.S. public schools are cesspools of academic under achievement. Their goals are "diversity" ("DI-versity" :lol: ), condom distribution, liberal indoctrination, historical revisionism, bad teachers, PC, crackpot teaching methodologies, on and on. They continue to exist because of the "iron triangle" of liberal politics, teachers unions, and deadbeat parents.

Enough. In the globalized competitive world, we just can't afford them anymore.

I'm sure privatizing education would be a great improvment for those that can afford to pay for it.
 
alphamale said:
U.S. public schools are cesspools of academic under achievement. Their goals are "diversity" ("DI-versity" :lol: ), condom distribution, liberal indoctrination, historical revisionism, bad teachers, PC, crackpot teaching methodologies, on and on. They continue to exist because of the "iron triangle" of liberal politics, teachers unions, and deadbeat parents.

Enough. In the globalized competitive world, we just can't afford them anymore.

You may have stretched a few points but I see the talking points you were
trying to make.:smile:

Institution of such a system would be a nightmare. I don't have a quick
answer but I'm not sure privatization would work. As soon as we fine
Americans saw the deep pockets of private schools we'd be suing
this new corporation over our kids' attention spans and the like.
 
Kelzie said:
Actually you can hold socioeconomic status constant, and it is fairly easy to do so. Just compare public and private schools with the same economics makeup. They did and their performances were the same. Sorry if you don't buy it. The facts don't twist themselves to suit your belief.

It's not that I don't buy your facts, I just haven't seen them! Care to share? 'Cause honestly most studies I have read show the exact opposite of what you say except for the ones that do those aforementioned strange adjustments.
 
talloulou said:
It's not that I don't buy your facts, I just haven't seen them! Care to share? 'Cause honestly most studies I have read show the exact opposite of what you say except for the ones that do those aforementioned strange adjustments.

Well, this isn't the same study I was thinking of, but it got the same results:

As the figures show, within each SES quartile, the public school mean is actually higher than that of the corresponding private school mean at both grades 4 and 8. Specifically, public school fourth-grade means were 6 to 7 points higher than private school means within each SES quartile, and eighth-grade differences favoring public schools ranged from 1 to 9 points.

http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v86/k0505lub.htm

SES stands for socioeconomic status and the mean they are referring to is mathmatical performance (just in case you don't want to read the study). Turns out I was wrong. Public schools actually do better than private when controlling for socioeconomic status.
 
Indoctrination

To my observation, most who hate public schools do so out of a religious or conservative political ideology and a need to make sure that children are indoctrinated with their beliefs and values! I wanted my kids to hear ideas other than mine and learn to critically think about them rather than to be indoctrinated with a narrow view of the world. K.K.K. members thought they were doing the right thing when they indoctrinated their children too! We recognize indoctrination of children with the Taliban, but not when we indoctrinate our own children! That's how prejudice and mythical beliefs last so long. We infect our children with an indoctrination of them thinking we are protecting them!

A fair minded person would simply judge each school based on how kids are learning there and drop the angry public/private bias. Send your kid to the best school regardless if it's private or public!

I often say to people who complain about the terrible public schools. (1.) "Is your child in a public school?" If they say yes, then I say, (2.) "It's a shame your child is fallen so far behind in his education!" Most often they say, "Oh no! He's doing fine! He's got a good teacher, but public schools are bad because . . . . . . . !"

It's like people who hate Congress, but their Senator or Representative is pretty good! :roll:
 
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star2589 said:
I'm sure privatizing education would be a great improvment for those that can afford to pay for it.

Within a democratic polity, I agree to be taxed to support the education of poor children only. Privatizing schools themselves does not preclude vouchers for poor children.
 
alphamale said:
Within a democratic polity, I agree to be taxed to support the education of poor children only. Privatizing schools themselves does not preclude vouchers for poor children.

perhaps not. But I'm very hesitent about a voucher system. goverment money comes with strings attached, I dont want to give the government any control over private schools.

there is also nothing to guarentee that poor children will be able to get in a school. private schools can be selective of which kids they admit. the brighter kids will be admitted to better schools, and everyone else will have to make due with lower quality schools. for poor children, it wouldnt be much of an improvement over public education.
 
Kelzie said:
Where did I insult you? Kindly point it out.

You are incorrect. A school's purpose is to provide an education. That's it. There's no nefarious plot going on involving the government and the teachers, your delusions to the contrary.

"Delusions"?? Ban yourself for 5 more days for being insulting! Ya, a school's purpose is education. The issue is who should run the schools: overpaid unaccountable bureaucrats, in charge of tenure-protected incompetent teachers who have turned out students who score lower now than even some third world countries on international tests, or efficient, utterly accountable private schools? The answer is obviously the latter.
 
Kelzie said:
Yes and see, therein lies the problem. Schools should not be concerned with making money. They should be concerned with providing the best education.

Ya, and they had their chance for 100 years, and by all objective criteria, they've failed. Time for a change.
 
Kelzie said:
Actually public schools and private schools perform the same as long as they're in the same socioeconomic class.

Pure invention. Supply proof.
 
alphamale said:
"Delusions"?? Ban yourself for 5 more days for being insulting! Ya, a school's purpose is education. The issue is who should run the schools: overpaid unaccountable bureaucrats, in charge of tenure-protected incompetent teachers who have turned out students who score lower now than even some third world countries on international tests, or efficient, utterly accountable private schools? The answer is obviously the latter.

You appear to have an incorrect definition of insulting. I'll try not to hold it against you. I never said you were delusional. Only that you hold delusions. Which is true.

The US is in the top 20 on education. Not too bad.
 
Actually you can hold socioeconomic status constant, and it is fairly easy to do so. Just compare public and private schools with the same economics makeup. They did and their performances were the same. Sorry if you don't buy it. The facts don't twist themselves to suit your belief.

Waiting for you to supply the "facts" - but not holding my breath! :lol:
 
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