Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

[lord_carbo]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

People who don't vote have no right to complain about what their government does, unless they're in outright revolt of the entire system or something, in which case, they should also offer an alternative of some type.

Or rather, they'd hate whoever they are able to vote for. That's a possibility. I loath Bush and Kerry and especially Gore. I'd only vote for, perhaps, the green party, in the '00 and '04 elections to get my point across that I hate both of them and I would never vote for any of them (which is why assuming that the green party "broke" the election in '00 is wrong, it assumes the people who voted for the green party would have voted at all if any third parties didn't exist).

[Kilgamayan]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

That's only an excuse if there's no write-in option.

[devonin]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

Theoretically, the proper way to "vote" without supporting all sides you disagree with is to spoil your ballot with a "None of these" write in.

[Cavernio]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

I'm very ignorant about the US political system, but don't you get to vote for more than just Republican or Democrat? Don't you elect officials for your State? Aren't you actually voting for a person who's a party of the Republican or Democrat party, as well as the overall leader?

This is really off-topic.

[devonin]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

The way American federal elections work is a little wonky. Technically, each person is voting for "electors" in their state, who will in turn vote for the presidential candiates. The electors functionally promise beforehand to vote for the president of the party they represent, such that generally it is actually the presidential candidate who appears on the ballot (I wouldn't be surprised if many people aren't aware that they aren't as such voting directly for the president.

So you go to the polls, and you pick which pres/vp duo you would like to see elected. Each state has, based on relative population, a number of "electoral college" votes to direct towards the presidency. If your state votes in the majority for candidate X, all of the electoral college votes for your state go to candidate X. Whichever candidate recieves over 270 electoral college votes becomes the president.

The federal election is entirely seperate from gubernatorial elections, congressional elections, or senate elections. Congressional elections happen every two years, with each congressperson serving two year terms. Senate elections happen every two years, with senators serving six year terms (1/3 get reelected every two years) and Gubernatorial elections happening every two years, but not all state re-elect governers each time (State law presumably specifies term length and election frequency for governors.)

[Shashakiro]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

Not really joining in here, but as a side point about Chinese, and possibly other Asian students: The motivation is largely rooted in cultural values (largely Confucian), and really isn't much at all in the quality of the system or teachers. It's impossible to make American students as generally motivated as Chinese students for this reason, unless the cultural values themselves change--and that itself would take decades, if not centuries.

My mom actually studies this for a living and has figured this out through a pretty enormous amount of research, so I know a bit about it, and felt like I ought to point this out.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

I don't see anything wrong with destroying 'wealth'. I'm not talking about destroying the playing field, I'm talking about levelling the playing field by only 1 factor, not all of them.

Spoken like a person with no understanding of economics. Wealth by necessity is all factors; or at least all factors which can be created or exchanged between human beings.

Because knowledge and education to me are extremely high value, and should be high value in and of themselves. But I suppose you're right, and that's no different than what I think pretty much everything should be.

So reflecting their high value to you I imagine you would be willing to pay a great deal for knowledge and education. Hey, look at that, incentive!

For something to have value "in and of itself", there would have to be a basis for objective value. There isn't.

There's a difference between poor regulation and no regulation. What we have is a flaw in the system, and you're using that to say we should get rid of the entire system. It makes more sense to try and fix this flaw. You're still basing the rest of your argument, as follows, on ideology.

And I'm basing my ideology on fact. If you fixed the one flaw, there would still be countless others. In fact it is impossible to fix all flaws due to the nature of the system, which I why I advocate the adoption of a different system.

People who don't vote have no right to complain about what their government does, unless they're in outright revolt of the entire system or something, in which case, they should also offer an alternative of some type.

So a person who can't get to the voting booth because they don't have a car deserves to suffer the will of a slight majority of their fellow citizens? Hey wait, what about people who are prevented from voting by the government; surely it would be incoherent to say they have no right to complain?

The alternative to trickle-down rights is natural rights. Natural rights make much more sense as a concept. Similarly the natural alternative to mob rule is individual sovereignty.

I'm glad you acknowledge that the government has regulation on these other things, because I think you've made a poor comparison. Education isn't that different. There's a lot of control the government has on things like transportation and food. The biggest thing I can think of for cars is that they have to be able to drive on roads (roads are government regulated), and must be safe while doing so. Food, likewise, must be safe.

The government has no right to a monopoly on these things, and these things could be handled by the market.

Further up the chain though, are the prices of products that prepared food is made of, and if government offers subsidies on certain foods, and if foreign governments do so. There are countless ways in which both food and transportation are government regulated.
The main difference between these 2 things and education, is that you generally buy food and transportation for yourself, and you don't have to buy yourself education. You CAN buy yourself education though, and that'll open up the options. You CAN also get your food from the soup kitchen, and you can also rely solely on public transportation, and that doesn't leave you a lot of choice.
It's a weakness of centrally controlled things, that they can't offer everything. They do, however, offer everyone, not just the wealthy, AN education.

Are you even listening to yourself? If EVERYONE wants an education there is high demand, which naturally would provide high incentive to provide education. Are there any massive food shortages in this country? Of course not, because EVERYONE WANTS FOOD. And in terms of food, you can survive on almost any wage, but different varieties of course have different costs because they represent different demand curves.

Again, I really think we're refuting ideologies. As soon as you regulate something, you restrict it. However, if it's not regulated, then things tend to get extremely unfair, and end up becoming regulated by someone in some other way anways.

So something bad is good because if you were to get rid of it that would also result in it? WHAT!?

The problem right now, apparently, with schools in the US is that it's largely dependent on where you live, and not just an issue of wealth. That and bad teachers don't seem to get fired quickly enough.

That's one of the problems people are most in agreement on and most vocal about. However you will find all variety of complaints about the school system, many contradicting each other. Why? Because a good deal of the issue boils down to simple preference, and as a centralized monopoly the system can't handle preference. Someone always loses.

No, but I have feelings, and I hate seeing people believing nonsense, especially when that nonsense says to use science as its evidence. Just because science may be right, doesn't mean that people will believe that it's right. Science itself refutes nothing, people refute.

Right, but trying to prevent things like bad opinions and bad science entails trying to prevent bad thought. In addition to being impossible it's also somewhat in poor taste, at least when your solution is to forcibly and completely bottleneck the flow of information by something such as a monopoly on education.

[Cavernio]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

Spoken like a person with no understanding of economics. Wealth by necessity is all factors; or at least all factors which can be created or exchanged between human beings.

So reflecting their high value to you I imagine you would be willing to pay a great deal for knowledge and education. Hey, look at that, incentive!

I've hardly studied economics, yes, but if you'll note, I did put wealth in ''. I used a poor word, and I'm having a hard time coming up with what I envision as being level. I'll get back to you on that, probably in another thread.
Regardless, economics boasts the study of all wealth, yet it purely relies on measurement of money. Just as examples, it doesn't measure the wealth of things like self-respect and love. It doesn't look at the entire picture, and knowing that, you shouldn't assume that it applies to everything so perfectly.

I'm trying to decide exactly how much I'm willing to pay for my education at this point in my life, and I agree with you, it's an awful lot. It's the biggest dilemma in my life right now, with one of the main problems being that I won't have any money or items of my own for quite a long time, and will end up owing the banks quite a bit of money. And through the entire process, which could easily be over a decade long, I'm essentially going to be an economic drain. At the end of the tunnel, all I want from it is self-enrichment, respect for my knowledge, use of that knowledge, and someone to debate things with.

I'm not sure if we're debating this or not, but my point is that I'm an economic sink, and I've got to work against the grain. How would having a free market help me?

For something to have value "in and of itself", there would have to be a basis for objective value. There isn't.

I'm not sure I get what you're saying, but if I am getting it, then I can only disagree with you, and point you to my previous examples of love and self-respect.
Actually, I suppose you can get objective measurement from pretty much anything, but its pretty hard to get correct objective representation of the subjective.

And I'm basing my ideology on fact. If you fixed the one flaw, there would still be countless others. In fact it is impossible to fix all flaws due to the nature of the system, which I why I advocate the adoption of a different system.

Which has its own flaws.

So a person who can't get to the voting booth because they don't have a car deserves to suffer the will of a slight majority of their fellow citizens? Hey wait, what about people who are prevented from voting by the government; surely it would be incoherent to say they have no right to complain?

What percent of the apparent 50% of non-voters do you think these people make up? Yeesh, yes, it's incoherent to say that these people can't complain. (Where I've lived actually, polling stations are all within at most 20 min walk away, and you can vote early if you won't be around, or for other miscellaneous reasons.)

So something bad is good because if you were to get rid of it that would also result in it? WHAT!?

You've basically got it. Government control is the lesser of 2 evils.

Your other points are all the same one, that the free-market is self-regulatory. I know that. It works great on paper. The free-market, however, doesn't control for rights, and given enough time, develops their own monopolies. Education is the perfect example to not have it run solely by the free market. It's generally highly valued, and has a relatively low amount of people who can teach, because education takes time. This'll make the price of education pretty high, therefore the rich will be able to afford education, while the poor won't. Heck, lets make my point stronger and pretend that everyone's on equal income to start off. Some people choose to get an education. These people generally end up getting more money because they now possess a less common skill set. You've now got a small divide between rich and poor. Next generation comes along. Most richer parents send their kids to school, while less poor parents send their kids to school. Same thing happens. Same thing happens for 100 generations. You get the picture.
Even moreso with education though, the educated are smart and learn how to get the best for themselves and their family, beyond merely possessing a more valuable skill set. There's only so much to go around, and obviously the rich are going to supply their family and friends first. They now also can buy themselves the time to figure out how to keep themselves ahead. Also, children are the ones who learn the easiest, but children don't have the final say themselves in what they'd rather do, for good reason. Unfortunately, once you're old enough to know that you might've wanted an education, you've probably passed those almost magical years when you absorb info like a sponge, and you've not got to spend your efforts getting money for yourself and your own family. It essentially leaves the uneducated, poor people being slaves to the wealthy.

Someone always loses.

They sure do, even in your 'free' market.

Right, but trying to prevent things like bad opinions and bad science entails trying to prevent bad thought. In addition to being impossible it's also somewhat in poor taste, at least when your solution is to forcibly and completely bottleneck the flow of information by something such as a monopoly on education.

How many examples need to be pointed out to you so that you'll see that the government doesn't hold a monopoly on education?
Here's another one: I'll tutor your kid for 20$/hour.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

Regardless, economics boasts the study of all wealth, yet it purely relies on measurement of money. Just as examples, it doesn't measure the wealth of things like self-respect and love.

False.

I'm trying to decide exactly how much I'm willing to pay for my education at this point in my life, and I agree with you, it's an awful lot. It's the biggest dilemma in my life right now, with one of the main problems being that I won't have any money or items of my own for quite a long time, and will end up owing the banks quite a bit of money. And through the entire process, which could easily be over a decade long, I'm essentially going to be an economic drain. At the end of the tunnel, all I want from it is self-enrichment, respect for my knowledge, use of that knowledge, and someone to debate things with.

In other words, you plan on gaining from the exchange. Education is worth more to you than all those other things. Hey look, another principle of laissez-faire! People won't engage in voluntary transactions unless they gain from them!

I'm not sure if we're debating this or not, but my point is that I'm an economic sink, and I've got to work against the grain. How would having a free market help me?

A free market would help you by giving you more choice in all purchases, which simultaneously means you have to spend less money on any one choice in any one good or service. It would help you by not taxing away 40% of your income. It would help you by generating enough wealth that bankers and other individuals can be more liberal with their money in terms of loans. Those are ways in which it would help you.

I'm not sure I get what you're saying, but if I am getting it, then I can only disagree with you, and point you to my previous examples of love and self-respect.
Actually, I suppose you can get objective value from pretty much anything, but its pretty hard to get correct objective representation of the subjective.

I have no idea what you're trying to say, this comes across as complete gibberish.

Which has its own flaws.

I very much doubt that you know something that actual economists don't, but please, enlighten me.

What percent of the apparent 50% of non-voters do you think these people make up? Yeesh, yes, it's incoherent to say that these people can't complain. (Where I've lived actually, polling stations are all within at most 20 min walk away, and you can vote early if you won't be around, or for other miscellaneous reasons.)

It doesn't matter. If system A results in suffering for person B, and system B does not, all other things being equal system B is superior. It doesn't matter if it's 1,000 people or 1, less suffering is better.

Which brings me to my next point; by way of economic interference, the government can have dramatic impact on citizens. Taking away a person's house or car, for example, is an act of economic interference. If you make the claim "the government can interfere economically however it wants and people who don' do thing X don't deserve to complain" you are effectively allowing the government to prevent people from doing thing X. Congratulations, catch 22.

You've basically got it. Government control is the lesser of 2 evils.

...jesus. Are you really that thick? How can something be the lesser of 2 evils if both evils are THE SAME THING!

Your other points are all the same one, that the free-market is self-regulatory. I know that. It works great on paper. The free-market, however, doesn't control for rights, and given enough time, develops their own monopolies. Education is the perfect example to not have it run solely by the free market. It's generally highly valued, and has a relatively low amount of people who can teach, because education takes time. This'll make the price of education pretty high, therefore the rich will be able to afford education, while the poor won't. Heck, lets make my point stronger and pretend that everyone's on equal income to start off. Some people choose to get an education. These people generally end up getting more money because they now possess a less common skill set. You've now got a small divide between rich and poor. Next generation comes along. Most richer parents send their kids to school, while less poor parents send their kids to school. Same thing happens. Same thing happens for 100 generations. You get the picture.
Even moreso with education though, the educated are smart and learn how to get the best for themselves and their family, beyond merely possessing a more valuable skill set. There's only so much to go around, and obviously the rich are going to supply their family and friends first. They now also can buy themselves the time to figure out how to keep themselves ahead. Also, children are the ones who learn the easiest, but children don't have the final say themselves in what they'd rather do, for good reason. Unfortunately, once you're old enough to know that you might've wanted an education, you've probably passed those almost magical years when you absorb info like a sponge, and you've not got to spend your efforts getting money for yourself and your own family. It essentially leaves the uneducated, poor people being slaves to the wealthy.

Wealth is not a perpetual motion machine.

They sure do, even in your 'free' market.

No, no they don't. I'm going to have to ask you to actually read some economics before you make any more absurd claims like this. You're just digging yourself a hole at this point.

How many examples need to be pointed out to you so that you'll see that the government doesn't hold a monopoly on education?
Here's another one: I'll tutor your kid for 20$/hour.

Hey, you were the one claiming that wealth inequality could equate in effects to market control. I can't afford 20$/hour. Neither can most people. Even the people that can will usually choose a "free" service over a costly one. That's not even factoring in the people who by way of taxation and other forms of intervention have been rendered incapable of making that kind of money, which is a lot more than you might think.

So which is it, does wealth inequality reflect poorly on the selling habits of producers of goods and services or doesn't it?

[Cavernio]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

Please elighten me how anything besides theory in economics measures the values of things without using money. If it only uses money, then it's getting a very poor measurement of things like self-respect and love.

In other words, you plan on gaining from the exchange. Education is worth more to you than all those other things. Hey look, another principle of laissez-faire! People won't engage in voluntary transactions unless they gain from them!?

I've never said that people don't need motivation.

A free market would help you by giving you more choice in all purchases, which simultaneously means you have to spend less money on any one choice in any one good or service. It would help you by not taxing away 40% of your income. It would help you by generating enough wealth that bankers and other individuals can be more liberal with their money in terms of loans. Those are ways in which it would help you.

Firstly, I've got plenty of choice in what I can study and what I can't. In fact, I think I'd have a harder time finding places and things to study if it were a free market because I'd be in all likelihood be doing base research, research that has little immediate useful potential, perhaps no useful potential in gaining that knowledge even in the next century. Few companies or people will fund that. Some will, but its awfully hard when there's no return on it besides making smarter people and gaining knowledge. You're not going to be able to put food on your table afterwards. Whereas now, people often get grants from the government. If I were to study in Canada, I'd hopefully get NSERC. Furthermore, although this isn't always the case, and really shouldn't ever be the case, but unfortunately it happens, where your funding comes from will often color results. Only a few years back there was a prof at UoToronto who was doing research for some pharmaceutical company, and found negative side-effects of some drug, and pretty much said so. The company put up so much of a fuss about the 'poor research' that the university fired the prof. They've been re-instated now, with public apology, but I'm sure there's more examples of that floating around, where the researcher chose not risk their job. We could only expect such incidents to increase with more and more funding coming from companies interested in making money ASAP.
Secondly, I'm not sure how it is in the US, but nowhere near 40% of my income has been taxed away. For one thing, I've never made enough money to ever get to that high of a tax bracket, and probably won't for a looong time if I take off and study some more until I'm out of school. (However, I may have been closer to having to pay that much money if minimum wage were at the same level as it were in the 60s, but that's another issue.) Even then, whatever I pay in tuition basically counts as negative income, and gets carried over from year to year, and I use it against my current income until I don't pay any taxes on it anymore.
Thirdly, the loans which I'd get are actually government controlled, being a student, and I get a better rate than would otherwise ever be offered, at least compared to other current interest rates (perhaps they'd be lower in a free market, I'm aware.) On top of that, I don't pay any interest on those loans until 6 months after I've completed my education, and EVEN then, if I'm making a pittance, I can apply for interest relief.
That's one of the many perks my tax dollars buy me. Everyone else pays for my education

It doesn't matter. If system A results in suffering for person B, and system B does not, all other things being equal system B is superior. It doesn't matter if it's 1,000 people or 1, less suffering is better.

But all other things aren't equal in system B.

Which brings me to my next point; by way of economic interference, the government can have dramatic impact on citizens. Taking away a person's house or car, for example, is an act of economic interference. If you make the claim "the government can interfere economically however it wants and people who don' do thing X don't deserve to complain" you are effectively allowing the government to prevent people from doing thing X. Congratulations, catch 22.

No one's stopping homeless people from voting. Canada bends over backwards trying to get everyone to vote. The US probably does the same.

...jesus. Are you really that thick? How can something be the lesser of 2 evils if both evils are THE SAME THING!

They're only the same in that someone has power over someone else, cutting away your freedom. The nature of that power is quite different. Even if the government were a dictatorship, that's still different from corporate monopoly, although I'm not sure which one of those is worse.

I made no such claim that wealth grew infinitely.
I was claiming that a free market on education would result in a very unequal distribution of wealth which would essentially become something where people are born into their position, and its difficult to overcome it. I really don't see how I'm digging myself a hole. You've yet to point out the flaw in the scenario above.

How about you tell me something to read so that I can get the perspective you've got. I'll go and read it, and then we'll see where I stand. (I DO only have first year calculus behind my belt though, I apologize in advance for that, I'm sure it'll limit your selection.)

To challenge you, how about you give me 1 example of where your imaginary free market exists and utopia is made, or at least everything's fair.

Hey, you were the one claiming that wealth inequality could equate in effects to market control. I can't afford 20$/hour. Neither can most people. Even the people that can will usually choose a "free" service over a costly one. That's not even factoring in the people who by way of taxation and other forms of intervention have been rendered incapable of making that kind of money, which is a lot more than you might think.

So which is it, does wealth inequality reflect poorly on the selling habits of producers of goods and services or doesn't it?

You've no understanding of middle-ground, do you? It depends on how far apart the inequality is. The further apart it is, the harder it is for the people on the low end to make it to the high end, and the more power the high-end holds. I'd be hard-pressed to draw a line at exactly what point I think it becomes unfair, but it's pretty near the middle. IN any case, I used the example of someone paying a tutor to be taught as a way that the government doesn't have a monopoly. Choice is possible. Now you claim that the government takes away sooo much money from people, that they can't possibly afford the market outside it. That's BS. Hey, how about you get 5 kids together, I'll tutor them all, and I'll still only ask for 20$/hour. That's less than most daycares charge, and that service is obviously included in my tutilage. Oh, but wait, that means your kid might have to settle and learn some of the things Suzy's mom wants her to learn. People have to compromise in order to help each other out??? But that takes away my freedom, my rights! Oh noes, we're all doomed to servitude!

Do you think that if government didn't control education everyone would be able to afford it?

[devonin]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

To challenge you, how about you give me 1 example of where your imaginary free market exists and utopia is made

You should read "Utopia"

[xxburriedaly06xx]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

yea its all rubish...

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

Please elighten me how anything besides theory in economics measures the values of things without using money. If it only uses money, then it's getting a very poor measurement of things like self-respect and love.

It doesn't only use money. Many economic studies try to measure personal satisfaction in countries relative to presence or absence of command elements.

I've never said that people don't need motivation.

...and I wasn't saying they did. In fact, you might even say that I was saying something completely different.

Firstly, I've got plenty of choice in what I can study and what I can't. In fact, I think I'd have a harder time finding places and things to study if it were a free market because I'd be in all likelihood be doing base research, research that has little immediate useful potential, perhaps no useful potential in gaining that knowledge even in the next century. Few companies or people will fund that. Some will, but its awfully hard when there's no return on it besides making smarter people and gaining knowledge.

You misunderstand the mechanics of funding. An unrestricted market will develop all valuable methods of funding. Similarly value doesn't have to be attained in any one form, and an unrestricted market will allow for and support virtually all varieties of value, with only one exception.

Only a few years back there was a prof at UoToronto who was doing research for some pharmaceutical company, and found negative side-effects of some drug, and pretty much said so. The company put up so much of a fuss about the 'poor research' that the university fired the prof. They've been re-instated now, with public apology, but I'm sure there's more examples of that floating around, where the researcher chose not risk their job. We could only expect such incidents to increase with more and more funding coming from companies interested in making money ASAP.

There might be. A perfect world is impossible, some problems will arise even in a free-market, but in the market they are self-correcting. Did the professor continue to work for the Pharmaceutical company? What happened to the companies reputation as a result of this? Your assumption that companies want to make money only "ASAP" is fallacious; actions will be based on time preference, which varies. Development and creation of any variety suggests a fairly high time preference. If you don't like how Pharmaceutical companies do business, don't do business with them.

Secondly, I'm not sure how it is in the US, but nowhere near 40% of my income has been taxed away. For one thing, I've never made enough money to ever get to that high of a tax bracket, and probably won't for a looong time if I take off and study some more until I'm out of school. (However, I may have been closer to having to pay that much money if minimum wage were at the same level as it were in the 60s, but that's another issue.) Even then, whatever I pay in tuition basically counts as negative income, and gets carried over from year to year, and I use it against my current income until I don't pay any taxes on it anymore.

There are more forms of tax than income tax, and in the US at least taxation comes at both a federal and local level.

That's one of the many perks my tax dollars buy me. Everyone else pays for my education

Yes, but the point is that everyone else might not want to pay for your education. They might want to pay for a better apartment or a working car instead.

But all other things aren't equal in system B.

Most of the things which aren't equal in system B are also improvements.

No one's stopping homeless people from voting. Canada bends over backwards trying to get everyone to vote. The US probably does the same.

The US does no such thing. Residency is a requirement to vote.

They're only the same in that someone has power over someone else, cutting away your freedom. The nature of that power is quite different. Even if the government were a dictatorship, that's still different from corporate monopoly, although I'm not sure which one of those is worse.

I am. Freedom to steal isn't a legitimate freedom. If a monopoly occurs in a free-market, it is as a result of voluntary transaction and so is sanctioned perfectly by the only means capable of providing legitimate sanction.

I made no such claim that wealth grew infinitely.
I was claiming that a free market on education would result in a very unequal distribution of wealth which would essentially become something where people are born into their position, and its difficult to overcome it. I really don't see how I'm digging myself a hole. You've yet to point out the flaw in the scenario above.

Labor strikes are a good example. Labor is a necessity for all manner of highly valued goods and services, laborers have as much weight in the system as skilled workers. That is, if you get rid of nonsense like eminent domain, which effectively gives those with copious amounts of money hegemony over those with substantially less.

How about you tell me something to read so that I can get the perspective you've got. I'll go and read it, and then we'll see where I stand. (I DO only have first year calculus behind my belt though, I apologize in advance for that, I'm sure it'll limit your selection.)

Start with the book "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman. If you want to read something much heavier, try "Power and Market" by Murray Rothbard.

To challenge you, how about you give me 1 example of where your imaginary free market exists and utopia is made, or at least everything's fair.

Give me an example of where one imaginary communal society on the scope of present nations exists and utopia is made.

Contextualizing economics in terms of a singular binary, namely "either all command economy or all free-market economy", is not only empirically unfalsifiable but also a Strawman of sorts, intentional or otherwise. All economic exchanges occur in discrete units, therefore if you are expressing binary conditions you need to express them only in terms of the discrete units. Admittedly economists might confuse laymen by slapping certain labels on economies with more or less of certain characteristics; Soviet Union as "socialist", Hong Kong as "Laissez-faire" for example.

You've no understanding of middle-ground, do you? It depends on how far apart the inequality is. The further apart it is, the harder it is for the people on the low end to make it to the high end, and the more power the high-end holds. I'd be hard-pressed to draw a line at exactly what point I think it becomes unfair, but it's pretty near the middle. IN any case, I used the example of someone paying a tutor to be taught as a way that the government doesn't have a monopoly. Choice is possible. Now you claim that the government takes away sooo much money from people, that they can't possibly afford the market outside it. That's BS. Hey, how about you get 5 kids together, I'll tutor them all, and I'll still only ask for 20$/hour. That's less than most daycares charge, and that service is obviously included in my tutilage. Oh, but wait, that means your kid might have to settle and learn some of the things Suzy's mom wants her to learn. People have to compromise in order to help each other out??? But that takes away my freedom, my rights! Oh noes, we're all doomed to servitude!

You're incredibly arrogant for a person so ignorant. You draw the line "somewhere in the middle" why? Because you feel like it? Is that the foundational method for your worldview, because it seems like it might be. I've explained things to you ten times over. If you actually want to read and understand them then please do so.

Do you think that if government didn't control education everyone would be able to afford it?

I already said yes and gave reasoning. I even gave an empirical example. If you're not going to pay attention then don't bother engaging in conversation.

[KH Luxord]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

This is BS man...I mean...come on!!! First of all, if there were no public schools, much of the U.S. population would have no education, meaning that the people in the government would be pretty much ignorant, because most people in the government must have gone to public schools, right? And most people can't even afford private schools. The population would just have as low as an education as, say, some people in the Middle East, also, sadly, in the poverty stricken places in Africa. So, public schools play a big role in the population of the world that can't afford education from a private school.

Private schools are not backed/supported by any part of the government. So, people would be going through a collegiate process before the are even in college! They have to buy their own books. They have to pay a tuition. If it is a boarding school, room and board. The school's source of money is the students (the parents actually, but you get the point). Which means, that the parents are paying about $1500+ per month, plus the books that they have to buy for their children. So, the families there are just spending the money that should be used for college, on their elementary, jr. high, and high school education! Aren't parents supposed to be saving up money for their child's college education? Unless the child's parents are filthy, stinkin' rich, there is a huge problem!

Now, I go to a public school. It is in Cypress, CA. The school is Oxford Academy. Don't be fooled, it may be called Oxford Academy (some people mistake it as Oxford University, and I mean, I'm 13, and most people that are 13 - 17 are not in college unless they are born a child prodigy), but it is not a private school. Oxford Academy is in a school district of 10 High Schools, and 8 Jr. High Schools. Oxford Academy is a school supported by the government, and is a school for people in the 7th - 12th grade levels. There are only about 1000 people at Oxford Academy, maybe less. Why? Well, because we have to test to get in. And those who get in, show that they are of a more intelligent group. For those that got in, during their years at Oxford Academy, they get a better education then most of the other normal schools that are in the same area. And, we get a good education, without paying for a single thing except for lunch (for those who don't have the income problem, where the student gets lunch discounted or free), or the bus (for those that take it), or the special school functions (i. e. dances, talent show, Oxford Idol). Oxford Academy is like a private school in only one way. We have a strict dress code. We have to wear a uniform (which is only a shirt, so it is no big deal), with the Oxford Academy emblem on it. But that is all.

Public schools can give just as good an education as a private school, only if the students there wish to receive it. People that go to private schools don't get discounts on anything. They have to pay full price, even though they are wishing for the children to receive the supposedly higher education they offer their, but do not have the money for it. I receive a good education, and I don't even go to a private school. To tell the truth, some of the people at private schools don't get the "higher" education that the staff members say they offer. It just isn't fair to those parents. While the people at public schools get just as good an education as people at private schools, parents are still blowing off the money that should be used for their child's college education on their pre-college education.

[Kilroy_x]

Re: Public Schools - Bad for American Students?

This is BS man...I mean...come on!!! First of all, if there were no public schools, much of the U.S. population would have no education, meaning that the people in the government would be pretty much ignorant, because most people in the government must have gone to public schools, right?

What is your evidence for this claim? Moreover what makes you think we need a government? Hell, what makes you think the individuals in government today actually benefited from education? It seems pretty clear that most did not.

And most people can't even afford private schools.

Already been addressed. Also if the poorest people in India can afford private education, it seems somewhat absurd to say there is no hope for market provided private education.

The population would just have as low as an education as, say, some people in the Middle East, also, sadly, in the poverty stricken places in Africa.

Both the Middle East and Africa have on average very high levels of economic intervention. Many of them beat out the US in international scores anyways.

Other stuff

The income of a school doesn't stem by necessity from any one place, as you and many others seem to assume.

Why? Well, because we have to test to get in. And those who get in, show that they are of a more intelligent group. For those that got in, during their years at Oxford Academy, they get a better education then most of the other normal schools that are in the same area. And, we get a good education, without paying for a single thing except for lunch

You pay for it some fashion or another, and so do others. Standardized testing also has imperfections; more importantly the problem of choice still remains.

Public schools can give just as good an education as a private school

Sure, they can. There's an important question as to whether or not they will on average do so.

To tell the truth, some of the people at private schools don't get the "higher" education that the staff members say they offer. It just isn't fair to those parents. While the people at public schools get just as good an education as people at private schools, parents are still blowing off the money that should be used for their child's college education on their pre-college education.

Who are you to decide how other people should spend their money? If someone values something, why shouldn't they be allowed to purchase it?