The fact pointed out by constant modern day philosophers is that Democracy is based upon the idea that citizens are involved in the politics of their nation, and actively work to understand the issues, even if they do not agree. Now the idea of having a perfect democracy with all citizens highly educated in the political realm is unreasonable, but removing public education denies children in more poor areas the ability to learn.

I’d first like to address the system as it is. We can all recognize that there are major flaws in our public education system. Children have large amounts of money spend on them, but often times do not necessarily learn what is needed. State standards are often dumbed down allowing schools to pass with only base line education. The question is, is this a problem relating to the government running schools, or is it because the government hasn’t run it as well as it should.

In a democracy, people have the right to vote for what they believe in. However, in order to believe something legitimately and in a beneficial way for society, one must be educated.

Up until this I think we all agree.

Here’s where I see things differently than yourselves. If, on one hand, the educational system was private and run for profits by business, you would see a huge gap develop in the social strata of different areas. While states such as perhaps New Mexico would vastly lag behind due to less money being spent on education, states like New York or California would be vastly better off. This would even trickle down into an area by area effect, leaving the suburbs with moderate education, but perhaps inner cities with terrible education that cannot compete. It would leave education separate but not equal.

Having education run at a local level by parents and community members would also have a huge difference in quality. Students packed into cities would have a larger number people taking a role in the system, and would have (as a generalized whole) the ‘creme de la creme’ if you will. This is disimiliar to country suburban and rural areas where the districts contain many less people and are much more spread out. It would be a gamble as to whether parents would be active or simply do nothing and be satisfied with their child getting stragiht A’s in a very detrimental system.

No, education must be fair and equal for all Students of all states and all areas. There really is no reason not to have a single payer system.

Now if one insists on having a private industry run education, however give a monopoly to a corporation so as to insure students recieve equal opportunity, this could work. However, the government would have to strictly regulate the curriculum or else it would suffer as parents would have very little option. This would interfere with free market economics anyways, and defeat any liberty free-the-schools movement.

Also, would their be truancy laws and mandatory education for students up until 12th grade? Even if it was private run, such mandates would still have to be in effect or else many people would not go to school. I know that personally, in my small to midsize town of Sonora, a very large percentage of the students would follow the ‘All I need to Know I learned in Kindergarten’ approach and drop out. It would dumb down America. Thus having kids forced to go to school would also cut down freedom to a level similiar if not equal to the gov’s doing.

It is also fair to point out that many families, again especially relating to poor or working class families, do not have the resources to homeschool their children, nor to pay for what is often extremely extremely expensive private education. The government would have to subsidize low income education, which again, defeats the purpose of trying to remove government spending and intervention. The system simply needs to be continually updated so as to keep pace with the world.

Secondly, the advantages to having a public are vast. It provides the simplicity of having one base line choice that is easily available for all people, while allowing private schools to exist as a luxury to those that want it. Freedom and support. Public schools are also worried more about how their children do on tests (should be reformed to knowledge and not test based merit) and not simply on a profit motive. As human nature dictates, when profit is thrown into the mix, morality comes second.. Or third. One example I can think of is a privatized prison in this small town. It was actually a reformatorium for teenage offenders. Basically it could have been a good idea, and it was a good idea on paper. In acutallity however, they began paying off judges to send children and teens there, hold them for month or years past their date (as it was up to them when they were ‘ready’ to leave), and not allow the proper rule of law. They were arrested and sentenced, but none-the-less, it hurt many many people who now have ridiculous criminal records and lost years of their lives.

Having a public education system also enhances competition in the market place for other schools. They are defined by the standard of public education, and by charging more than public schools (obviously) they must provide a better product. It reinforces relentless work in Private schools in order to stay ahead.

Public education also clearly separates education from religion. Though only a hypothesis, I would be very certain that this scenario would happen; being that local areas could not guarantee equal or even adequate education (the worst places would continue to get worse and worse, like families of 4 welfare generations and what not) religious schools would try to set up shop in these towns. Perhaps you are religious; I myself am an atheist. However, I would hope that a religious school setting up monarchies in multiple areas of the country would strike you as appalling if their was no public option. Madrasas (pardon my spelling) in the Middle East do a similiar task. Being that public education there is very minimal and often times vastly underfunded, understaffed, and even dangerous, religious schools give students education. This would be great if it would 1) not brainwash children into often radical religious philosophy and 2) breed terror, hate, and information that is quite wrong. A school could be set up if no standards were in place and preach creationist theory of the 7,000 year old earth and that you really can get swallowed by a whale an live. If you choose to say that Muslims are different than Christians thus this would not happen here, you are mistaken. Muslims teach phrases in their Kuran which perhaps are sometimes interpreted as violent and hateful, but Christians have the same things in the Bible, just mainly ignored. It’s been a long time I’ve heard of a stoning for people wearing clothes of two different threads, but perhaps by removing public education, I will see one soon.

The public is also given the opportunity to unite and push the leaders (which unlike corporate officials are elected by general votes) to change the system. Such has not happened, but a series of reforms are growing stronger and stronger every day as the public gets more outrageously angry at education.

Thirdly, no school can force students to do well, nor should they. By doing so you teach them that they need not try hard in life to do well, but instead will have someone do it for them. In public school, there are multiple levels: underachieving/basic, regular, college preparatory, honors, and advanced placement, with other varying ones in between (i.e. ROP). I myself am a senior in high school and I take the hardest classes that I can in order to succeed. I know that if I don’t work hard, I will not achieve the place in society where I want to be. If they have only one honors class one years for 30 students, and 35 sign up, perhaps 5 might be booted. However, if students form a large enough number to make a second class economically feasible, then two develop the next year. Thus, it isn’t limited how many can be in the Honors courses. It is dictated by student motivation and work ethic, as well as intelligence.

Feel free to email me, I like the points brought up by the other side.

On a side note, if you were to deregulate a corporation, you may say that ‘well I would never buy things from them if they made it in a bad way’ but you know as well as I do that this would be part of the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ theory. An example is that the gov barely regulates Ewastes generated in the millions of tons by our country. They are often shipped over to China/India and sold to poor families who scrape out the lead, capacitors, and metals in them for scrap. They expose themselves to many heavy metals and large numbers of chemicals. Is it terrbile? Yes. Is it a controversy? No. We don’t see it, we don’t hear about it, so nothing develops. Corporations have regularly put morals behind their green and gold eyes in order to make a profit, and it is hardly debateable as to whether they would or not. Obviously, Nike would still use child labor (or perhaps more, I’m not sure their situation now) if the government didn’t ban it. We get cheap sneakers, most people don’t care how or from where or why they are so cheap.

Also, the flaws in social security are substantial. I’ve discussed this in depthly with the libertarian party. While having large problems, they are not coming from the government running the program, nor the program itself. The original idea was great. It howver was not updated for decades upon decades even as treatments became much more expensive, longevity increased significantly, and the Baby boomers hit the fan.

Africa needs massive amount of investment by governments to build infrastructure. That will in turn modernize cities, provide a working class, and bring stability as the citizens gain economic security. Free market does not work there. The fact that the governments are so vastly underfunded in areas like DROC and Uganda that they cannot do anything is testiment to that. Companies can do whatever they want over there as it is right now, and do often use it as a dump site. However, they will not invest precious resources in such a highly dangerous and turmoil-filled region. Perhaps after an economic base is developed from their subsistence liftestyles right now, then freedom. But now? Completely unreasonable.

I don’t. And they are not. I’m trying to determine the best way to rectify that situation.

> Killing people is bad for business, and no company
> that dumps toxic crap into the ocean, that I know about,
> is going to get my money.

Nor I. But you must admit that when it is cheaper to hide the dumping than to actually clean it up, human nature dictates that the cheaper route will be followed (by at least *some* companies).

> Stop supporting corporations and government programs
> that destroy the environment.

Ha. That’s funny. You obviously haven’t read my web site. (How about returning the favor?) I’m the last person on earth to support *anything* our government does. I’m just playing devil’s advocate here because I’ve found it very hard to sell free market solutions to environmental concerns, at least to those with whom I argue. I see you have equal difficulty. :)

Help me find a *real* answer to the question.

It presents in chronological order how education in America was transformed from a true education, teaching students how to think, into schooling, teaching students what to think.

There will always be problems in public education. There will always be competing interests, budget problems, teacher effectiveness issues, etc. But what we need to do is highlight the strengths of the system while minimizing its weaknesses. Central control tends to do the exact opposite as the system becomes less adaptable and more standardized.

And there is always the benefit of slowing the “infection.” Corrupt national officials corrupt the entire education system. Corrupt local officials only bring down that district.

As for leaving, moving away is definitely a last resort, though one need not move away in order to take one’s child out of government school and either put them into a private school or homeschool.

Those who wind up in a bad district can’t just easily leave. The economics of life just don’t allow it. It’s not that simple.

-Nick

http://joshmaher.wordpress.com/2006/08/14/top-ten-reasons-you-should-not-blog/