Posted on 01/13/2005 8:54:27 AM PST by FreeMarket1
You misunderstand. The government pays for the education and private concerns administer it. No unions, no bloated administrators as we have now, just a tough curriculum administered by teachers held to strict standards and whose pay is merit based. WE could save BILLIONS while giving thew children a much better education.
And how do you propose to hold private concerns accountable?
Say for instance that Company A is administering all of the schools in the Hypotheticalville's schools districts. (As would likely happen, we live in an age of corporate consolidation, not in an age of small businesses competing with each other in a model of pure capitalism)
Now, say that Company A decides to operate these schools at the lowest possible cost in order to maximize their shareholder return, thereby providing an exceptionally low quality of education for their students.
How does the community hold Company A accountable? There's no competition, no way to take your children to another school without paying an exclusive private school a great deal of money in tuition.
The parents therefore are as much of a captive market for Company A as they were for the public school district that existed before them.
The point I'm making is that businesses do not exist for their customers, they exist for the benefit of their shareholders and therefore they do what makes economic sense in order to maximize shareholder return.
Therefore, placing businesses in charge of education ensures that education will be delivered in a manner which maximizes the benefit, not to the children being served, but to the owners of the corporations delivering the education.
And here even my kids; classical HS education fell down. (I'm Jewish.) I asked my daughter when she was 13 if she knew who Mary was. She didn't. I think it is insane for people to grow up in this country and not know the basics of the dominant religion here.
ML.NJ ML/NJ
Couldn't you ask the same question about food, clothing, and shelter? Children can be a great motivator for parents, but when the state comes along and says, "I'll take care of your children," then the motivation ceases for some.
ML/NJ
Oooooh, Can't have any evil profits be made.
So what would your incentive be for someone to build and staff a school?
ML/NJ
You are correct, my son is Jewish as well, and quite ignorant of the Christian religion.
The nice thing at Auburn is all undergrads have to take the core (an 18 unit program) However, if desired some of the courses no longer require the classic books be taught. My son fortunately did not take those classes to satisfy the requirement.
There is no incentive for private concerns to build and staff a school beyond a)religion-based education (i.e. Catholic school) b) profit or c) creating an institution by which the priviledged will ensure that their children recieve an education which will gurantee them entrance to one of the nation's top colleges (i.e. exclusive east-coast private schools)
None of these are good models for mass education.
Religious organizations cannot be responsible for mass education for the reason that not every student would subscribe to the religion that is promoted at the school, therefore their civil rights would be violated if they were forced to attend such a school. (For instance, can you imagine how Catholic parents would feel if their children were forced to go to a school which actively promoted the Southern Baptist Convention or Mormonism?)
For profit organizations are in the business of maximizing their shareholder value, not providing a quality education for the masses. Their educational philosophy would inevitably be driven by a profit-loss mentality that preclude them from taking the student's needs into account first. (i.e. Instead of providing nutritious, USDA recommended foods, we will outsource our cafeteria to Pizza Hut. I recognize that this is occurring today in public schools, I'm simply saying that it would undoubtedly be even more prevelant in for-profit private schools which existed on a mass scale.)
And the third model cannot be used for obvious reasons. (Not every parent can afford the twenty thousand dollar plus tuitions that those schools charge.)
Public schools may not be a great solution, but they are the best one we have for delivering education to the masses.
Rather then abandon public education, we need to radically reform it and make it less top-heavy, more responsive and more responsible. We need more classrooms, more teachers, fewer bureaucrats and more money for quality textbooks and supplies. Furthermore, we need to attract a better quality of teacher to the field of public education. (A good model for doing this is for the government to forgive a large amount of student loans for those who recieve high marks in college and are willing to sign multi-year contracts with a public school.)
Incidently, someone on one of these threads had an excellent idea the other day about how to reform bureaucracies that exist within. public schools. He proposed that we limit the size of school districts in order to prevent bureaucrats from consolidating their power within school districts.
I thought it was a fantastic idea, enough so that I've been discussing it with several friends of mine since then.
It's always amazing to me that there are people who think that businesses that don't cater to the needs of their customers can survive. You are willing to trust career bureaucrats with education (despite the fact that on balance they have failed miserably for many years) but you won't trust some greedy capitalist. I can't figure this out.
And what's the most important thing at a public school to a lefty? Why it's the food they serve at lunch! If the school SELLS (No food should be given away.) food the parents don't want their kids to have or if the food is overpriced, the parents can provide lunch for the kids the way mine did for me, and we did (mostly) for ours.
ML/NJ
Businesses fail to cater to the needs of their customers all the time and continue to post record profits at their customers expense. (Think Merck as an example.)
Businesses exist to maximize profits to their owners, not maximize benefit to their customers. If those two coincide, then excellent, however if the needs of their owners are different then the needs of their customers, then the needs of their owners will be met first.
There's nothing wrong with that. It's capitalism working as it should. Corporations exist for their shareholders.
*smiles*
I used food as an example because it was the first one that came to mind. (And it's important, the nature of the food that is served at school certainly impacts a child's health as well as their educational performance.)
However, a better example comes to mind; textbooks.
Would you rather that a school used the least expensive textbooks they could find or would you rather that they used the highest quality textbooks they could afford?
A for-profit educational model will likely be driven to use textbooks supplied by the lowest bidder, which may or may not be of high (or even acceptable) quality.
How do you propose to prevent that?
I should note that I'm not completely opposed to a system of mass private education, I just don't believe that such a system is possible without greatly impacting the already low quality of education found in American schools in a negative way.
Furthermore, my original question hasn't been addressed.
How do parents hold a for-profit corporation that has a monopoly on local education accountable?
Of course. I am just fishing for ideas.
I really don't know much about Merck, except that they develop and sell drugs. Ar you suggesting that the drugs they sell don't provide benefit to the people taking them? And drugs (and other medical businesses) are bad ones to analyze because of the corrosive effect of insurance, and especially government insurance.
Businesses exist to maximize profits to their owners, not maximize benefit to their customers.
You really have no clue. I charge by the hour, and so do others who do what I do. So some think they can pad their hours and make more money. Maybe they get away with it once or twice with some deep pockets client. I do my jobs in the shortest time I know how, and my customers give me all the work I can handle. I want them to make gobs of money on the jobs I am involved in. I care more about their bottom line than most/all of their employees and stockholders because the more money they make on me the more I can charge.
I used food as an example because it was the first one that came to mind. (And it's important, the nature of the food that is served at school certainly impacts a child's health as well as their educational performance.)
Public schools may have suffered their most noticeable decline when you lefties began to turn them into nutrition centers. Schools are for educating, period.
However, a better example comes to mind; textbooks.
Would you rather that a school used the least expensive textbooks they could find or would you rather that they used the highest quality textbooks they could afford?
Textbooks are not a good example for you to choose. First they are a relatively small budget item for schools. Maybe each kid uses books that cost a total of $500 new each year. But the books are used for several years so maybe the cost per kid per year is $150. Even if there were a wide choice the difference in cost between the choices would be what $50 per kid per year? Big deal! And it's governments that go to the lowest bidder, not businesses. I'd much rather have a businessman decide what history books my kids should read than have that decision made by some nameless bureaucrat someplace.
Furthermore, my original question hasn't been addressed.
How do parents hold a for-profit corporation that has a monopoly on local education accountable?
Maybe the same way they deal with the only grocery store for miles around? For profit monopolies aren't nearly as rapacious as your government protectors would have you believe. The monopoly I worry about is in Washington DC.
ML/NJ
There are numerous examples from the pharmaceutical industry where the needs of the shareholders came before the needs of the consumer, numerous instances where corporations such as Merck knowingly marketed dangerous drugs. Believe me, I'm not saying that capitalism is bad. Capitalism is wonderful, furthermore, I like corporations, they produce useful goods and services. However, one must keep in mind that corporations (for the most part) are vehicles for enriching their shareholders, not necessarily entities which exist for the common good.
Education is an enterprise which is fundamentally geared towards promoting the common good (i.e. a more educated populace) therefore it would seem like flawed thinking to trust corporations with the education of children.
You really have no clue. I charge by the hour, and so do others who do what I do. So some think they can pad their hours and make more money.
Ahh... I should have been more careful with my language. What I should have said was... "generally speaking, businesses exist to maximize profit for their owners..."
In any case, the personal example you cite simply reinforces what I said. You say that you complete jobs as quickly as possible and your customers give you all the work you can handle. Therefore, you are maximizing your profit while behaving ethically. Kudos to you. However, it is not always the case that ethical (or desirable) behavior is the route to maximum profits, when that is the case, economic imperatives often dictate that corporations behave in a manner which negatively impacts the public. (Enron and WorldCom and Global Crossing come to mind.)
Public schools may have suffered their most noticeable decline when you lefties began to turn them into nutrition centers. Schools are for educating, period.
Yes, schools are for educating. However, students are at school for approximately eight hours a day, which means they eat at least one, if not two meals there. Therefore, nutrition plays a role in education. (And numerous studies have shown that proper nutrition or the lack thereof plays an important role in educational success, i.e. GPA. Food is fuel for the brain after all.)
You might be against school lunches and believe that parents should pack their kids a lunch, but what about the kids whose parents don't have the money or don't care? Shouldn't they get to eat healthy food also?
All that being said, I would support mass private education if you could show that certain criteria could be met. First, schools must be accountable to more then shareholders and a corporate board. Second, quality education must be available to all children, regardless of their parents income. Third, the education that is being delivered should be of a quality equal or greater to that which was previously available in public schools. Fourth, political agendas should not shape the curriculum. Fifth, schools must be diverse and representative of the community. Sixth, teachers should be highly paid professionals, not temps or hourly wage workers. Seventh, there must be a balanced curriculum that includes both arts and sciences. Eighth, there must be no hidden agenda in the curriculum to promote the idea of students as eventual consumers of corporate products and schools must not become advertising vehicles for large corporations. (i.e. "Now children, today's lecture is sponsored in part by Pepsi...)
Can private schools deliver this on a mass scale?
I support charter schools, as long as they are held accountable to meet educational standards.
In your charter school, were parents asked to shoulder some of the cost of textbooks? (Our of curiosity?)
If they provide a low quality of education for the children then they get FIRED, something we can't do with teachers today. It is in the best interests of the corporation running the schools to get the job done as efficiently as possible. That is their responsibility to the shareholder. If they can combine low cost with higher levels of education then everyone wins. Another idea would be charter schools which have proved successful
http://edreform.com/_upload/CSTRecordSuccess2003.pdf
How does the community hold Company A accountable? There's no competition, no way to take your children to another school without paying an exclusive private school a great deal of money in tuition.
+++Already explained above and besides how are the schools today being held accountable? Under the present failed system you still have to pay to take your child to a private school.
The parents therefore are as much of a captive market for Company A as they were for the public school district that existed before them. +++When a concern such as the teachers unions have no competition and no productivity requirements we get what we have today. Lazy teachers and a bloated Administration system within the schools. I read somewhere and don't know how true it is, that there are 3 administrators for each teacher in our public schools. That is just plain ludicrous.
The point I'm making is that businesses do not exist for their customers, they exist for the benefit of their shareholders and therefore they do what makes economic sense in order to maximize shareholder return.
Which they cannot do if they get "fired" for non performance, something union teachers are shielded from.
Therefore, placing businesses in charge of education ensures that education will be delivered in a manner which maximizes the benefit, not to the children being served, but to the owners of the corporations delivering the education.
Already addressed this above.
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