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I found it interesting how they praise the privatisation route for schools and hospitals etc. We clearly see this doesn't benifit the masses from the US model.

I found it interesting how they praise the privatisation route for schools and hospitals etc. We clearly see this doesn't benifit the masses from the US model. And to criticise Norway for paying out more in benifit to the lower end of society compared to other OECD, why is this bad? It simply means they are paying out less in other areas but what are these and why is it a negative? Personally I found this a weak article. I expect better fact driven discussion from the economist rather than a piece that seems to want to find a reason to bash a country for popular reading.

tormeh 11y ago
Private school choice fails because most parents are not rational agents on their children's behalf, but rather on their own behalf - parents prefer convenient logistics to quality education. The end result is that bad schools have no pressure to perform, neither from the government nor from parents.
- brc 11y ago
  I don't think that is true at all. Many parents undertake difficult logistics to ensure good education. Those parents who choose convenience over education quality are not interested in education quality - therefore no change in the school apart from location will matter to them.
  - tormeh 11y ago
    Some parentes care about education, but a surprising share of parents don't. School privatization experiments show that good schools become a little bit better, but the bad ones become a lot worse because the parents that choose bad schools just don't care.
    - acdha 11y ago
      “don't care” is a value judgement for which you lack evidence. I'm sure there are a few who truly don't but you're also lumping in e.g. the parent working 3 jobs who cannot entertain the possibility of taking their kids to a school which is further away, not close to the grandparents who will be watching the kid until a parent finishes work, etc. Study after study has shown that most of the differences in student performance are caused by poverty. Some of that manifests in e.g. challenges having clean clothing, sufficient food, etc. but many of the effects aren't as obvious – high levels of stress, very limited amounts of time, difficulty having things like Internet access to even review the options, etc. If you look at the causes of poverty, those also tend to be related: e.g. a recent immigrant with very limited English proficiency is likely to be working crazy hours and poorly equipped to read the forms the school district is sending, much less spend time talking with other parents about how the local charter schools are working.
      - tormeh 11y ago
        Yeah, sorry. Poor choice of words.
ende 11y ago
School privatization (charter schools) has shown a lot of success over traditional public schools. Im not really sure what hospital privatization refers to. Now prison privatization has come under recent scrutiny but that's more of a failure of oversight by the governing bodies employing private administration than of the concept of privatization itself.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Private prisons have the perverse incentives that private companies will push for policies that incarcerate more people: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/sep/18/justice-sells-whos-buying/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/sep/18/justice-s...
  - kibibu 11y ago
    Do private schools have similar incentives to keep children from passing to extract more fees? If they are paid per graduating student, are they incentivized to pass (or ignore plagiarism, etc) for under-performing students? If they are paid based on standardized test results, are they incentivized to teach to the test only? If they are paid based on average grade score, are they incentivized to expel students for poor academic performance? (I've seen the last one happen, but I don't think the cause was quite as direct - possibly high average scores => high first year enrolments)
    - ams6110 11y ago
      Private schools are normally paid for by the parents, who have the most direct interest in a successful outcome, however they define that.
      - HarryHirsch 11y ago
        That's the theory. The practice as I can observe at my state school is that the administration asks "how many students did we graduate this year" when they should be asking "how rigorously were the students taught". It would be in the students' best interest if there was presssure for the faculty to do an acceptable job, but since tuition constitutes a substantial part of the university's operating income the focus is on recruitment and retention, where it really doesn't belong. There are some Young Turks protesting the status quo amongst the faculty, but none amongst the administration, the students or their parents. On the other hand, if the university was tax-funded, then the interests of faculty, administration and well-performing students would be aligned. At the moment they are not.

tormeh 11y ago

Private school choice fails because most parents are not rational agents on their children's behalf, but rather on their own behalf - parents prefer convenient logistics to quality education. The end result is that bad schools have no pressure to perform, neither from the government nor from parents.

brc 11y ago
I don't think that is true at all. Many parents undertake difficult logistics to ensure good education. Those parents who choose convenience over education quality are not interested in education quality - therefore no change in the school apart from location will matter to them.
- tormeh 11y ago
  Some parentes care about education, but a surprising share of parents don't. School privatization experiments show that good schools become a little bit better, but the bad ones become a lot worse because the parents that choose bad schools just don't care.
  - acdha 11y ago
    “don't care” is a value judgement for which you lack evidence. I'm sure there are a few who truly don't but you're also lumping in e.g. the parent working 3 jobs who cannot entertain the possibility of taking their kids to a school which is further away, not close to the grandparents who will be watching the kid until a parent finishes work, etc. Study after study has shown that most of the differences in student performance are caused by poverty. Some of that manifests in e.g. challenges having clean clothing, sufficient food, etc. but many of the effects aren't as obvious – high levels of stress, very limited amounts of time, difficulty having things like Internet access to even review the options, etc. If you look at the causes of poverty, those also tend to be related: e.g. a recent immigrant with very limited English proficiency is likely to be working crazy hours and poorly equipped to read the forms the school district is sending, much less spend time talking with other parents about how the local charter schools are working.
    - tormeh 11y ago
      Yeah, sorry. Poor choice of words.

ende 11y ago

School privatization (charter schools) has shown a lot of success over traditional public schools. Im not really sure what hospital privatization refers to. Now prison privatization has come under recent scrutiny but that's more of a failure of oversight by the governing bodies employing private administration than of the concept of privatization itself.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Private prisons have the perverse incentives that private companies will push for policies that incarcerate more people: https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/sep/18/justice-sells-whos-buying/ https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/sep/18/justice-s...
- kibibu 11y ago
  Do private schools have similar incentives to keep children from passing to extract more fees? If they are paid per graduating student, are they incentivized to pass (or ignore plagiarism, etc) for under-performing students? If they are paid based on standardized test results, are they incentivized to teach to the test only? If they are paid based on average grade score, are they incentivized to expel students for poor academic performance? (I've seen the last one happen, but I don't think the cause was quite as direct - possibly high average scores => high first year enrolments)
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Private schools are normally paid for by the parents, who have the most direct interest in a successful outcome, however they define that.
    - HarryHirsch 11y ago
      That's the theory. The practice as I can observe at my state school is that the administration asks "how many students did we graduate this year" when they should be asking "how rigorously were the students taught". It would be in the students' best interest if there was presssure for the faculty to do an acceptable job, but since tuition constitutes a substantial part of the university's operating income the focus is on recruitment and retention, where it really doesn't belong. There are some Young Turks protesting the status quo amongst the faculty, but none amongst the administration, the students or their parents. On the other hand, if the university was tax-funded, then the interests of faculty, administration and well-performing students would be aligned. At the moment they are not.