3 ms·

Assuming your premise is correct (I don't know if it is or isn't), I'd guess that running a good private school is a pretty different prospect than successfully

Assuming your premise is correct (I don't know if it is or isn't), I'd guess that running a good private school is a pretty different prospect than successfully privatizing public education. Do private schools do better because The Problem With Education™ is essentially who is administering/teaching and private schools are more effective at that? Or do (some) private schools do better because they select a demographic of students (directly by admissions or indirectly via who applies for various reasons) that's effectively less expensive to bring to positive outcomes? From what I've heard about charters (which seems to be one good place to evaluate this) it seems that while some students who switch have better outcomes, as a whole, it's a wash at best, which suggests to me the problem is less a question of public vs private and more like student selection (maybe a question of scarcity of educator talent).

tomohawk 8y ago
If you think about it, all US universities are essentially competing with one another as charter schools. You have to wonder what would happen if college education was made mandatory and the Department of Education took over all of the universities and created a common university core curriculum.
- wwweston 8y ago
  I'd be more interested in that question if: (a) I'd ever encountered a credible case that common core is a driver of educational problems (most of what I've encountered seems like both sensible pedagogy and a convenient ad hoc test for big 5 traits like modest-to-low openness and high orderliness). (b) It seemed likely to create a significant difference in the status quo. From my experience examining curriculum over half a dozen majors and universities, common baselines are already pretty, well, common, and where there's variation it's more about how much any institution exceeds the baseline. And I expect this is a function of the facts that the conception of the academy extends beyond individual institutions combined with the fact that there are already accrediting bodies that higher education has to reckon with. So, I don't see much that suggests public initiatives for baseline standards or accountability are likely key problems for secondary ed.

tomohawk 8y ago

If you think about it, all US universities are essentially competing with one another as charter schools. You have to wonder what would happen if college education was made mandatory and the Department of Education took over all of the universities and created a common university core curriculum.

wwweston 8y ago
I'd be more interested in that question if: (a) I'd ever encountered a credible case that common core is a driver of educational problems (most of what I've encountered seems like both sensible pedagogy and a convenient ad hoc test for big 5 traits like modest-to-low openness and high orderliness). (b) It seemed likely to create a significant difference in the status quo. From my experience examining curriculum over half a dozen majors and universities, common baselines are already pretty, well, common, and where there's variation it's more about how much any institution exceeds the baseline. And I expect this is a function of the facts that the conception of the academy extends beyond individual institutions combined with the fact that there are already accrediting bodies that higher education has to reckon with. So, I don't see much that suggests public initiatives for baseline standards or accountability are likely key problems for secondary ed.