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(a) break the power of teachers’ unions (and organized labor more generally), so that they can reduce teacher pay, benefits, social respect, and job security W

(a) break the power of teachers’ unions (and organized labor more generally), so that they can reduce teacher pay, benefits, social respect, and job security Wouldn't an education market that worked do precisely that for schools that are failing catastrophically? (b) reduce overall education spending as a means to cut taxes on the wealthy As far as I know, no one outside of libertarian absolutists actually has a goal like this. As far as I can tell, this is a strawman, a fiction. (c) give resources to schools which are less publicly accountable and can more easily kick out struggling or problematic students If "publicly accountable" means less micromanaged by a centralized bureaucracy, I don't see how this is necessarily bad. The point is to diversify the education market. Also, isn't the whole point to be able to easily kick out struggling or problematic students? If the social climate in a school makes it a disaster, but you can put some of the kids in a "lifeboat" with a better climate for learning, why wouldn't you? (d) personally profit off the partial privatization of the education industry and outsourcing of education functions If the results are good, then they should profit. (e) for some wealthy people, use donations to charter schools as a massive tax dodge which also brings them positive publicity. I think that wealthy people donating to schools is one of the best ways any society can do wealth redistribution. Again, I see nothing wrong with that.

dragonwriter 8y ago
> > (a) break the power of teachers’ unions (and organized labor more generally), so that they can reduce teacher pay, benefits, social respect, and job security > Wouldn't an education market that worked do precisely that for schools that are failing catastrophically? (1) Education is not a good with the kinds of features which allow approximating rational choice, and so there's little reason to expect that a market would work. (2) Even leaving aside (1), no, there's no reason to expect that; among the errors that appear to be implicated in that conclusion is confusing schools with teachers. > As far as I know, no one outside of libertarian absolutists actually has a goal like this. Plenty of Republicans at all levels have openly advocated for this and even advanced bills for it. Whether they are all libertarian absolutists I'll leave to.you, but it's a real viewpoint with substantial support in the political sphere. > If "publicly accountable" means less micromanaged by a centralized bureaucracy, I don't see how this is necessarily bad. If they really believed that excessive central regulation was the problem, then rather then promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools, advocates would instead simply reduce central control and increase local (district and even site-level) control of traditional public schools. They don't, because what they really want is a subsidy for private, for-profit entities while engineering maximized paralysis in traditional public schools to drive an exodus to the subsidized private providers.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  (1) Education is not a good with the kinds of features which allow approximating rational choice, and so there's little reason to expect that a market would work. The school has a good reputation, so we'll pay money to send our kid there. Sounds like a rational choice to me. (2) Even leaving aside (1), no, there's no reason to expect that; among the errors that appear to be implicated in that conclusion is confusing schools with teachers. I suspect there is a granularity problem here. Discerning comics fans follow creators, not titles. Maybe the future of the education market will involve dis-intermediation and a more direct connection between students and teachers. If they really believed that excessive central regulation was the problem, then rather then promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools, advocates would instead simply reduce central control and increase local (district and even site-level) control of traditional public schools. This is a bit of a non-sequitur to me. "Promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules" is a perfectly reasonable step. along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools If those schools are failing catastrophically, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with that. So long as there are some schools more independent of the central bureaucracy, there is more choice in the market. Again, your "logic" relies on false dichotomies and doesn't logically hold up. They don't, because what they really want is a subsidy for private, for-profit entities What if there was a more direct way to divert funds at the behest of the parent to private for-profit entities? There's a "subsidy" for public education. What's wrong with empowering parents to redirect those funds? It's beginning to seem like you're just restating the whole point of the proposed idea, just wording it so it sounds bad to you. while engineering maximized paralysis in traditional public schools to drive an exodus to the subsidized private providers. I many cases, the traditional public schools are already "paralyzed." The whole point is to enable an exodus to private providers, if the parents so choose. Would you support such initiatives if they didn't come with "engineering maximized paralysis in traditional public schools?" Why is a for-profit school necessarily bad?
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > The school has a good reputation, so we'll pay money to send our kid there. Sounds like a rational choice to me. Well, no. It's clearly a choice, but a rational choice is one where he costs and benefits are born by voluntary participants in the transaction who decide to accept or reject them based on maximization of their personal utility function with complete knowledge of all costs of and utilities that will be derived from the decision with an infinite time horizon. No real decision actually did this, but many reasonably approximate it. But childhood education fails hard and almost every aspect. Opacity of impacts and the downstream effects and the fact that where here is choice, its third party choice on behalf of a party who is not in a good position to weigh the effects of a decision against heir own utility function are the main issues. > . "Promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules" is a perfectly reasonable step. If the problem is too many rules, then you don't need limited special providers exempt from the rules, you need to remove the unnecessary rules entirely. > > along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools > If those schools are failing catastrophically, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with that. If, as is the justification for diverting funds to private schools through vouchers and charters, the traditional public schools are “catastrophically failing” because of excessive central micromanagement, increasing central micromanagement of traditional public schools is exacerbating, not alleviating the problem. OTOH, if traditional public schools are “catastrophically failing” because of inadequate central management and accountability in the use of public funds, diverting public funds to private schools with less accountability and centralized management through vouchers and charters is monumentally stupid. But the same people advancing charters and vouchers have also been behind moves to increase centralized accountability and management of traditional public schools, and in fact have specifically linked those efforts to charter/voucher programs. > The whole point is to enable an exodus to private providers, if the parents so choose. Which would be problematic, even if it didn't involve policy designed to increase both the actual and perceived failings of traditional public schools, because it rests—even further than is already the case—quality of education on parental skill in evaluating quality of education, even if the vouchers were restricted to institutions which took them as full-cost with no supplemental required payment (which is sometimes not the case; voucher programs, and even more often tax credit systems, are often partial tuition subsidies which drive market clearing tuition up at private schools but don't make it an equal cost choice with public schools l), thereby entrenching inequality from generation to generation. But in the real world, that's not the goal; the “if the parents so choose” isn't part of the goal, the goal is to in the near term deceive parents into the choice, and in the long term collapse public education entirely so that there is no choice.

dragonwriter 8y ago

> > (a) break the power of teachers’ unions (and organized labor more generally), so that they can reduce teacher pay, benefits, social respect, and job security > Wouldn't an education market that worked do precisely that for schools that are failing catastrophically? (1) Education is not a good with the kinds of features which allow approximating rational choice, and so there's little reason to expect that a market would work. (2) Even leaving aside (1), no, there's no reason to expect that; among the errors that appear to be implicated in that conclusion is confusing schools with teachers. > As far as I know, no one outside of libertarian absolutists actually has a goal like this. Plenty of Republicans at all levels have openly advocated for this and even advanced bills for it. Whether they are all libertarian absolutists I'll leave to.you, but it's a real viewpoint with substantial support in the political sphere. > If "publicly accountable" means less micromanaged by a centralized bureaucracy, I don't see how this is necessarily bad. If they really believed that excessive central regulation was the problem, then rather then promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools, advocates would instead simply reduce central control and increase local (district and even site-level) control of traditional public schools. They don't, because what they really want is a subsidy for private, for-profit entities while engineering maximized paralysis in traditional public schools to drive an exodus to the subsidized private providers.

stcredzero 8y ago
(1) Education is not a good with the kinds of features which allow approximating rational choice, and so there's little reason to expect that a market would work. The school has a good reputation, so we'll pay money to send our kid there. Sounds like a rational choice to me. (2) Even leaving aside (1), no, there's no reason to expect that; among the errors that appear to be implicated in that conclusion is confusing schools with teachers. I suspect there is a granularity problem here. Discerning comics fans follow creators, not titles. Maybe the future of the education market will involve dis-intermediation and a more direct connection between students and teachers. If they really believed that excessive central regulation was the problem, then rather then promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools, advocates would instead simply reduce central control and increase local (district and even site-level) control of traditional public schools. This is a bit of a non-sequitur to me. "Promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules" is a perfectly reasonable step. along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools If those schools are failing catastrophically, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with that. So long as there are some schools more independent of the central bureaucracy, there is more choice in the market. Again, your "logic" relies on false dichotomies and doesn't logically hold up. They don't, because what they really want is a subsidy for private, for-profit entities What if there was a more direct way to divert funds at the behest of the parent to private for-profit entities? There's a "subsidy" for public education. What's wrong with empowering parents to redirect those funds? It's beginning to seem like you're just restating the whole point of the proposed idea, just wording it so it sounds bad to you. while engineering maximized paralysis in traditional public schools to drive an exodus to the subsidized private providers. I many cases, the traditional public schools are already "paralyzed." The whole point is to enable an exodus to private providers, if the parents so choose. Would you support such initiatives if they didn't come with "engineering maximized paralysis in traditional public schools?" Why is a for-profit school necessarily bad?
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > The school has a good reputation, so we'll pay money to send our kid there. Sounds like a rational choice to me. Well, no. It's clearly a choice, but a rational choice is one where he costs and benefits are born by voluntary participants in the transaction who decide to accept or reject them based on maximization of their personal utility function with complete knowledge of all costs of and utilities that will be derived from the decision with an infinite time horizon. No real decision actually did this, but many reasonably approximate it. But childhood education fails hard and almost every aspect. Opacity of impacts and the downstream effects and the fact that where here is choice, its third party choice on behalf of a party who is not in a good position to weigh the effects of a decision against heir own utility function are the main issues. > . "Promoting charter schools exempt from the bureaucratic rules" is a perfectly reasonable step. If the problem is too many rules, then you don't need limited special providers exempt from the rules, you need to remove the unnecessary rules entirely. > > along with greater central accountability and regulation for traditional public schools > If those schools are failing catastrophically, I don't see what's necessarily wrong with that. If, as is the justification for diverting funds to private schools through vouchers and charters, the traditional public schools are “catastrophically failing” because of excessive central micromanagement, increasing central micromanagement of traditional public schools is exacerbating, not alleviating the problem. OTOH, if traditional public schools are “catastrophically failing” because of inadequate central management and accountability in the use of public funds, diverting public funds to private schools with less accountability and centralized management through vouchers and charters is monumentally stupid. But the same people advancing charters and vouchers have also been behind moves to increase centralized accountability and management of traditional public schools, and in fact have specifically linked those efforts to charter/voucher programs. > The whole point is to enable an exodus to private providers, if the parents so choose. Which would be problematic, even if it didn't involve policy designed to increase both the actual and perceived failings of traditional public schools, because it rests—even further than is already the case—quality of education on parental skill in evaluating quality of education, even if the vouchers were restricted to institutions which took them as full-cost with no supplemental required payment (which is sometimes not the case; voucher programs, and even more often tax credit systems, are often partial tuition subsidies which drive market clearing tuition up at private schools but don't make it an equal cost choice with public schools l), thereby entrenching inequality from generation to generation. But in the real world, that's not the goal; the “if the parents so choose” isn't part of the goal, the goal is to in the near term deceive parents into the choice, and in the long term collapse public education entirely so that there is no choice.