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At an abstract level, one of the major goals of regulation is to stop companies from doing things that consumers can only figure out are bad on a timescale long

At an abstract level, one of the major goals of regulation is to stop companies from doing things that consumers can only figure out are bad on a timescale long enough for them to have already done damage and made enormous profits. There are a ton of regulations around motor vehicles, like disclosing MPG, maintaining safety standards, and consistent odometer readings - things that consumers wouldn't necessarily be able to figure out on their own until it was too late. If a car just plain doesn't work, or craps out in less than a thousand miles, that's easy to remedy. The problem with applying these standards to education is that the timeframe to assess damage is very long, and it's more or less irreversible. If you spend a week driving a car and the engine dies, you can take it back and get a refund and then go get a new one. If you put your kid in a charter school and they fail to learn math for a year, you can't get that time back. It's gone forever, and your child will be behind for anywhere from months to years to forever. This is why we need to treat certain specific sectors differently. Consumer goods, sure, whatever, the government can make sure that toys don't contain lead and that our TVs wont randomly explode, and after that it's up to us to decide. But education, healthcare, etc., the consequences of giving consumers "choice" and allowing those sectors to advertise freely and self-regulate are severe and often irreversible.

ultrarunner 7y ago
My middle school and high school career was upended by an experimental math program that wasted an enormous amount of time forcing children to answer questions like "What is 2+3?" with a minimum of three sentences. The head of the department was later demoted for injuring a child when he sat on him as a form of punishment. He was later acquitted of assault charges. Did regulation work there? Could it have? Do government schools not need to be regulated by virtue of the fact that they're already promulgated by the government? As an aside, while looking this up I found news stories that demonstrated the rumors about sex abuse were true and a few coaches-turned-principals got nailed. While your theory about regulation seems well-intentioned, I'm just not sure it is worth anything in practice. Lots of governmental theory seems revolutionary until it ends in failure (and, at worst, bloodshed).
- swivelmaster 7y ago
  The plural of anecdote is not data. And taking the furthest logical conclusion ("Government regulation ends in violence!") is utterly ridiculous and unnecessary in this context. To be clear, the United States' public education system is BAD. It is sometimes VERY BAD. But it's not consistently bad; there are public schools that are quite good. There are other countries with heavily regulated public education systems that are so much better than the United States - read up on Finland's remarkable public education system if you don't believe me. (And don't get tripped up on inconsistent usage of "public" and "private" to mean opposites in different countries!) So logically, the problem isn't that government regulation of education is inherently bad; Rather, the problem is that we (in the United States) are doing a bad job of it. Splitting public education funding between public schools and charter schools and forcing public schools to compete with test scores and other proxy metrics is demonstrably making things worse, not better.
  - ultrarunner 7y ago
    "We" are not doing a very good job of it. I agree with you there. Both my parents (and their parents) are or were educators in public schools, from teachers to instructors to principals and coaches. By all accounts it is getting worse, not better. Anecdotes are not data, but it would be foolish to throw them away blindly. Anecdotes become data when they can be used to answer questions that can inform future decision making processes. For example, we could ask, "is more politics and political process positively impacting education?" If the answer is that no, one hundred years of American politics hasn't improved the situation [0] despite it costing far more than it used to per-student [1], then we should probably conclude that said process is a dead end and look elsewhere. I never claimed that the anecdote I provided was data; I would rather like to know the answers to the questions I asked. Handwaving them away seems closer to arguing in bad faith than what you accused me of doing elsewhere. Further, I would suggest that the increased presence of School Resource Officers in schools, the increased usage of courts for school-related punishment, and the continued emotional and physical violence experienced by students from their peers show that, indeed, forced participation in government schools does indeed involve violence. That your experts have been unable to solve this problem (and that you hand wave it away) does not generate confidence in your position. [0] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt_2012/summary.aspx https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt_2012/summary.aspx [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-char...

ultrarunner 7y ago

My middle school and high school career was upended by an experimental math program that wasted an enormous amount of time forcing children to answer questions like "What is 2+3?" with a minimum of three sentences. The head of the department was later demoted for injuring a child when he sat on him as a form of punishment. He was later acquitted of assault charges. Did regulation work there? Could it have? Do government schools not need to be regulated by virtue of the fact that they're already promulgated by the government? As an aside, while looking this up I found news stories that demonstrated the rumors about sex abuse were true and a few coaches-turned-principals got nailed. While your theory about regulation seems well-intentioned, I'm just not sure it is worth anything in practice. Lots of governmental theory seems revolutionary until it ends in failure (and, at worst, bloodshed).

swivelmaster 7y ago
The plural of anecdote is not data. And taking the furthest logical conclusion ("Government regulation ends in violence!") is utterly ridiculous and unnecessary in this context. To be clear, the United States' public education system is BAD. It is sometimes VERY BAD. But it's not consistently bad; there are public schools that are quite good. There are other countries with heavily regulated public education systems that are so much better than the United States - read up on Finland's remarkable public education system if you don't believe me. (And don't get tripped up on inconsistent usage of "public" and "private" to mean opposites in different countries!) So logically, the problem isn't that government regulation of education is inherently bad; Rather, the problem is that we (in the United States) are doing a bad job of it. Splitting public education funding between public schools and charter schools and forcing public schools to compete with test scores and other proxy metrics is demonstrably making things worse, not better.
- ultrarunner 7y ago
  "We" are not doing a very good job of it. I agree with you there. Both my parents (and their parents) are or were educators in public schools, from teachers to instructors to principals and coaches. By all accounts it is getting worse, not better. Anecdotes are not data, but it would be foolish to throw them away blindly. Anecdotes become data when they can be used to answer questions that can inform future decision making processes. For example, we could ask, "is more politics and political process positively impacting education?" If the answer is that no, one hundred years of American politics hasn't improved the situation [0] despite it costing far more than it used to per-student [1], then we should probably conclude that said process is a dead end and look elsewhere. I never claimed that the anecdote I provided was data; I would rather like to know the answers to the questions I asked. Handwaving them away seems closer to arguing in bad faith than what you accused me of doing elsewhere. Further, I would suggest that the increased presence of School Resource Officers in schools, the increased usage of courts for school-related punishment, and the continued emotional and physical violence experienced by students from their peers show that, indeed, forced participation in government schools does indeed involve violence. That your experts have been unable to solve this problem (and that you hand wave it away) does not generate confidence in your position. [0] https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt_2012/summary.aspx https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/ltt_2012/summary.aspx [1] https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-char...