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> I come from a country where while public/state education is under attack from the usual suspects, it's historically one of our core values, one we feel strong

> I come from a country where while public/state education is under attack from the usual suspects, it's historically one of our core values, one we feel strongly about. Charter schools are public education, even private schools that take vouchers are public education. If your local government isn't particularly good at administrating schools efficiently, then a more private or corporate school which is directly accountable to the students' guardians is likely to have better outcomes. It's that simple. If your local government does a spectacular job of directly administrating schools, then who would bother? but public education is a qualitative goal, not a specific type of institution. The goal of public education is to educate the public, but the administrative reality of state schools in many regions is that they tend to enrich public sector unions and their senior members more than the public at large.

the_af 7y ago
It's my national government, and it's publicly funded state schools. Sorry for the confusion: I'm not from the US, and in the non-English-speaking world we tend to mean something different by "public" [1]. I addressed this confusion in another of my comments. > If your local government isn't particularly good at administrating schools efficiently, then a more private or corporate school which is directly accountable to the students' guardians is likely to have better outcomes. It's that simple. Strongly disagreed. ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_school#Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_school#Latin_America
- microcolonel 7y ago
  > Strongly disagreed. Well, I strongly ask why you think that. My logic is that if your government is below average at administering schools, then assuming people perform rather averagely, any other institution or organization has a better chance of providing better schooling than the government. Of course, it is always possible that your private market is even more corrupt and useless than your corrupt and useless government, in which case you probably have bigger fish to fry.
  - the_af 7y ago
    Well, I think education is both a right and a key strategic asset of any state, and is way too important to be left to the private sector and to the whim of market forces, and that people with more money don't deserve better education. I also think market forces tend to optimize for undemocratic goals. By the way, in my experience government corruption and private sector corruption go hand in hand and it's very unlikely that only one of the two is present but the other isn't. It's almost always a perverse symbiosis. I'm not sure why we're talking about corruption though, and why you introduced this angle into the conversation...
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > Well, I strongly ask why you think that. My logic is that if your government is below average at administering schools, then assuming people perform rather averagely, any other institution or organization has a better chance of providing better schooling than the government. If your people supply a government that is below average at administering schools, there is no reason to assume that your people would be average or better at administering schools through any other mechanism, and there are clear reason to expect that education does not have the features that allow some real markets to approximate the performance of ideal markets; particularly the utilities are temporally distant from the purchase decision, not easily clearly associated with the purchase decision, and not received by the purchaser.
the_af 7y ago
> but the administrative reality of state schools in many regions is that they tend to enrich public sector unions and their senior members more than the public at large State schools must mean something different in your country than in mine. In mine, they aren't for profit, are always struggling for money, and both teachers and principals are paid low wages. Teacher's unions are very low in power (there's a concerted campaign to attack them as public enemy #1) and they don't have a lot of money either. So nobody is getting rich and your remark is very puzzling to me. "State school" must mean something very different where you're from. Is it the US?

the_af 7y ago

It's my national government, and it's publicly funded state schools. Sorry for the confusion: I'm not from the US, and in the non-English-speaking world we tend to mean something different by "public" [1]. I addressed this confusion in another of my comments. > If your local government isn't particularly good at administrating schools efficiently, then a more private or corporate school which is directly accountable to the students' guardians is likely to have better outcomes. It's that simple. Strongly disagreed. ---- [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_school#Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_school#Latin_America

microcolonel 7y ago
> Strongly disagreed. Well, I strongly ask why you think that. My logic is that if your government is below average at administering schools, then assuming people perform rather averagely, any other institution or organization has a better chance of providing better schooling than the government. Of course, it is always possible that your private market is even more corrupt and useless than your corrupt and useless government, in which case you probably have bigger fish to fry.
- the_af 7y ago
  Well, I think education is both a right and a key strategic asset of any state, and is way too important to be left to the private sector and to the whim of market forces, and that people with more money don't deserve better education. I also think market forces tend to optimize for undemocratic goals. By the way, in my experience government corruption and private sector corruption go hand in hand and it's very unlikely that only one of the two is present but the other isn't. It's almost always a perverse symbiosis. I'm not sure why we're talking about corruption though, and why you introduced this angle into the conversation...
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > Well, I strongly ask why you think that. My logic is that if your government is below average at administering schools, then assuming people perform rather averagely, any other institution or organization has a better chance of providing better schooling than the government. If your people supply a government that is below average at administering schools, there is no reason to assume that your people would be average or better at administering schools through any other mechanism, and there are clear reason to expect that education does not have the features that allow some real markets to approximate the performance of ideal markets; particularly the utilities are temporally distant from the purchase decision, not easily clearly associated with the purchase decision, and not received by the purchaser.

the_af 7y ago

> but the administrative reality of state schools in many regions is that they tend to enrich public sector unions and their senior members more than the public at large State schools must mean something different in your country than in mine. In mine, they aren't for profit, are always struggling for money, and both teachers and principals are paid low wages. Teacher's unions are very low in power (there's a concerted campaign to attack them as public enemy #1) and they don't have a lot of money either. So nobody is getting rich and your remark is very puzzling to me. "State school" must mean something very different where you're from. Is it the US?