5 ms·

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but political

by mchusma 15y ago

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

jleyank 15y ago
If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money is spent. This would not go down well...
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- JupiterJazz 15y ago
  Are you kidding me? Parents will give their money to the schools who do a good job and will stop giving money to schools that do a bad job.
- delinka 15y ago
  I suppose the Free Market would make sure that their 'customers' had input into how tuition money is spent. After all, if the government isn't involved and you're free (Free Market, remember) to move your student, then the school needs to cater to your expectations or lose tuition money.
  - lurker19 15y ago
    Yeah so it turns out that the education consumer doesn't tend to spend the education dollar on quality education. Consider the current mess in privately-paid higher education. Education is the vegetables on the dinner plate of life. I is a complicated long term investment to make good choices, but those choices have huge externalities. Parents make choices that affect their children (that is an externality) and those children grow up to affect society (another externality)
    - JupiterJazz 15y ago
      Don't forget that the for-profit colleges get 99% of their income from government financial aid. They don't have to serve their customers well; they just have to do the minimum amount of work to get the financial aid money.
Volpe 15y ago
<sarcasm> That's right, poor people shouldn't have an education! </sarcasm> That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?
- JupiterJazz 15y ago
  Why would it be in the interest of private schools to hoard their products from me? I only make $18000 (about half the median wage) and food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either. Given that nearly every human being is in demand of an affordable education it makes no sense for companies to not accept low income students. The only reason private schools are expensive now is because the government monopoly makes it imposible for them to compete on the low income section of the market.
  - toyg 15y ago
    your analogy is apt: in your opinion, a poor person will never be able to afford a Ferrari or a Porsche, so they shouldn't be able to afford top-class education either. Ferrari will never be interested in "competing for the low income section of the market"; they'll happily keep making exclusive and expensive cars, reserved to top dogs, popes and the like. The "voucher" sort of scheme will inevitably result in the State giving everyone enough money to buy a Nissan Micra, with rich parents "topping-up" to get a Mercedes, Porsche or Ferrari. Which is not much different from what you get now, just a bit worse.
    - lurker19 15y ago
      One major problem with vouchers is that they are susceptible to fraud. Current voucher and charter schools are not posting greater successes than public schools. Government services are at risk for innefficiency due to non-incentives, but government-funded private services are at similar risk due to perverse incentives. For example, higher education IS currently on a loan-integrated voucher system, and it is common knowledge that private colleges are a money pit these days.
  - theoj 15y ago
potatolicious 15y ago
Are you seriously proposing we go back to pre-public schooling society - you know, the one where the vast major of the population was completely uneducated since education was strictly reserved for the wealthy? Laissez-faire brings out some admirable qualities in people, but it is also an extremely unequal system with many detrimental effects on society (including the rich). There's a historical reason why we invented public schools, public libraries, public parks, etc. I find it difficult to understand how someone with an awareness of history can support a completely laissez-faire society where the default answer to everything is "let the market figure it out". This is not a new idea, and the present state of the world only exists because we had to suffer through centuries of unbridled capitalism and classism.
- lhnn 15y ago
  Now that we have things like affluence, the 'primed pump' of an educated society, the NEED for an educated society, and finally, the Internet, I don't see why we need nearly the government involvement in education that we did 50-100 years ago.
  - maxxxxx 15y ago
    You forget there are a lot of people who don't have the things you mention.
  - mcherm 15y ago
    I am not convinced we DO have a sufficiently educated society. I see serious candidates for public office who are rejecting science (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/a-fundamental-republican-science-problem/ http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/a-fundamental-r...). I think democracy itself requires an educated populace, and that an egalitarian society requires at least a basic level of equality of opportunity for all.
  - Mvandenbergh 15y ago
    I think the case can be made more easily for government involvement in education than in almost any other area of life. Purely because in a certain small % of cases, parents simply won't take any steps to see their children educated. That isn't a choice the child is making. Whether that means that the government should also run the schools themselves is of course a separate question. Some of the world's best school systems are highly decentralised and some are highly centralised.
jamesaguilar 15y ago
> "The solution to this problem is clear . . ." It's not clear that this would solve the problem. Particularly, instead of only being able to send their children to bad schools, the poorest would instead perhaps not be able to send their children to school at all.

by mchusma 15y ago

jleyank 15y ago

If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money is spent. This would not go down well...

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
JupiterJazz 15y ago
Are you kidding me? Parents will give their money to the schools who do a good job and will stop giving money to schools that do a bad job.
delinka 15y ago
I suppose the Free Market would make sure that their 'customers' had input into how tuition money is spent. After all, if the government isn't involved and you're free (Free Market, remember) to move your student, then the school needs to cater to your expectations or lose tuition money.
- lurker19 15y ago
  Yeah so it turns out that the education consumer doesn't tend to spend the education dollar on quality education. Consider the current mess in privately-paid higher education. Education is the vegetables on the dinner plate of life. I is a complicated long term investment to make good choices, but those choices have huge externalities. Parents make choices that affect their children (that is an externality) and those children grow up to affect society (another externality)
  - JupiterJazz 15y ago
    Don't forget that the for-profit colleges get 99% of their income from government financial aid. They don't have to serve their customers well; they just have to do the minimum amount of work to get the financial aid money.

Volpe 15y ago

<sarcasm> That's right, poor people shouldn't have an education! </sarcasm> That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?

JupiterJazz 15y ago
Why would it be in the interest of private schools to hoard their products from me? I only make $18000 (about half the median wage) and food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either. Given that nearly every human being is in demand of an affordable education it makes no sense for companies to not accept low income students. The only reason private schools are expensive now is because the government monopoly makes it imposible for them to compete on the low income section of the market.
- toyg 15y ago
  your analogy is apt: in your opinion, a poor person will never be able to afford a Ferrari or a Porsche, so they shouldn't be able to afford top-class education either. Ferrari will never be interested in "competing for the low income section of the market"; they'll happily keep making exclusive and expensive cars, reserved to top dogs, popes and the like. The "voucher" sort of scheme will inevitably result in the State giving everyone enough money to buy a Nissan Micra, with rich parents "topping-up" to get a Mercedes, Porsche or Ferrari. Which is not much different from what you get now, just a bit worse.
  - lurker19 15y ago
    One major problem with vouchers is that they are susceptible to fraud. Current voucher and charter schools are not posting greater successes than public schools. Government services are at risk for innefficiency due to non-incentives, but government-funded private services are at similar risk due to perverse incentives. For example, higher education IS currently on a loan-integrated voucher system, and it is common knowledge that private colleges are a money pit these days.
- theoj 15y ago

potatolicious 15y ago

Are you seriously proposing we go back to pre-public schooling society - you know, the one where the vast major of the population was completely uneducated since education was strictly reserved for the wealthy? Laissez-faire brings out some admirable qualities in people, but it is also an extremely unequal system with many detrimental effects on society (including the rich). There's a historical reason why we invented public schools, public libraries, public parks, etc. I find it difficult to understand how someone with an awareness of history can support a completely laissez-faire society where the default answer to everything is "let the market figure it out". This is not a new idea, and the present state of the world only exists because we had to suffer through centuries of unbridled capitalism and classism.

lhnn 15y ago
Now that we have things like affluence, the 'primed pump' of an educated society, the NEED for an educated society, and finally, the Internet, I don't see why we need nearly the government involvement in education that we did 50-100 years ago.
- maxxxxx 15y ago
  You forget there are a lot of people who don't have the things you mention.
- mcherm 15y ago
  I am not convinced we DO have a sufficiently educated society. I see serious candidates for public office who are rejecting science (http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/a-fundamental-republican-science-problem/ http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/a-fundamental-r...). I think democracy itself requires an educated populace, and that an egalitarian society requires at least a basic level of equality of opportunity for all.
- Mvandenbergh 15y ago
  I think the case can be made more easily for government involvement in education than in almost any other area of life. Purely because in a certain small % of cases, parents simply won't take any steps to see their children educated. That isn't a choice the child is making. Whether that means that the government should also run the schools themselves is of course a separate question. Some of the world's best school systems are highly decentralised and some are highly centralised.

jamesaguilar 15y ago

> "The solution to this problem is clear . . ." It's not clear that this would solve the problem. Particularly, instead of only being able to send their children to bad schools, the poorest would instead perhaps not be able to send their children to school at all.