5 ms·

This seems to reflect a lot of what I hear about as well. Everything is too entrenched from a decision making standpoint for any one person to make a difference

This seems to reflect a lot of what I hear about as well. Everything is too entrenched from a decision making standpoint for any one person to make a difference in reforms. A free market fixes anything where people have the ability to "vote with their wallet" and simply stop paying for services which aren't meeting expectations when they find another that does. Things like employer sponsored health insurance are insulated from you choosing a different option for yourself and we get the situation that we currently have because of it. Education is the same way but the only ways to vote with your wallet are... 1. Buy a house zoned for the school that you want. 2. Pay for private school. 3. Home school. 4. In some areas, school choice where you can choose from another of the available public options may be viable too. The only long term solution here that has potential to fix things legislatively is a true school voucher program that would let you take the tax money assigned for your kids education and put it into whatever option you believed was actually best for their education. This _should_ lead to a start-up like small business ecosystem with lots of small Montessori style schools especially for younger kids. Most likely a "neighborhood schools" model would pop up and parents would end up walking their kids to school again, even in suburban areas. Most likely you would still see bigger options for high school still as teenagers crave more socialization. Sports would likely revolve more around communities than individual schools too. You'd of course see some specialties. Schools advertising why they were the best option for your kids and then having to prove it in order to keep them. Yes, there would definitely be religious schools as there already are now. My guess is that a lot of the current home school co-ops that are popular in my area would simply become suddenly funded because the parents involved as pretty happy with the model. I had a lot of biases against home schooling until I saw how these co-ops work and it's really effective. Basically just like a normal school small school with parents teaching different lessons on different days. Each parent's commitment is a half day a week to teach and they still do school plays, etc.

vel0city 2y ago
Voucher programs are just going to flood the "education market" with substandard schools teaching things like humans walked with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago before the great flood. They're going to extract profits from our tax dollars to give us a worse quality service. We'll see a lot of new schools open up, spend a few years collecting profits, then get shut down for substandard quality after effectively failing to teach kids for those few years. Meanwhile the public schools which can't be choosy will end up with fewer resources and have worse outcomes for the kids who have parents who can't afford private transportation to the few nicer, choosier voucher schools.
- from-nibly 2y ago
  Why would it give people worse education? Besides who are you or any of us to decide what is and isnt a good education for someone elses kids? It's not your job to police ideas.
  - vel0city 2y ago
    Are you really arguing schools getting taxpayer money to teach kids humans walked with dinosaurs and all modern biology is a lie a good educational outcome? Do you really not see how that's a bad outcome? Do you not see that removing the funding from the regular public schools to go to teach that nonsense will lead to worse outcomes for those kids who can't leave those regular public schools? Sure, maybe some students will potentially have some better outcomes if they manage to go to a good private charter school with their voucher that happens to be a decent one. For everyone else it's a worse outcome, unless you think it's a good thing to teach every animal alive today are direct descendants of the ark that was just a few thousand years ago. Also, kiss special education funding goodbye. It won't be profitable to handle these students. They'll be trapped in those even more underfunded public schools. Hooray, great outcomes!
    - from-nibly 2y ago
      But those kids who are "being left behind" are good to have vouchers too. You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them? I had a bunch of random teachers teach really dumb stuff while I was in public school. I don't believe those things, because I had parents who were involved in my education. It's never a good idea to leave your kids education to the whims of someone else. Public school doesn't have some magic monopoly on good ideas. And private/voucher schools aren't going to have a monopoly on bad ones. Why would the kids not be able to leave public schools? They will all have vouchers?
      - vel0city 2y ago
        > You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them? Spending a second of logic on it and thinking critically, there won't. Why would a school empowered to be choosy and subject to profit motivations choose the pricier students to specialize that reduce their rankings? And why do you think a flood of schools arguing germ theory is a lie be a public good? I went to religious private school and too had teachers who taught some bullshit things. Dinosaurs were fakes buried in the soil by the devil to test believers. Evolution is a lie by the government. And yet by personal experience I'm more learned than the average public school peer I know. I'm a somewhat special person though; I know many in my class that still believe without question. It's not a good thing for society overall to have such "knowledge". As for why kids wouldn't be able to leave the public schools, some schools will be required to provide transportation. Others won't. Some will be able to be choosy, some won't. You see where this goes? Those schools which are choosey and don't provide transportation will end up selecting the most well off while those unable to be choosy and/or forced to provide transportation will be forced to shoulder those who aren't good performers who don't get into the choosy schools with a transit scholarship.
cratermoon 2y ago
> A free market fixes anything https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/ https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/
- brightball 2y ago
  Nothing magical about it. It’s pure economics and rational decision making. The institutions we complain about in this country every day are completely insulated from it. Everything else survives or fails on its own merits. Supply and demand. It’s a natural law.
  - cratermoon 2y ago
    According to Saint Frederick Von Hayek as popularized by J. Howard Pew and his crew. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_AZRZfu9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_AZRZfu9I
  - ubertaco 2y ago
    Pure economics and rational decision making are the exact reasons for engaging in regulatory capture, bribery, and oligarchy. Why on earth would democracy (or any other form of shared power) be a rational choice for you, from an economic standpoint, if you already are wealthy enough to neuter it to the point where nearly all profits and decision-making authority are allocated to you? Dictatorship is the ultimate in rational decision-making for a rational self-interested actor. Philanthropy and benevolence are not rational for the wealthy and powerful. Income inequality and regulatory capture are features of the free market, not bugs. They are baked in by design. Most countries in the world "patch" those bugs by regulation that moves them away from being pure "free market" economies. Antitrust regulation is a well-known example of this.
Glyptodon 2y ago
Even if there were more ways to "vote with your wallet" is abundantly clear that a lot of parents, respectively, (a) couldn't care less anyway, and (b) can't actually tell a good charter or voucher school from a bad one. When the purpose of schooling is ensuring a civic floor amongst citizens the effectiveness of things like the home school co-ops mentioned can't come at the expense of population at large unless we wish to surrender the republican form of government for something else.
- ANewFormation 2y ago
  You need to contrast suggested ideas to the current systems, not an idealized standard that the current system is nowhere near achieving. For instance NAEP scores consistently demonstrate only about 25% of students achieve "basic" proficiency in math, reading is even worse. Its going to be difficult to do worse. And I mean that very literally - some percent of people would become competent in e.g. basic math with 0 public education due to family or personal interests. I can't imagine it's "that" far from 25%.

vel0city 2y ago

Voucher programs are just going to flood the "education market" with substandard schools teaching things like humans walked with dinosaurs a few thousand years ago before the great flood. They're going to extract profits from our tax dollars to give us a worse quality service. We'll see a lot of new schools open up, spend a few years collecting profits, then get shut down for substandard quality after effectively failing to teach kids for those few years. Meanwhile the public schools which can't be choosy will end up with fewer resources and have worse outcomes for the kids who have parents who can't afford private transportation to the few nicer, choosier voucher schools.

from-nibly 2y ago
Why would it give people worse education? Besides who are you or any of us to decide what is and isnt a good education for someone elses kids? It's not your job to police ideas.
- vel0city 2y ago
  Are you really arguing schools getting taxpayer money to teach kids humans walked with dinosaurs and all modern biology is a lie a good educational outcome? Do you really not see how that's a bad outcome? Do you not see that removing the funding from the regular public schools to go to teach that nonsense will lead to worse outcomes for those kids who can't leave those regular public schools? Sure, maybe some students will potentially have some better outcomes if they manage to go to a good private charter school with their voucher that happens to be a decent one. For everyone else it's a worse outcome, unless you think it's a good thing to teach every animal alive today are direct descendants of the ark that was just a few thousand years ago. Also, kiss special education funding goodbye. It won't be profitable to handle these students. They'll be trapped in those even more underfunded public schools. Hooray, great outcomes!
  - from-nibly 2y ago
    But those kids who are "being left behind" are good to have vouchers too. You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them? I had a bunch of random teachers teach really dumb stuff while I was in public school. I don't believe those things, because I had parents who were involved in my education. It's never a good idea to leave your kids education to the whims of someone else. Public school doesn't have some magic monopoly on good ideas. And private/voucher schools aren't going to have a monopoly on bad ones. Why would the kids not be able to leave public schools? They will all have vouchers?
    - vel0city 2y ago
      > You don't think there will be small schools who want to take them? Spending a second of logic on it and thinking critically, there won't. Why would a school empowered to be choosy and subject to profit motivations choose the pricier students to specialize that reduce their rankings? And why do you think a flood of schools arguing germ theory is a lie be a public good? I went to religious private school and too had teachers who taught some bullshit things. Dinosaurs were fakes buried in the soil by the devil to test believers. Evolution is a lie by the government. And yet by personal experience I'm more learned than the average public school peer I know. I'm a somewhat special person though; I know many in my class that still believe without question. It's not a good thing for society overall to have such "knowledge". As for why kids wouldn't be able to leave the public schools, some schools will be required to provide transportation. Others won't. Some will be able to be choosy, some won't. You see where this goes? Those schools which are choosey and don't provide transportation will end up selecting the most well off while those unable to be choosy and/or forced to provide transportation will be forced to shoulder those who aren't good performers who don't get into the choosy schools with a transit scholarship.

cratermoon 2y ago

> A free market fixes anything https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/ https://bitworking.org/news/2008/01/the-free-market-fairy/

brightball 2y ago
Nothing magical about it. It’s pure economics and rational decision making. The institutions we complain about in this country every day are completely insulated from it. Everything else survives or fails on its own merits. Supply and demand. It’s a natural law.
- cratermoon 2y ago
  According to Saint Frederick Von Hayek as popularized by J. Howard Pew and his crew. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_AZRZfu9I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_AZRZfu9I
- ubertaco 2y ago
  Pure economics and rational decision making are the exact reasons for engaging in regulatory capture, bribery, and oligarchy. Why on earth would democracy (or any other form of shared power) be a rational choice for you, from an economic standpoint, if you already are wealthy enough to neuter it to the point where nearly all profits and decision-making authority are allocated to you? Dictatorship is the ultimate in rational decision-making for a rational self-interested actor. Philanthropy and benevolence are not rational for the wealthy and powerful. Income inequality and regulatory capture are features of the free market, not bugs. They are baked in by design. Most countries in the world "patch" those bugs by regulation that moves them away from being pure "free market" economies. Antitrust regulation is a well-known example of this.

Glyptodon 2y ago

Even if there were more ways to "vote with your wallet" is abundantly clear that a lot of parents, respectively, (a) couldn't care less anyway, and (b) can't actually tell a good charter or voucher school from a bad one. When the purpose of schooling is ensuring a civic floor amongst citizens the effectiveness of things like the home school co-ops mentioned can't come at the expense of population at large unless we wish to surrender the republican form of government for something else.

ANewFormation 2y ago
You need to contrast suggested ideas to the current systems, not an idealized standard that the current system is nowhere near achieving. For instance NAEP scores consistently demonstrate only about 25% of students achieve "basic" proficiency in math, reading is even worse. Its going to be difficult to do worse. And I mean that very literally - some percent of people would become competent in e.g. basic math with 0 public education due to family or personal interests. I can't imagine it's "that" far from 25%.