I’m sure my answer is in here somewhere but when I searched, I didn’t find it, so bear with me.
I recognize that the privatization of all schools will lead to far better education. I understand the benefits but am unsure as to whether or not they outweigh the consequences.
Would the poor get stuck with a terrible education? Would only the rich be able to afford quality education?
Would the poor get stuck with a terrible education? Would only the rich be able to afford quality education?
The short answer is: the poor will have relative opportunity to their wealth, as they do now. But keep in mind business like Wal-Mart and McDonald’s; both of those businesses are big and successful because they are available (cheaper) to a larger group of people, including the poor.
Like any other business, if given the opportunity (that is, if the government doesn’t step in the way), the business of education would attract entrepreneurs who saw a profit to be made, until (if ever) there wasn’t a profit to be made anymore. In fact, because there would be competition for a poorer man’s dollar, innovative things would happen in education to get it, just like innovation happens in technology, and in all business, to get that extra edge and profit. The principle at work is: Is there demand (from the poor)? Is there someone to meet demand (from those who want the poor man’s dollar)? Then a way will be found. As innovation keeps happening, that same dollar from the poor man will buy more and more, until something like a general education becomes almost universally affordable. That is how the American “poor” have become richer than any rich man in the history of civilization, before 200 years ago.
Without a profit motive, however, none of that can ever happen. Public education sucks so much because there isn’t motivation on either side to participate, student or teacher (/administrator). Everyone is coerced on some level, and no one is getting what they want (education or profit).
but am unsure as to whether or not they outweigh the consequences.
Objectivism is not a “consequentialist” philosophy, like say, Utilitarianism would be.
Without a profit motive, however, none of that can ever happen. Public education sucks so much because there isn’t motivation on either side to participate, student or teacher (/administrator). Everyone is coerced on some level, and no one is getting what they want (education or profit).
Thanks, that makes a lot of sense. I knew this question would be answered quickly!
Someone who is going to have kids should consider that the kid has to be watched during its elementary-school years. If a parent, relative or friend is not going to do this, then they need to budget for some type of day-care arrangement. Whoever is looking after the kid – parent, relative, friend, day-care – ought to teach the kid how to read, and do math, and so on. If you think about it, it actually takes very, very little to deliver decent elementary-school education; not great, but decent.
The bottleneck is not in the theoretical ability to deliver such an education. The real problem is that a large number of poor people would be poor because they made wrong choices. And, these same reasons will lead them to making poor choices with regard to their kids. I would expect poorer kids to get poor education, but mostly because of the bad choices their parents make.
If education is privatized, it is vital that various government rules on day-care centers and schools be removed. Otherwise, the poor may not be left with a choice. That would be a travesty. There’s a parallel in health-care. Some people claim that poor Mexicans immigrants are parasites on the government system, because they cannot afford health care. However, that’s not true: it does not consider the broader context. When they are in Mexico, they do go to doctors. If not for government restrictions, one would probably see many of those doctors comes across the border and set up shop serving immigrant communities.
Would the poor get stuck with a terrible education? Would only the rich be able to afford quality education?
It’s hard to say: that certainly is the case with current public education, so I guess you’re asking, would eliminating government-funded and -controlled education improve things for the poor. You also have to throw in the problem of government mandate, the fact that parents are forced to send their children to school, which implies state-dictated standards. The only imaginary “concern” would be some bad parents who decided to send their kids to a storage facility that did no actual teaching, in order to save money. Now as for just the rich being able to afford a decent education, it clear that the middle class can afford it too, even now (although there may be some credit-card junkies who can’t afford anything because of bad financial skills).
The only real impediment to education through WalMart is government regulations restricting WalMarts. If they were allowed to operate freely, I think the poor would get a much better education than they are getting from the state right now.
I think it’s important to note, during any discussion regarding the ‘poor’, just how much better off the ‘poor’ in the U.S. are compared to those in countries that have never seen Capitalism.
I think it’s important to note, during any discussion regarding the ‘poor’, just how much better off the ‘poor’ in the U.S. are compared to those in countries that have never seen Capitalism.
Why is that relevant in this discussion? Generally an American kid is using his education to compete against other Americans. So what if he has a higher standard of living than an Ethiopian cow herder?
Why is that relevant in this discussion? Generally an American kid is using his education to compete against other Americans. So what if he has a higher standard of living than an Ethiopian cow herder?
it is relvant because the people who want government education think the American has a right to be supported above the economic level of the cow-herder.
I don’t think this supposed right of poor children to education is the main motivator for the advocates of public education at all. I think the control this form of education gives people (who consider themselves entitled to rule the rest of the population - leftist intellectuals) over the culture and ultimately society is the main reason why mandatory public education came about and is maintained without ever even being questioned, despite it failing so spectacularly and so obviously.
Here’s an example of a Washington Post journalist gloating over what is essentially a victory of the government “experts” over the parents (who are described as stubborn and superficial - clinging on to the label “gifted child” rather than … oh well, it doesn’t mention what else is there. I guess rather than “equal, exactly the same as the rest child”):
Montgomery Erasing Gifted Label
Here’s a quote I found haunting (I’m sure everyone remembers that line from the new philosophy dean at Patrick Henry University, about “reason becoming obsolete”):
Teachers and principals say the gifted label has become obsolete.
“It can set up a kind of have and have-not atmosphere at your school, and we don’t have that here,” said Aara Davis, principal of Georgian Forest Elementary School in Silver Spring.
What else is there to say? I guess having experienced both being top of my regular class, in my first school years, and then being in the middle in my top notch gifted class after that, I learned to appreciate both the company of smart peers and the amazing education one receives in such company, and I’m very happy that I’m not a child now, growing up in Montgomery County. What a waste!
“Here’s an example of a Washington Post journalist gloating over what is essentially a victory of the government “experts” over the parents (who are described as stubborn and superficial - clinging on to the label “gifted child” rather than … oh well, it doesn’t mention what else is there. I guess rather than “equal, exactly the same as the rest child”):”
If my school had tried to that, there would hae been hell to pay. In my senior year of highschool, several parents tried to have our advanced placement program shut down becasue their children couldn’t compete with the rest of us. Their movement didn’t last long as the rest of the parents, students, and school board told them to stfu.
I’m sure my answer is in here somewhere but when I searched, I didn’t find it, so bear with me.
I recognize that the privatization of all schools will lead to far better education. I understand the benefits but am unsure as to whether or not they outweigh the consequences.
Would the poor get stuck with a terrible education? Would only the rich be able to afford quality education?
Here’s an example of privatization of schools in the poorest slums of India and Africa where average incomes are around a dollar a day. I recommend the whole article but I clipped a few tasty parts. Bold is mine.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/c…ticle706239.ece
contrary to the unions’ moralising that privatisation must be bad for the poor, it’s happening because some of the poorest people on this planet are fed up with the failures of state education. In slums and villages that I have visited in Africa and India, parents are appalled that teachers often don’t turn up and, if they do, often don’t teach. Their children tell them of sleeping teachers and parents see that exercise books are rarely marked.
But these parents don’t sit by, waiting for their politicians to do something. Instead, they put their children into the burgeoning private schools. My recent research has shown that between 65 and 75 per cent of children in the poorest slums in Africa and India are now in private schools. These schools charge low fees, perhaps a couple of pounds per month. They are run by proprietors who are not heartless businessmen, but who provide free places to orphans and those with widowed mothers. When they tested large random samples of children, my teams found that these schools outperform the government alternative. And they do it with teachers paid a fraction of the unionised rates.
…
Last week I was in a deprived fishing village in Ghana that boasts six flourishing private schools only yards from the state school. A fisherman with an understanding of economics that would put union officials to shame, who had moved his daughter from state to private school, told me that the private school proprietor needed to satisfy parents like him, otherwise he would go out of business. “That’s why the teachers turn up and teach,” he told me, “because they are closely supervised.”