RE: Why Public Education Does not Work (Discussion)
Hey! Great topic, thanks for opening up discussion.
I am going to number your bullet points for ease of reference 1,2,3
Great point about the use of force in education. It seems the least effective way to get people to engage in learning skills that benefit society. However, if we examine societies goals we may see why this is the way we have set it up. In society, we need certain functions to run smoothly (water treatment, energy distribution, etc) and more and more these functions require specialized skills. So it is necessary to at least provide access to that knowledge, I think that is where public education comes in. If, for instance, we left the education of the citizenry to private industry we the people could no longer control our societies future, that power would be left in the relatively few hands of private schools and their board of directors.
Let's imagine, for the sake of argument, an evil private school. What if they decide not to teach certain skills or to teach them in ways that limit societal progress/growth but expand profit? Well, you could argue that the market would solve this by giving incentive to entrepreneurs to open their own school to fill that demand. But now you must assume that the risk of doing so is outweighed by the possible profit, well if I were in the position of the incumbent school I would lower my prices to starve the startup school out of business.
My goal here is to illustrate the possible fragility of our capitalist system. To depend on a few people for the common good of education seems to run contrary to our societal need for security.I haven't thought about the quality of education as a function of the number of students, but I think your argument depends on the current state of public education which is outdated in many ways. Perhaps private schools are better than public education as it stands (however, this is hard to argue if you look at our current secretary of education Betsy Devos's private schools in Michigan (links at the bottom)). I have to believe it's possible to improve our education curriculum and structure in order to give us the education we need to continue our society into the future. Perhaps taking a page from popular education alternatives like Khan Academy, MIT and Harvard who have put all their educational resources online for free.
3.This one was not one of your great points. In US history we have had many failed public programs. But we also have many more failed private ventures. The truth is our government is not OURS and therein lies the inefficiency. I don't think it is reasonable to say that any public operation is, by default, less efficient than a private one. Bad is Bad, amiright
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/betsy-devos-michigan-school-experiment-232399
If these links seem cherry picked, they certainly are. So gimme some of your own and we can compare notes!
Thanks!
Greetings, here I present my answer, which I will also organize by points.
I. I fully understand what you say, but on the contrary, I do not think that the education system would be reduced to a small business elite, that is, that private is not reducing the number of institutions, but rather the multiple. Each person who has knowledge about a specific subject (such as a teacher) can impart education locally without the need for large infrastructures. That is what I meant by removing the monopoly of education from institutions, since the latter would not be a small group of people. Now, the questions you ask me are equally feasible in the present system or in any other system, all systems that depend on non-centralized functioning and empower people are very fragile, since they depend on many people. The only way of not being it is with a total regulation, and even in the latter, one would have to resort to force.
II. Here we are in similar positions. The best way to improve education is to resort to technology and modernization, I think that inevitably that will be the way and that is where little by little society begins to move forward. As for the number of students, I set an example to Latin America, from 2000 to 2010 the number of students became multiple, public institutions grew and education became much more accessible (due to the pink tide), but which occurred was that proportionately, people who finished their studies had fallen from 73% to 50%, and the quality of public education had been greatly reduced due to the low academic readiness of the "new" students.
III. He admitted that it was one of my poorest points, but I did not think I needed to explain much more. The state is very large so it tends to be either very bureaucratic or very corrupt, or in the worst case; both. If the state makes many regulations, it creates a centralized system, the bureaucracy multiplies and the whole procedure is obstructed, the quality of education is low, the students grow up, the education is politicized and all sorts of planning mistakes are made since the state is one vending machine of money, reason why it finally decays in corruption.
Finally I must clarify, I am not American so I do not know in depth the plan of Betsy DeVos, but from what I have read is very different from what I pose, since what she seeks is to increase the number of students in institutions private by means of a kind of loan, so that it is neither a capitalist system nor liberal, but rather mercantilist. I also do not pass links since as I said earlier, I am not American, and my information is usually in Spanish.
Thanks for passing, I say goodbye!
Desculpeme!
It was silly of me to assume so much of you, thanks for pulling me out of my tiny world.
Also, my Spanish is horrible but I do have access to translations and wouldn't mind seeing your sources.
Thanks friend and keep up the great thinking!
Well, here are some of the points I've said, so I'll leave you these two articles:
http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-39970406
http://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-41422087