More On Free Markets In Education
Darwin writes in my previous post:
Makes sense until you’re the only atheist or jew living in a bible-belt town small enough that it can only support one elementary school. Then you’ll be greatful for national guidelines about what gets taught instead of your kids learning whatever the rest of the immediate community thinks they should learn.
One would be grateful provided their views are in keeping with the views of the national school board.
Darwin’s argument seems to be based around insuring that parents have ways to avoid sending their children to schools in which they disagree with the curriculum. One might think he is ascribing to the principle that education policy should maximize the parent’s ability to avoid sending their child to a school with a curriculum they disagree with. Current education policy allows parents to vote for school officials who will determine a curriculum which they will agree with. Thus the public system affords a way for a parent to protect against curriculum they disagree with.
However, if we are truly interested in maximizing parental control over curriculum it seems obvious that a more private system will on average afford your typical parent more control than the current public system. Will the private system grant all parents everywhere maximal control over curriculum? Absolutley not. Does the current public system grant all parents everywhere maximal control over curriculum? Absolutely not. When compared to the public system will a private system on the whole give more parents in more locations more control over the children’s curriculum? It absolutely will.
Therefore, if Darwin is genuinely interested in preventing school curriculum from being thrust upon a parent’s child he would gladly support the privatization of the education system.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
Wait for it. Wait for it.
April 10th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
interesting, except you seem to say that you’d be ok with coercion so long as it maximized whatever you’re trying to maximize. I tend to view coercion as something you should avoid whenever possible.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:48 am
Good argument but not quite my point. I’m not neccessarily in favor of maximal choice for parents - for instance, I’m ceratinly against those schools in new york where children were phonetically memorizingthe Koran in a language tehy don’t speak for 8 hours a day, even though their parents obviously wanted them to learn that - rather I’m against individual kids getting their education screwed over, and tehn with individual parents having their kids taught things they STRONGLY disagree with.
Hard to articulate but let me make this example: a public school may not teach children that Jesus is our Savior and that God hates homosexuals. That’s fine, even if parents want that to be taught; they can teach their children those things at home. However, an atehist or jewish or homosexual kid going to a school where those things ARE taught, where they and their parents don’t want them to be taught those things, doesn’t have that option- maybe the parents can tell them what they learned at school was wrong, but they’re still being exposed to it. It’s the difference between actively violating parents’ wishes and passively not conforming fuly to them.
You could make the case that some public schools teach evolution and sex ed, and I guess I’d agree that parents should be allowed to sign waivers to haave thier kids not attend those classes. Note that this probably wouldn’t be an option in an overtely religious school where those messages were part of every discussion as well as posters all over the place. Now, my willingness to have parents eexcuse their kids from classes in public schools might run into problems with in extreme situations like some family believing that females shouldn’t be literate, but I think we can agree that those types of degenerate cases are outside this aspect of the discussion.
April 11th, 2007 at 4:32 pm
I have read this response at least 5 times and i still don’t really understand what you are saying. Could you take another stab at it. I’m curious as to your response.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:57 pm
i think the problem is that he focuses on making sure kids get a real education no matter what their parents think, but then he switches to a bunch of situations where it’s ok to give in to the parents. Then he procedes to not make a system of how you would decide which situations are too over the top to put up with and which ones aren’t.
April 12th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Not teaching something the parents want taught = ok, they can teach it at home.
Teaching somehting the parents don’t want taught = much worse. In public schools parents can write a note to get their kid out of sex-ed class. In a born-again christian elementary school, those messages may be so prevalent that just stepping in the building violates a jewish or atheist parent’s wishes for their children.
April 12th, 2007 at 7:11 am
But this observation speaks nothing to my criticism. It’s easy for me to say that a free market system on the whole will afford more parents in more locations more opportunity to avoid exposing their child to curriculum they disapprove of.
In both cases, privatization allows more parents to either expose their child to the curriculum they prefer or prevent exposure to curriculum they disagree with. Your reformulation only further commits you to privatization by revealing, yet another one of its virtues.
If your concern is only in giving the maximum amount of parents control in preventing their child from being exposed to a curriculum they disapprove then you would support the privatization of education.
April 12th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Mensch, you have problems. And who, please, affords a free market system?? You can specifiy your sentence with: “on the whole, it will afford more well-off parents in more well-off locations more opportunity to avoid exposing their well-off, rottenly spoiled child to curriculum they disapprove of because of WHATEVER fucking reason that seems arbitrary to me, cause there’ll always be something you disapprove of, and sorry, that’s life - so twentytwothousand more threads will not bring about a conclusion here.
April 12th, 2007 at 11:41 pm
well, stupid me…. How would one ever want to ask for such profane things like money when it comes to theorizing about privatizing the education market?? It’s so much more easier discussing this issue without even questioning the practicability of your demands for a private educational market (for everyone???). Not for everyone, obviously - the losers lose more in private markets - that’s been established.
April 13th, 2007 at 6:42 am
I still favor taxing all citizens and pooling those resources together for the purpose of education. However, I think much more of that money should be given to the parents so that they can use it to pay the school they wish to send their child to. Said money can be in the form of vouchers or some other way of compensation. However you implement it, the system should place more of the funding needed for a school survival in the hands of the parents.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:02 am
mmh - so I am confused… vouchers and money given to the parents by whom?? by the state?? Well, that’s what I call “privatizing” at its best………… Steve, I get your point: You, as a potential parent, think that you have the sole responsibility for the education of your child and hence, want to be free in choice what your kid gets taught, where your kid gets taught, etc, and for this, you want to get vouchers so that you can afford to do so? mmh - first of all, if private, then truly private and without vouchers, cause, unfortunately, that’s how private business works (and with unfortunately I address those who are not granted such fantastic vouchers or don’t have the money at all), and second of all, I cannot get rid of the impression that you consider your kid to be as your acquired property. Which a child is not.
April 13th, 2007 at 7:07 am
but we’ve been there, and it is a different topic, which we have already addressed: The attitude that is dominant that you as a parent automatically are able to make use of “rights to choose” for your kid. I think that you can make those choices, yet, a vast amount of parents can’t, and don’t even want.
April 13th, 2007 at 8:51 am
In the context of the current argument my position is not that i want maximium control over my child’s education. Rather, my argue is that if Darwin is strongly concerned with protectecting children from ‘bad’ curriculum then he should be a staunch supporter of education privitization. This is because the more you privatize education the more diversity you will see in curriculum enabling more parents to select a school that provides the curriculum that you prefer.
I wonder where you are on this issue.
1.) Do you advocate a total standardization of education according to one curriciculum?
2.) How strongly would you advocate that position if say you were Jewish person living in germany in the 1930s?
3.) Somewhat unrelated, but one what grounds do you think you can justify forcing your values on other people’s children?
April 13th, 2007 at 9:15 am
ad 1 - What is “one curriculum” - there cannot be “one” curriculum, but there can be “ONE” standard -which, for quality- not for competitive-reasons, needs to be evaluated by certain central assessments in order to assure a MINIMUM standard of education,in order to ensure a baseline of quality, upon which, schools will vary inasmuch individual children will vary based on their indiviudal talents and giftedness - that being true for both PUBLIC and PRIVATE systems. Basic quality control.
ad 2 - you sure you don’t offend my feelings asking this question???
You get my point??? In fact, here we have that classroom situation we have been deliberating on off and on for a week now: Discussing a sensitive part of history, and asking rhetorical questions. Me personally, as a member of the third “generation guilt” do not feel offended by your question (which could easily be asked in a classroom discussion), but others in my age-group would feel, maybe, so here you see, it is all about the individual ability to cope with it, and and nope, my mother did not control for the content of this blog before she allowed me to post.
ad 3 - goes to you.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:27 am
We agree, in a privatized system there must be a base standardization to insure quality. I wouldn’t be shocked if a more privatized system ends up pushing education standards way past what we currently have in the public system. Nevertheless, private schools must abide by a very basic set of neutral educational standards.
I was not trying to offend your sensibilities. One interested in offending Bettina should not attempt to put her in the shoes of a historically oppressed minority but rather force her to put shoes on for a 10 o’clock dinner. Your argumentation, much like Darwin, leads to supporting education privatization. By emphasizing the fact that different people have different responses underscores the notion that an education system with diverse curriculum will allow many more people to cater their child’s education to their own idiosyncratic values.
So you’re not going to answer my third question. I think the only time you as a non-parent have a right to force you value on another child’s parent is when that parents values are clearly doing physical harm to the child. The parent that physically abuses their child loses their right to determine the values of their child. The parent that teaches their child to be a racist bigot, but insures they are fed and well taken care of enjoy the right to instill such deplorable values.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:10 am
Yeah, I mean, I agree that competition improves most sytems and would probably improve the education market (I think this becuase MY school taught evolution :). I’m just worried about all the things that can go wrong with dergulation, but you seem to allow enough oversightand regulation to afford for most of those problems.
Now, I don’t know if a system which is completely paid for and heavily regulated by the federal government is what most people mean when they say we should privatize education. But I’d be interested in seeing in tried in a state or two.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:43 am
http://www.choiceineducation.org/
Utah is that state you speak of. It will be intersting to see how this plays out. Check out the site - it breaks down nicely how it is going to work.
April 20th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
Children we must stop this fighting… ( free ) EDUCATION (Purchased by all the citizens) for all legal aliens.