The Purpose of Government-run Schools

[Shermana]

What is the purpose of schools? Replacement parenting for people who shouldn't be parents? Is school thus a social construct that serves to correct failures among those who are reproducing? What was wrong with the days of apprenticeship? Large families usually meant that learning and skills were taught by the Eldest, even reading.

To what degree is a public, tax-paid school helpful to society and how much cheaper would private and vocational schools be if there was not such a gargantuan competition as the tax-fed beast known as public education? What are the alternatives to produce a society of literate and work-capable people? Wouldn't it be better to train someone as an Electrician or Mechanic or Technician until they're 18 instead with some basic reading and math proficiency to do the job?

Is California's massive debt worth the "education" that it spent over half its budget on?

Should teachers be allowed to set their own rules and tenure standards or should the tax-payers who feed them their salary without a choice have some kind of power to regulate their performance and benefits and such?

What would happen if there was no public schools, but tax breaks and charities that helped reduce prices in addition to the lack of public-force-fed competition?

What perccentage of students actually care to learn what is being taught to them? What is the average cost per student per taxpayer and what class pays the heaviest burden?

Would the economy improve if the Public education system was replaced with a completely private system?

Now there is some sense to the idea of a mandatory policy of testing one's proficiency in a variety of fields to see where their best placement should be. Being able to write coherent sentences is important, but at what point does it become someone else's burden to make sure someone else's offspring can?

[WinePusher]

I'm not able to edit, so this is a new post addressing the same point you raised.

If half the schools close, the other half takes on double the students (more, really, since the most underperfoming schools tend to be ones with huge class sizes where the higher performing ones are smaller, in general). How many of those schools would be able to cope before they too were underperforming and had to close?

The situation which you are presenting here is that once underperforming schools close due to lack of student attendence, the high quality schools will also be brought down due to "large class size" and the "inability to cope." Can you name another area in the market where such a scenario has occured? Where a businees has had to close due to the additional shift of customers from another businees which has failed? Basically, you're wrong. Schools will operate in the same manner a businees does. If they don't have the funds to operate, to pay for supplies, labor/teaching, utilities, insurance, then they will close. All this is funded by the consumer, in this case it would be funded by tuition. So, rather than a school underperforming and declining due to a large influx of students, I expect a situation where the school would greatly benefit from this. The size of a class is not representative of quality education, and that was the only example you put forth to support your case.

[Wyvern]

The situation which you are presenting here is that once underperforming schools close due to lack of student attendence, the high quality schools will also be brought down due to "large class size" and the "inability to cope." Can you name another area in the market where such a scenario has occured? Where a businees has had to close due to the additional shift of customers from another businees which has failed?

Anytime an organization has to deal with a large influx of people for which it is not prepared for it is going to suffer poor performance at the very least, look at the disaster response in Japan. They were better prepared than anyone could reasonably expect but when the eathquake and tsunami hit they were unable to cope with the size of the disaster.

Basically, you're wrong. Schools will operate in the same manner a businees does. If they don't have the funds to operate, to pay for supplies, labor/teaching, utilities, insurance, then they will close. All this is funded by the consumer, in this case it would be funded by tuition.

Unless you are proposing to eliminate universal basic education schools can't operate like a business. All businesses are private institutions, even private schools hence the name as such they have the right to pick and choose their customers. Public schools on the other hand have to be able to accomodate everyone including special needs, ESL and behavior problems all of which a private school would refuse to admit due to monetary concerns at the very least. Lets see how well private schools do once they have to accept everyone not just the best.

So, rather than a school underperforming and declining due to a large influx of students, I expect a situation where the school would greatly benefit from this.

Yes under your proposed model the school would in fact profit greatly from a large influx of students. As class size increase student performance decreases

The size of a class is not representative of quality education, and that was the only example you put forth to support your case.

The class size has a direct relation to the performance of the student.

[micatala]

You CANNOT fire a bad teacher, it's a fact, not a debatable point.

No, it is not a fact. I am not sure what locale you live in, but where I live, bad teachers are let go all the time. Your statement might apply in certain locations or states, but as a universal statement applied to public education in the U.S., it is simply false.

Yes it is and I'm not going to debate it.

Sorry, you made the claim, you need to substantiate it. You don't get to make a claim and then say you are not going to debate. I am open to evidence. Please provide some.



I will allow up front that the examples provided of teachers being fired for inappropriate comments on facebook is not really the same as being fired for poor performance.

However, the following articles all seem to indicate your claim is, in fact, false.


Michelle Rhee fires 241 teachers.

Oklahoma streamlines process for firing poor teachers.
This clearly implies teachers are already subject to firing, albeit, through a more complicated process than desired.

http://paulsvalleydailydemocrat.com/sta ... g-Teachers

An article from Utah.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/7000 ... chers.html



I call for a retraction of the claim as it is stated.


I am willing to consider an amended claim that, in some locations, it is nearly impossible to fire poor-performing teachers,.


But even that claim requires evidence.



The claim as stated by Winepusher is false. If he claims it is "not debatable", I would allow that might be the case since patently false statements could be considered not debateable.

Sorry, but they don't want bad teachers? No Abraxas, they don't give a care about the quality of teachers, whether they be good or bad. What they care about is the money members pay them in order to maintain job security, even if it is an unfit apathetic teacher.

How about we lay aside the charged political rhetoric and talk about what the evidence actually shows.

Charged Political Rhetoric You serious? I take it you didn't even read my statement as you proceded to give such an irrelevant and ludicrous rebuttal. If a bad teacher pays money into a Union, the Union is required to give that teacher protection and bargin for his or her job security regardless of whether the teacher performs well or not. Unions do not care about the quality of teachers and are not selective in whom they defend and advocate for.

I call for evidence that unions do not care about the quality of teachers. I reject the suggestion that I did not read the previous statements.

I'll have to violate one of my own debating rules for a moment and copy what micatala has said: "Not isolated examples, but system wide data."

We agree on this. The problem with your claim is that it is so absolute, that only one example shows it is false.

If you want to debate how many teachers or what percentage of teachers work in districts where it is possible or impossible to be fired, that would certainly required system wide data.

You know that if we actually opened the education market to some competition, half the schools in this country would close because they underperform.

If half the schools close, the other half takes on double the students (more, really, since the most underperfoming schools tend to be ones with huge class sizes where the higher performing ones are smaller, in general). How many of those schools would be able to cope before they too were underperforming and had to close?

And that isn't how it works. The failing schools would be forced to improve their standards in order to attract students. If the demand at a particular school is extremely low, they will improve their quality of education just as a failing businees will attempt to improve their quality of service as competition forces institutions to improve. However, if the school (or businees) is unable to improve then they will and should fail, no?

THis continues to ignore the fact that public schools must serve all comers, and that is true for individual schools as well as the collection of public schools.


Consider what would happen if you applied your thinking to police or fire protection. Don't like how the L.A. police are serving you? Let's just hire a "private police firm" or call the Anaheim police to come in to address the crime in my L.A. neighborhood. How well do you think that would work?

How about in the military? Let's look at the army division by division. Let's just eliminate the lowest 20% of divisions on whaterver military performance scale you would like. Does that really make a whole lot of sense?"

I will violate my own rule and offer one anecdote based on my mother's experience. She lives in an area with no municipal garbage collection. It is a capitalistic free-for-all where people hire any of a number of private garbage collection firms. She describes it as a farce. Since no one entity takes care of garbage collection and the government is not involved, people switch companies, or decide to save money by forgoing garbage collection for periods of time, or use "do it yourself" methods of dumping wherever they can get away with it.

Now, could some of these problems be fixed while still preserving "private enterprise" garbage collection? Sure, but who is going to do it?

Right!!! The government. You'd have to hire enough inspectors and enforcement officers to prevent the abuses that are now occurring. So then, the public at large pays MORE for garbage service. They pay the private haulers out of their pocket AND they pay extra taxes to hire the enforcers.



Come to think of it. This seems to me to be an example of why the traditional laissez-faire health system has problems. The people buy insurance on their own, and then pay for themselves and the people who don't have insurance, the latter through taxes or higher health care costs. However, that would be a topic for another thread.

[Abraxas]

You CANNOT fire a bad teacher, it's a fact, not a debatable point.

No, it is not a fact. I am not sure what locale you live in, but where I live, bad teachers are let go all the time. Your statement might apply in certain locations or states, but as a universal statement applied to public education in the U.S., it is simply false.

Yes it is and I'm not going to debate it.

You have to provide evidence for your claims. Micatala and I have both pointed to instances of teachers from public schools being fired, Micatala a good many more than I. If you want to argue those are small exceptions to a vast rule, then you need to demonstrate this to be the case with some kind of statistical backing.

Sorry, but they don't want bad teachers? No Abraxas, they don't give a care about the quality of teachers, whether they be good or bad. What they care about is the money members pay them in order to maintain job security, even if it is an unfit apathetic teacher.

How about we lay aside the charged political rhetoric and talk about what the evidence actually shows.

Charged Political Rhetoric You serious? I take it you didn't even read my statement as you proceded to give such an irrelevant and ludicrous rebuttal. If a bad teacher pays money into a Union, the Union is required to give that teacher protection and bargin for his or her job security regardless of whether the teacher performs well or not. Unions do not care about the quality of teachers and are not selective in whom they defend and advocate for.

Being required to give a defense does not imply they don't care who they defend, nor, for that matter, does it indicate how much of a defense they give in all cases. Further, a union is simply its members, bound to have differing opinions both as to what constitutes a bad teacher and their attitude about the relative merits of having someone in their corner to protect them from employer abuse vs defending bad teachers, and blanket statements aren't likely to do them justice.

You CANNOT fire a bad teacher, it's a fact, not a debatable point.

http://blogs.findlaw.com/law_and_life/2 ... ments.html
There's one. A quick google search tells me several teachers from public schools have lost or are losing their jobs for misconduct, in particular those that do not understand comments made on Facebook can get back to their boss. This feeds straight back into what I said in the section of my post you omitted, when you can detect bad teachers reliably, when it is all there in black and white, you can, in fact, get rid of them. Reliable means of detecting and proving teachers are bad, besides Facebook, remain elusive, however.

I'll have to violate one of my own debating rules for a moment and copy what micatala has said: "Not isolated examples, but system wide data."

Firstly, I have provided a good deal more evidence that they can be fired than you have that they cannot, Micatala more still. If you are going to want to claim there is a systemwide problem with firing bad teachers, please provide evidence to show the scope and degree of the problem.

Shall I go over the long list of contributions unions have achieved for the average American worker? Unions are now the only semi-reliable means of checking corporate abuse by employers by giving the workforce some power of it's own. Unions were created and still exist for a reason; if they were merely a collection plate for a political party, there would be no unions.

Of course, you forgot the mention the vital distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions.

I don't believe any such distinction exists.

When a private sector union bargins with a private corporation over some specific work issue, the subsequent policies affect only the company itself and the workers who choose to continue to work at that company.

Not true, very often it impacts the entire sector in which they are in. When steel workers or whoever strike, it is not uncommon to find not just the workers in one company, but the entire workforce strike. Another example, take the writer's strike not too long ago. It wasn't one show or one network, it was the entire guild.

The problem is when a public sector union bargins for the rights of public sector workers, they are bargining directly with the government meaning that they have influential power over policy that will affect the general public, such as deficits, revenue, taxes, etc.

So? The public can select leaders willing to take a hard line with them if they so desire. Corporations bargain with the government all the time. Just because unions ask for something doesn't mean they are going to get it. I consider the price of them having some small influence in the election to be well worth the benefit of having the rights of workers in a large section of the economy to be well worth it.

No, actually the military is one of the only areas where government is competent. And of course we have liberals wanting to cut back on military spending but wanting to increase government intervention in areas where it has no businees, detrimental domestic policy all the way round, so it's no surprise liberals are pushing for it.

It seems to me the meat of this selection is simply general, ill-defined hostility being channeled at "liberals".

Let me ask you an honest question. Can you accept that people can have a genuine disagreement with you about the role, the effects, and the nature of government and that in doing so they do not become your enemy? Maybe you are not intending it as such, but when I read your posts as of late I am feeling a worrying level of hatred behind them. Can't we calm down and have a reasonable discussion on policy without it turning into bloodshed (figuratively).

I'm sorry if you are personally offended by my posts. I genuinely mean that, as I have respect for your opinions and consider you an excellent debater on here.

I'm not offended, I'm kind of worried, really. The tone I read seemed to be one of not merely disagreement but sincere hatred. Maybe I'm just being overly sensitive.

But I won't apologize for my forceful style of debate. In the past year, we have had the left (liberals) and so called "feminists" demonize and demagouge conservative women, their families and children, we have liberals spread out very neatly throughout the media displaying their hypocracy in coverage of protests and events, we have had the biggest national disgrace occur last year on the part of liberals and their disgraceful tactics they employed during the healthcare debates, along with liberals unsympathetically demonizing any opposition to the New York Mosque which will dig holes into the hearts of Americans. So yea, in light of all this I plan to present my ideas, opinions and arguments in a forceful and militant manner.

Nobody did any of that in this thread. I'm not saying don't be forceful, I'm just saying take care not to debate angry. If nothing else, it is counterproductive.

To say I'm the only one who does this on here is disingenuious, and to condemn me while leaving others uncondemned is selective.

Perhaps, but if I am being selective it is because you were talking to me and nobody else was. It would not be my place to interject in anyone else's coversation merely to comment on their tone.

You know that if we actually opened the education market to some competition, half the schools in this country would close because they underperform.

If half the schools close, the other half takes on double the students (more, really, since the most underperfoming schools tend to be ones with huge class sizes where the higher performing ones are smaller, in general). How many of those schools would be able to cope before they too were underperforming and had to close?

And that isn't how it works.

You were the one who said half of them would close.

The failing schools would be forced to improve their standards in order to attract students. If the demand at a particular school is extremely low, they will improve their quality of education just as a failing businees will attempt to improve their quality of service as competition forces institutions to improve. However, if the school (or businees) is unable to improve then they will and should fail, no?

Schools are not like other businesses. In general, they are locked in on a semester by semester basis. Further, if they are to provide a general education, the form of their product is pretty much set. Further, unlike most businesses, they have little turnover in material. If a restaraunt isn't happy with food they are serving, they can change suppliers. Text books, on the other hand, once purchased are expected to last years or even decades for some courses (math, literature). Further, businesses can turn away patrons if their supply is overrun by demand, if schools do that then we introduce a huge segment into the American populace of people who will have little to no exposure to schooling, something that would be disasterous.

The turn around time for a school would be incredibly long without massive injections of funds, which, if they are failing already, they are not going to receive, and, from economic models, I would expect to see the damage continue to snowball faster than the school could turn itself around if subjected purely to market forces.

The situation which you are presenting here is that once underperforming schools close due to lack of student attendence, the high quality schools will also be brought down due to "large class size" and the "inability to cope." Can you name another area in the market where such a scenario has occured?

No, but then I can't think of another area of the economy where we went from essentially full government control to full private control off the top of my head either.

Where a businees has had to close due to the additional shift of customers from another businees which has failed?

The key difference between this scenario and any others is the capacity to turn people away if overcrowded. Doing so with the education system would be disasterous.

Basically, you're wrong. Schools will operate in the same manner a businees does. If they don't have the funds to operate, to pay for supplies, labor/teaching, utilities, insurance, then they will close.

Yes, the difference is that the students have to go somewhere.

All this is funded by the consumer, in this case it would be funded by tuition. So, rather than a school underperforming and declining due to a large influx of students, I expect a situation where the school would greatly benefit from this.

How do you figure? An immediate influx of students require additional facilities which are expensive and take time (assuming they have the space to expand to begin with), they require additional teachers in a workforce already depleted of them, they require additional transportation and the support in place to maintain that transportation. If given several years to accomodate the new influx of students, then yeah, they might be able to adapt. A large sudden burst as would be the case of schools closing in rapid succession, not so much.

The size of a class is not representative of quality education, and that was the only example you put forth to support your case.

Statistically speaking, that is incorrect. Class size correlates strongly with performance as smaller classes allow for greater control, fewer distractions, and more individual attention.

[WinePusher]

Being required to give a defense does not imply they don't care who they defend, nor, for that matter, does it indicate how much of a defense they give in all cases. Further, a union is simply its members, bound to have differing opinions both as to what constitutes a bad teacher and their attitude about the relative merits of having someone in their corner to protect them from employer abuse vs defending bad teachers, and blanket statements aren't likely to do them justice.

Yes it does, the criteria for whom a union will and will not advocate for is based on that persons membership and payment of fees. Like I said, a bad teacher who pays dues to a Teachers Union will have job security which does imply that the Union doesn't care about the performance levels of their members.

Of course, you forgot the mention the vital distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions.

I don't believe any such distinction exists.

A public sector union is involved with government workers while a private sector union is a union involved with non governmental workers. That you would object to this textbook fact makes me wonder.

The problem is when a public sector union bargins for the rights of public sector workers, they are bargining directly with the government meaning that they have influential power over policy that will affect the general public, such as deficits, revenue, taxes, etc.

So? The public can select leaders willing to take a hard line with them if they so desire. Corporations bargain with the government all the time. Just because unions ask for something doesn't mean they are going to get it. I consider the price of them having some small influence in the election to be well worth the benefit of having the rights of workers in a large section of the economy to be well worth it.

No, corporations lobby, unions collectively bargin, there's a difference. All Lobbying and Lobbyists do is try to persuade a politician, it's the equivalent of me writing a letter to my Senator expressing my concerns. There's no inherent power in lobbying. Collective bargining is a right unions possess which allows them to negotiate with the government. The union will lay out their demands, unless the government/emplyer concedes most of these demands the union will organize their workers into job action and coerce the employer/government into conceding their demands. Government will, with much greater ease, generate more revenue than a private businees is able to. It is within a Unions interest to bargin for higher wages so that they can impose higher dues, thus this is where we get distorted state spending priorities which leads to deficits.

The failing schools would be forced to improve their standards in order to attract students. If the demand at a particular school is extremely low, they will improve their quality of education just as a failing businees will attempt to improve their quality of service as competition forces institutions to improve. However, if the school (or businees) is unable to improve then they will and should fail, no?

Schools are not like other businesses. In general, they are locked in on a semester by semester basis. Further, if they are to provide a general education, the form of their product is pretty much set. Further, unlike most businesses, they have little turnover in material. If a restaraunt isn't happy with food they are serving, they can change suppliers. Text books, on the other hand, once purchased are expected to last years or even decades for some courses (math, literature). Further, businesses can turn away patrons if their supply is overrun by demand, if schools do that then we introduce a huge segment into the American populace of people who will have little to no exposure to schooling, something that would be disasterous.

Ok, most of your points are correct, some of them are wrong. For example, busineeses are locked into a fiscal year as well.

The situation which you are presenting here is that once underperforming schools close due to lack of student attendence, the high quality schools will also be brought down due to "large class size" and the "inability to cope." Can you name another area in the market where such a scenario has occured?

No, but then I can't think of another area of the economy where we went from essentially full government control to full private control off the top of my head either.

But I am not in favor of that. I am in favor of government subsidizing parent choice of schools. That would not require full government deregulation, nor would it abolish public education. It would allocate students and funds to private schools at the expense of public schools forcing poor performing public schools to either improve or fail.

All this is funded by the consumer, in this case it would be funded by tuition. So, rather than a school underperforming and declining due to a large influx of students, I expect a situation where the school would greatly benefit from this.

How do you figure? An immediate influx of students require additional facilities which are expensive and take time (assuming they have the space to expand to begin with), they require additional teachers in a workforce already depleted of them, they require additional transportation and the support in place to maintain that transportation. If given several years to accomodate the new influx of students, then yeah, they might be able to adapt. A large sudden burst as would be the case of schools closing in rapid succession, not so much.

Your argument rests upon the premise of all this suddenly happening. Hiring additional teachers or constructing additional facilities is called expansion, which is a good thing. When an employer provides an excellent service, it is within everyones best interest that they expand their scope and reach rather than confing the service or product to one particular group of people. Tell me, in a poor neighborhood where a student is forced to attend a bad school, is it not better for the government to pay for him to attend the better private school rather then subjecting him to a bad enviroment? I would expect liberals to be more sympathetic with this situation, as their message is based on Social Justice.

The size of a class is not representative of quality education, and that was the only example you put forth to support your case.

Statistically speaking, that is incorrect. Class size correlates strongly with performance as smaller classes allow for greater control, fewer distractions, and more individual attention.

By this logic colleges must underperform as well. The best colleges and universities, Harvard, Yale, Duke, Stanford, seem to be the ones with the largest student:teacher ratio.

[Abraxas]

Being required to give a defense does not imply they don't care who they defend, nor, for that matter, does it indicate how much of a defense they give in all cases. Further, a union is simply its members, bound to have differing opinions both as to what constitutes a bad teacher and their attitude about the relative merits of having someone in their corner to protect them from employer abuse vs defending bad teachers, and blanket statements aren't likely to do them justice.

Yes it does, the criteria for whom a union will and will not advocate for is based on that persons membership and payment of fees. Like I said, a bad teacher who pays dues to a Teachers Union will have job security which does imply that the Union doesn't care about the performance levels of their members.

That would be like saying public defenders don't care about crime. Of course they care, they just believe that by acting as part of the process to defend accused criminals, a greater good is served. Likewise, union reps believe that by defending teachers in general without making judgment themselves as to which ones are good and which ones are bad, a greater good is served. I would be distrustful of any process where they could choose who they would and would not defend.

Of course, you forgot the mention the vital distinction between public sector unions and private sector unions.

I don't believe any such distinction exists.

A public sector union is involved with government workers while a private sector union is a union involved with non governmental workers. That you would object to this textbook fact makes me wonder.

I don't object to the fact, I just object to the relevance of the distinction.

The problem is when a public sector union bargins for the rights of public sector workers, they are bargining directly with the government meaning that they have influential power over policy that will affect the general public, such as deficits, revenue, taxes, etc.

So? The public can select leaders willing to take a hard line with them if they so desire. Corporations bargain with the government all the time. Just because unions ask for something doesn't mean they are going to get it. I consider the price of them having some small influence in the election to be well worth the benefit of having the rights of workers in a large section of the economy to be well worth it.

No, corporations lobby, unions collectively bargin, there's a difference. All Lobbying and Lobbyists do is try to persuade a politician, it's the equivalent of me writing a letter to my Senator expressing my concerns. There's no inherent power in lobbying.

There is when so much of the money politicans need to run for elections comes from corporations. Every lobbyist message comes with the implicit statement that unless you behave in a fashion that suites our interests, we may donate to an opponent of yours who will next election cycle.

Collective bargining is a right unions possess which allows them to negotiate with the government. The union will lay out their demands, unless the government/emplyer concedes most of these demands the union will organize their workers into job action and coerce the employer/government into conceding their demands.

Even if true, so what? If laborers want to organize themselves, on what basis can you tell them they are not allowed to? As private individuals, they can associate with whom they wish.

Government will, with much greater ease, generate more revenue than a private businees is able to. It is within a Unions interest to bargin for higher wages so that they can impose higher dues, thus this is where we get distorted state spending priorities which leads to deficits.

You seem to be under the impression that unions can ask for absolutely anything and have it granted, but, in reality, what we see as a matter of routine in public sector jobs are wage cuts, unpaid vacations, and layoffs. Clearly the unions are not able to exert the pressure you state.

The failing schools would be forced to improve their standards in order to attract students. If the demand at a particular school is extremely low, they will improve their quality of education just as a failing businees will attempt to improve their quality of service as competition forces institutions to improve. However, if the school (or businees) is unable to improve then they will and should fail, no?

Schools are not like other businesses. In general, they are locked in on a semester by semester basis. Further, if they are to provide a general education, the form of their product is pretty much set. Further, unlike most businesses, they have little turnover in material. If a restaraunt isn't happy with food they are serving, they can change suppliers. Text books, on the other hand, once purchased are expected to last years or even decades for some courses (math, literature). Further, businesses can turn away patrons if their supply is overrun by demand, if schools do that then we introduce a huge segment into the American populace of people who will have little to no exposure to schooling, something that would be disasterous.

Ok, most of your points are correct, some of them are wrong. For example, busineeses are locked into a fiscal year as well.

There is nothing that stops a business from opening a new service or remove an existing one at any point except their willingness to do it. Cutting underperforming classes in the middle of a semester is more or less impossible, or at the very least hugely impractical.

The situation which you are presenting here is that once underperforming schools close due to lack of student attendence, the high quality schools will also be brought down due to "large class size" and the "inability to cope." Can you name another area in the market where such a scenario has occured?

No, but then I can't think of another area of the economy where we went from essentially full government control to full private control off the top of my head either.

But I am not in favor of that. I am in favor of government subsidizing parent choice of schools. That would not require full government deregulation, nor would it abolish public education. It would allocate students and funds to private schools at the expense of public schools forcing poor performing public schools to either improve or fail.

The problem is the schools that are already failing with their current budget level are not going to improve when you remove resources from them with which to make changes. No school tries to fail, or develop a reputation as the bad school. Simply cutting off their support isn't going to turn them around, all it will do is punish the children who have to attend it because of the financial realities of their parents.

All this is funded by the consumer, in this case it would be funded by tuition. So, rather than a school underperforming and declining due to a large influx of students, I expect a situation where the school would greatly benefit from this.

How do you figure? An immediate influx of students require additional facilities which are expensive and take time (assuming they have the space to expand to begin with), they require additional teachers in a workforce already depleted of them, they require additional transportation and the support in place to maintain that transportation. If given several years to accomodate the new influx of students, then yeah, they might be able to adapt. A large sudden burst as would be the case of schools closing in rapid succession, not so much.

Your argument rests upon the premise of all this suddenly happening. Hiring additional teachers or constructing additional facilities is called expansion, which is a good thing.

It is, but both take time. Constructing an outfitting an entirely new building or a new wing on an existing building can take years. Where do you put the kids in the mean time? Where do you get high quality teachers in a market so depleted of them with which to expand?

When an employer provides an excellent service, it is within everyones best interest that they expand their scope and reach rather than confing the service or product to one particular group of people.

Sometimes. Sometimes they deliberately stay small and local because the amount of overhead to manage a large organization is greater than that of a small one.

Tell me, in a poor neighborhood where a student is forced to attend a bad school, is it not better for the government to pay for him to attend the better private school rather then subjecting him to a bad enviroment? I would expect liberals to be more sympathetic with this situation, as their message is based on Social Justice.

Better for whom? Better for that student or better for all the students who still can't afford to go to the better school who get left behind with even fewer resources at their disposal?

The size of a class is not representative of quality education, and that was the only example you put forth to support your case.

Statistically speaking, that is incorrect. Class size correlates strongly with performance as smaller classes allow for greater control, fewer distractions, and more individual attention.

By this logic colleges must underperform as well. The best colleges and universities, Harvard, Yale, Duke, Stanford, seem to be the ones with the largest student:teacher ratio.

Even if true, once again, colleges get to be selective about who they take. Harvard won't take most people. Yale won't take most people. They may have more students per teacher, but by cherry picking the students, they can select the ones less easily distracted, the ones that require less individual attention, and less required maintanence.

[100%atheist]

Yes, schools should not be replacements of parents, and thus should not have the capability to lecture kids on things like sex.

Huh. If you are correct, you automatically support child abusing priests
(see this thread: http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... hp?t=16800)
because "lecturing kids on things like sex" (I also mean lecturing priests in their childhood) would likely prevent some or even most of those abuses.

[100%atheist]

What is the purpose of schools?

Shermana, I AGREE WITH YOU!
Christians, please take your kids out of public schools!
I am actually tired of talking to my kids about all that b.s. that the kids of Christian children feed each other including my kids. And yes, your (Christian) kids do tell other kids all the time that if they don't believe in Jesus then they will burn (or freeze, some kids tell interesting stories) in hell. So, please remove those kids from public schools! Thank you.

[Wyvern]

No, corporations lobby, unions collectively bargin, there's a difference. All Lobbying and Lobbyists do is try to persuade a politician, it's the equivalent of me writing a letter to my Senator expressing my concerns. There's no inherent power in lobbying.

Actually both groups engage in extensive lobbying but you are being terribly naive if you think lobbying is nothing more than what you wrote. Both groups actively engage in fundraising for the candidates they back and in many cases will actually contribute funds to both parties in order to assure they have special access after the elections. I heard on the PBS newshour tonight that Obama said he was going to have a billion dollars for his re-election campaign, before coming to DC he wasn't even a millionaire so take a wild guess where that money is coming from I'll even give you a hint it aint just the unions.

But I am not in favor of that. I am in favor of government subsidizing parent choice of schools. That would not require full government deregulation, nor would it abolish public education. It would allocate students and funds to private schools at the expense of public schools forcing poor performing public schools to either improve or fail.

I thought conservatives were against increasing the size of government and welfare but here you are advocating for increasing welfare and the size of government. At one time conservative used to mean what liberal does now and vice versa looks like the terms are starting to switch back to that meaning.

When an employer provides an excellent service, it is within everyones best interest that they expand their scope and reach rather than confing the service or product to one particular group of people.

Funny, at one time not to many decades ago people thought this very thing about government and the services it provides. Now after nearly as many decades of various people on both the left and right using the government as their whipping boy, nearly noone thinks anything good about our government except during emergencies.

Tell me, in a poor neighborhood where a student is forced to attend a bad school, is it not better for the government to pay for him to attend the better private school rather then subjecting him to a bad enviroment? I would expect liberals to be more sympathetic with this situation, as their message is based on Social Justice.

And I would expect conservatives to be against increasing welfare since they say their message is based on self reliance.

The size of a class is not representative of quality education, and that was the only example you put forth to support your case.

Statistically speaking, that is incorrect. Class size correlates strongly with performance as smaller classes allow for greater control, fewer distractions, and more individual attention.

By this logic colleges must underperform as well. The best colleges and universities, Harvard, Yale, Duke, Stanford, seem to be the ones with the largest student:teacher ratio.

Colleges are not set up in the same way as k-12 education nor can it. If you've been to college you know that freshman lecture sections can and usually do have hundreds of students in them. As you go further into your studies on a particular subject the class sizes rapidly decrease in size until by the time you get to post graduate studies you often times get to be in a class of your own depending on the field of study. Although colleges do have remedial classes for the most part they assume the student is coming into college with the basic skills which is provided by k-12 education and since the student is now actually paying for it they also don't particularly care whether you go to class.

[WinePusher]

What is the purpose of schools?

Shermana, I AGREE WITH YOU!
Christians, please take your kids out of public schools!
I am actually tired of talking to my kids about all that b.s. that the kids of Christian children feed each other including my kids. And yes, your (Christian) kids do tell other kids all the time that if they don't believe in Jesus then they will burn (or freeze, some kids tell interesting stories) in hell. So, please remove those kids from public schools! Thank you.

My little cousin came back from school about a week about Christmas and told us about all the b.s. his friends were telling him about what they got from Santa when we had already broke the news to him that Santa wasn't real. So please, unless it's your intent to bring down the quality of debate on this forum, leave these nonsensical flamebait posts out of debate threads.