Capitalism with no Government

[Faldur]

so lemme see he wants to get rid of the department of commerce without even knowing what it does and he wants to also get rid of free education
i think theres a correlation there somewhere

Oh!! Me!! Me!! Me!!! Along with the department of education, department of homeland security, department of energy, funding for planned parenthood and funding for PBS.

No Ooops moment there...

[muh_muh]

you in partuclar are a great example of why the world needs free education instead of the stupidly expensive universities your country has

[Faldur]

you in partuclar are a great example of why the world needs free education instead of the stupidly expensive universities your country has

Why stop at education? Free housing, food, cars and anything else you need. Its worked so well in the past, least some of us have learned from history.

[trish]

Public education got us to the Moon. It was a huge success.

With few exceptions today's private schools do no better the public. The decline of American education correlates with the climb religious home schooling and the burden of more and more mandates from which private schools are exempt; e.g. public schools must accept and meet the special needs of students with every sort of learning disability. This greatly increases the need for teaching, administrative, transportation and other special staff.

Besides these added challenging burdens (fiscal and otherwise) upon municipal schools, schools today are ever threatened with litigious parents. This means playgrounds have to be staffed, the playground equipment has to meet safety standards and be assembled by professional staff. No more parents getting together and making swings and assembling slides for free.

Schools are under continuous threat of suits by parents who think their child's special needs aren't being met, or by parents who think their child's discipline was too harsh. Moreover, schools in poor neighborhoods deal have a schoolbody that's largely transient. New students arriving in the middle of the semester who are somehow expected to catch up do well on the State tests. And yes, there's the bane of no child left behind. Every school is expected to better than it did the year before on the State tests or lose a portion of funding, even if the school performed excellently the year before.

I think Congress should take a test every year on history, law and the constitution and each member should be expected to perform better than they did the year before or else lose a portion of their salary.

Finally thanks to reality tv, fox news, bible thumpers, the war against culture etc. respect for knowledge is in decline in the U.S. The conservative position isn't that private schools can do better than public schools, but rather private schools are good enough, at least no one will be teaching that eeevilussion shit and at least someone will be making a profit.

[fred41]

I believe that the biggest problem with education is disinterested parents. In the poorest neighborhoods schools don't do well because there are often dysfunctional parents, or no parents at all. On top of that there is a pervasive culture of ignorance perpetrated by both peers and the entertainment community. Often private or charter schools do slightly better in these neighborhoods because at the very least, the parents who put their children into these schools care how well their kids do...(not to mention that, at the very, very least there is often a higher level of safety in these schools so that children who want to learn... can do so in a calmer environment).

In the more affluent schools there is often a different type of parental neglect that is just as bad. Parents in a higher income bracket often don't really follow up on their children either...why be a parent?...just give the kids what they want and be their "friends" instead. Sure beats the work it takes to actually nurture a child as opposed to letting everyone else raise your little accoutrement.

I don't really think religion has that much sway in the U.S. regarding education one way or the other...often children from other cultures (sometimes religious cultures) do better simply because their parents follow up on their education, realizing that this is a way to get ahead in life...or at least have a head start.

(I think it's fair to add that my observations in this post aren't based on any statistics I've read...they are just that: my observations)

[onmyknees]

Public education got us to the Moon. It was a huge success.

With few exceptions today's private schools do no better the public. The decline of American education correlates with the climb religious home schooling and the burden of more and more mandates from which private schools are exempt; e.g. public schools must accept and meet the special needs of students with every sort of learning disability. This greatly increases the need for teaching, administrative, transportation and other special staff.

Besides these added challenging burdens (fiscal and otherwise) upon municipal schools, schools today are ever threatened with litigious parents. This means playgrounds have to be staffed, the playground equipment has to meet safety standards and be assembled by professional staff. No more parents getting together and making swings and assembling slides for free.

Schools are under continuous threat of suits by parents who think their child's special needs aren't being met, or by parents who think their child's discipline was too harsh. Moreover, schools in poor neighborhoods deal have a schoolbody that's largely transient. New students arriving in the middle of the semester who are somehow expected to catch up do well on the State tests. And yes, there's the bane of no child left behind. Every school is expected to better than it did the year before on the State tests or lose a portion of funding, even if the school performed excellently the year before.

I think Congress should take a test every year on history, law and the constitution and each member should be expected to perform better than they did the year before or else lose a portion of their salary.

Finally thanks to reality tv, fox news, bible thumpers, the war against culture etc. respect for knowledge is in decline in the U.S. The conservative position isn't that private schools can do better than public schools, but rather private schools are good enough, at least no one will be teaching that eeevilussion shit and at least someone will be making a profit.

With few exceptions today's private schools do no better the public. The decline of American education correlates with the climb religious home schooling and the burden of more and more mandates from which private schools are exempt; e.g. public schools must accept and meet the special needs of students with every sort of learning disability. This greatly increases the need for teaching, administrative, transportation and other special staff.

Ok...some clarification please. When you say private schools are no better than public, what are you using as benchmarks...test scores? college admissions? Parental satisfaction? According to the National Report Card, math and science scores thru 2009 were higher in private schools. There is no doubt obvious reasons for that, but the data is what the data is. I'm not an educator, but...can you tell us what you're basing your statements on? Besides the data, it seems counter intuitive. Why would parents take extra jobs to pay for private schools, if the neighborhood school was providing the same level of education? I would grant you that in some areas of higher income, that may be the case...but nationwide? And why does my heart break watching those Charter School lotteries and the despondent kids and parents who don't get selected if their neighborhood schools were operating at an acceptable level? I'm not bashing public education....I'm a product of it, (k-8 ) but some things you've stated need clarification. There are reasons we rank so poorly against other countries, and I understand the burden public education has, but in many cases they're not getting the job done, and they need to improve...but to associate it with home schooling raises questions. Additionally can you provide some data on the connection between home schooling and decline of public education? I understand your problem with religion, but what's the correlation?

[Dino Velvet]

I went to Catholic School from K-12. If I had kids I'd put them there too so they turn out like daddy.

[trish]

The raw data suggests the Sun revolves around the Earth. A proper treatment of the raw data suggests otherwise.

Charter schools are not mandated to accept students with learning disabilities and don’t accept them in the proportions that public schools do. Charter schools deal with students who parents care enough to think about and pay some extra bucks for the education of their children. Parental attitude is often reflected in the attitude of the students.

Adjusted for these considerations private schools do no better than public schools. Both perform unsatisfactorily on international comparisons. Both (if international comparisons are fair) seem to be failing our students. Given that conclusion, the[n] one may surmise the fault might lie elsewhere. One factor to which I point the finger is the general decline of cultural and intellectual values in the U.S.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ans...-on-chart.html

[Stavros]

I don't understand much of this debate, so I can't comment on the specifics of the US school system. Fred is right about motivation from parents, be it one or two, I think that is fundamental to a childs progress, but so too are resources, be it family or system based.

We have the problem here of having different education systems in England and Wales, and in Scotland, with a slight variation in Northern Ireland. What has developed over the last 20 or so years are so-called Faith Schools -I dont know if it exists in the US but it segregates children according to religion -after partition in 1921 it was something the Roman Catholic church fought for in Northern Ireland and is allegedly part of the sad legacy of bigotry that province suffered from for years; a legacy to which the Protestants made an equally dismal contribution. The Jewish Free School in London for years had an outstanding reputation, but other more orthodox Jewish schools and not a few Muslim schools are not so well-regarded, some are under investigation -but in France all state schools are secular.

My view is that there should be one education system for all, that dividing up students can only make sense with special needs pupils, that no other forms of segregation should be tolerated. But that the system should be properly funded, and students given an equality of opportunity. Unfortunately, education was hijacked by conservatives decades ago and all they have done is skim off the best resources mostly for their own children, and left the remaining fragments for rest to fight over.

[Ben]

Chris Hedges talks about a free form of capitalism.... And its obvious and clear threats.... (Again, we live in a semi-market system 'cause the state plays a substantial role/part in the overall economy. But, of course, the banking sector approximated free market conditions.)