Run schools off "user fees"

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

And then proceed to respond in ways that take the context of the quoted section away are replace it with another one. That you include the last post doesn't negate this, but it does make it easier to spot¹.

3. Any user fee supports the entire institution that delivered the good or service. If I "only" pay for the groceries I eat, I support all kinds services I do not use. There is no contradiction, problem, or paradox here, as tyr implies with "Your tax money on gas goes to roads other than the ones you drive on."

Only if you define 'support' broadly enough. In that case all money spent, including by the state on public education, supports all sorts of services².

Let's discuss how the differences in markets for various goods and services make a difference to the arguments for or against user fees and customer control in general and parent control in the education industry in particular. Can we have this discussion without insults?

What insults would those be? I've labeled and accused you of doing more than a few things, but I don't recall actually insulting you³.

100% agreement. Tutors are analogous to private security services. I suggest that the State could (legally, if not yet, within the limits of political possibility) empower parents with the taxpayers' K-12 education subsidy and turn them loose in a competitive market for education services. Unless this policy includes the repeal of the entire welfare entitlement system, this implies some regulation, including a default option ("the public school system") for children of parents who fail to provide for their children's education.

So the reasoning you applied originally does not apply to the police⁴. Now why not? And as we've discussed before, the 'default option' is what is in place now, your proposal would simply transfer funding from them to some alt schooling, and describing not being able to afford these out priced 'options' as failing is insulting. I'm not sure if I've mentioned that last one in text before though⁵.

GM is not a cartel. American Motors is not a cartel, Ford is not a cartel, Chrysler is not a cartel. Together, in the era before free trade, they formed a cartel. Harvard is not a cartel. Yale is not a cartel. Princeton is not a cartel. Together, with the accreditation agencies, they (and other exclusive colleges and universities) form a cartel. The NEA is not a cartel. The AFT is not a cartel. The AFSCME is not a cartel. The NEA/FT/AFSCME cartel is a cartel.

A cartel is an explicit agreement between competing producers and manufacturers⁶.

Do you not understand the distinction⁷? Lying would certainly be disingenuous, but one need not lie to be disingenuous.

Oh for crying out loud. JAQing off is a debate technique in which someone claims to be 'just asking questions' in order to avoid having to avoid any holes in their argument or address attacks against it by making it appear that they aren't making any claims. It's a cowardly and commonly used tactic by conspiracy nuts who lack the intellectual fortitude to form a cohesive argument and defend it⁸. Someone claiming to be 'just presenting options', while at the same time obviously endorsing those options by hand waving criticisms and highlighting benefits (the candy in my example), would be being disingenuous⁹.

Competitive markets deliver higher quality at lower cost, per unit, than tax-subsidized State-monopoly enterprises.

Not always and not with every enterprise. Again, I go back to the police example. Do you want private security to investigate rapes and murders? Would a private police force employed by Penn State be the best way to investigate Sanduski¹⁰?

What about for the many enterprises where the most directly cost effective measure is to simply not provide the good. I assume that's why you want child labor and minimum wage laws repealed¹¹. The example I always come back to for that is the 'cost saving' privatization of water systems which lead to poor communities simply having no water. Education and mail are other good examples¹².

Policies which give to individual parents the power to determine which institution, if any, shall receive the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy give control to the people who know individual children best and who are most reliably concerned for their welfare. Numerous possible paths lead from the current US State-monopoly structure to a more competitive market in education services.

You still don't seem to understand how much leeway school boards and parents actually have within the current system. You keep saying demonstrably false things like 'US State-monopoly' as if that proves your point¹³.
I can actually see parts of your proposed system, and you are proposing one, working though carefully worded regulation, but the end result still ends up looking basically what we have now. And it still isn't funded by user fees14.

1. Where have I changed the context or removed the context? I include context and address it.
2. Yes. Subsidies support all kinds of things. The issue is how user fees and other forms of support differ in their impact on customers and venders.
3. "Disingenuous", "you don't understand" (see above), and any other reference to a deficiency of the arguer as opposed to the argument. For example:...

...in your method ...you could keep out the darkies. You know, the real goals.

4. Huh? Tyr asked if user fees could support police functions. The answer is, "yes, sometimes". Where they could but currently does not resort to user fees, a city department could alter its policy to fund some security services through user fees instead of taxation. For example, organizers of a parade could pay for the police force that covers the event. Or a city could allow organizers to provide their own security (the police union might object). The city could put a contract out to bid to provide security to a gated community (the police union might object). These scenarios have parallel examples in the education industry.
5. The difference is the fraction of the population that operates under the user fee and private provider regime and fraction that operates under the direct subsidy to government institutions regime.
6. (a) Cartels are anti-competitive. (b) An individual firm is not a cartel. An individual firm is a party to an agreement. It's the coordination that makes the cartel.
7. No. "Disingenuous" is the gone-to-college way to call someone "liar".
8. And any similarity to the term used for masturbation is entirely coincidental. What's the word...? "Disingenuous", maybe?
9. "Method" is singular. "Options" is plural. Several different policy options support enhanced parent control, and these different options would have different effects in the short run and longer term: repeal of assignment by district, charter schools, tuition vouchers, tuition tax credits, education tax credits, virtual schools in the government system, Parent Performance Contracting, credit by exam for all courses required for graduation, a complete withdrawal of the State from the education industry, etc. Tyr made an assertion about "your system" (singular) or "method" (singular), or
"proposal". I asked "which proposal?" Earlier, tyr wrote:

None of that addressed the criticisms you leveled at public regulated/supported schools which also applies to your method. Those criticisms apply at least as much to your method, only changing the parties who are choosing/meal ticketing.

and

And people in your system still don't get to choose everything their children learn, only those with enough resources to choose different schools. Those with the money would in effect be able to dominate the market and do their own social experiments on other people's children.

So, let's consider which of these might include user fees. Tuition vouchers in competitive markets function as user fees to a degree. Depending on how the legislature structures the voucher (can a school charge more? Can parents keep the difference if tuition is less? Can part of the voucher apply to Math instruction at one school and part apply to language instruction at another?, etc.) the voucher creates incentives for buyers to economize and for producers to improve quality and lower costs. byw, even half of the US average subsidy of $12,000 per pupil-year is more than enough to empower parents in a competitive market for education services.
10. We could have a productive discussion if we weighed the features of industries that make a difference to the applicability of user fees. When do they work, and when do they not, and why? Certainly I would want private investigators as a fall back if police do not do their job. If police cover up a crime and a victim hires a PI, I can see a court awarding a judgment against the city for the expense to the victim of the investigation. A tax-funded user fee for security services.
11. Dunno what you mean.
12. Water, mail, and schooling. Water, maybe. I can see a complicated discussion there. Mail and school? I expect that society would be better off if the State (government, generally) left the business to non-State actors.
13. In many US States the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools occupy an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy. They qualify as a monopoly.
14. I'm "proposing" several. I support most expansions of parent control. Some policies more directly rely on user fees (sometimes tax subsidized, sometimes not) than do others.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...You still don't seem to understand how much leeway school boards and parents actually have within the current system.

I have asserted the following:
1. As institutions take from individual parents the power to determine for their own children the choice of curricuklum and the pace and method of instruction, overall system performance falls, and
2. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.
This applies to school boards as well as to institutions that do not respond to activist parents, such as Colleges of Education. Even if only parents voted in school board elections, and only parents ran for school board positions, and if school districts only hired parents as teachers, administrators, cooks and janitors, these parents would take control from individual parents. It's the difference between everyone in your town voting on the one size and style of shoes every 12 year-old must wear and individual parents taking their children to the shoe store of their choice for a fitting. The age-graded one-size-fits-all curriculum guarantees a poor fit for most students.

 

[tyr_13]

1. Where have I changed the context or removed the context? I include context and address it.

Already addressed in previous posts.

2. Yes. Subsidies support all kinds of things. The issue is how user fees and other forms of support differ in their impact on customers and venders.

Hey look, a different context than the question was originally posed in. Broadening the definitions of 'support' and 'user fees' beyond what they were.

3. "Disingenuous", "you don't understand" (see above), and any other reference to a deficiency of the arguer as opposed to the argument. For example:...

You're wrong about what disingenuous means, as it has been explained to you already, as your own definition shows. As to my supposed insult of 'you' you'll find that the 'you' was using there was the rhetorical 'you' and not specifically you. That's yet another out of context pick for you.

4. Huh? Tyr asked if user fees could support police functions.

No I did not.

The answer is, "yes, sometimes". Where they could but currently does not resort to user fees, a city department could alter its policy to fund some security services through user fees instead of taxation. For example, organizers of a parade could pay for the police force that covers the event. Or a city could allow organizers to provide their own security (the police union might object). The city could put a contract out to bid to provide security to a gated community (the police union might object). These scenarios have parallel examples in the education industry.

Hey look, more out of context stuff! Police != security services.

5. The difference is the fraction of the population that operates under the user fee and private provider regime and fraction that operates under the direct subsidy to government institutions regime.

And how much is left for the government institution, how much gets pocketed by the private, and if what's left is enough to fund viable choices. I contest that in most cases it would not be.

6. (a) Cartels are anti-competitive. (b) An individual firm is not a cartel. An individual firm is a party to an agreement. It's the coordination that makes the cartel.

That doesn't change anything said.

7. No. "Disingenuous" is the gone-to-college way to call someone "liar".

No, it isn't. You're simply wrong and refuse to see it despite being corrected. I know exactly what the word means. Lying is disingenuous but not all cases of being disingenuous are lies. In common usage, something being called 'disingenuous' often means that something specifically was not technically a lie, but distorts the truth.

8. And any similarity to the term used for masturbation is entirely coincidental. What's the word...? "Disingenuous", maybe?

Of course it isn't coincidental. I didn't claim it was. What is your point? That's the term, and I explained not only what it means, but how it was applicable in that case.

9. "Method" is singular. "Options" is plural. Several different policy options support enhanced parent control, and these different options would have different effects in the short run and longer term: repeal of assignment by district, charter schools, tuition vouchers, tuition tax credits, education tax credits, virtual schools in the government system, Parent Performance Contracting, credit by exam for all courses required for graduation, a complete withdrawal of the State from the education industry, etc. Tyr made an assertion about "your system" (singular) or "method" (singular), or
"proposal". I asked "which proposal?" Earlier, tyr wrote:and So, let's consider which of these might include user fees. Tuition vouchers in competitive markets function as user fees to a degree. Depending on how the legislature structures the voucher (can a school charge more? Can parents keep the difference if tuition is less? Can part of the voucher apply to Math instruction at one school and part apply to language instruction at another?, etc.) the voucher creates incentives for buyers to economize and for producers to improve quality and lower costs. byw, even half of the US average subsidy of $12,000 per pupil-year is more than enough to empower parents in a competitive market for education services.

Was that footnote '9' supposed to go somewhere else, because what you said doesn't address what I said there. Besides that, are you really claiming that because there are several similar methods or systems you are advocating for, that it's wrong to claim you're advocating? I'm being kind here because I'm not even going into the horrors of some of your example options.

10. We could have a productive discussion if we weighed the features of industries that make a difference to the applicability of user fees. When do they work, and when do they not, and why? Certainly I would want private investigators as a fall back if police do not do their job. If police cover up a crime and a victim hires a PI, I can see a court awarding a judgment against the city for the expense to the victim of the investigation. A tax-funded user fee for security services.

As opposed to investigations from other government agencies in a checks and balances short of fashion. I don't want private investigators for people to fall back on because the people who need them most couldn't afford them.

11. Dunno what you mean.

So the children who can't afford effective schooling because the most cost effective option is to not provide the service can get some 'on the job training' in their local sweatshops.

12. Water, mail, and schooling. Water, maybe. I can see a complicated discussion there. Mail and school? I expect that society would be better off if the State (government, generally) left the business to non-State actors.

And I disagree strongly.

13. In many US States the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools occupy an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy. They qualify as a monopoly.

That doesn't address my criticism. No they don't. If they did, they would be actionable against under anti-monopoly laws. They are exempt from them because of compelling state interests.

14. I'm "proposing" several. I support most expansions of parent control. Some policies more directly rely on user fees (sometimes tax subsidized, sometimes not) than do others.

So?


At this point you're just repeating yourself, making me repeat myself. If anything changes, let me know.

 

[leftysergeant]

I have asserted the following:
1. As institutions take from individual parents the power to determine for their own children the choice of curricuklum and the pace and method of instruction, overall system performance falls, and
2. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

You have asserted it, but done sod-all to prove it. What you claim is harm to the student isn't.

You want an example of something that will hurt a student? Try putting him to work in a factory where he will just learn a specific trade and how to kiss the bosses' asses because the kid's famiy is hurting for money to keep a roof over their heads.

The express train to Dystopia is now boarding at this station.

It's the difference between everyone in your town voting on the one size and style of shoes every 12 year-old must wear and individual parents taking their children to the shoe store of their choice for a fitting.

This is an absurd comparison. We need all citizens to be able to read and do simple math. We need them to know history so that they are not so ready to follow some raving maniac like Hannity or the Rushblob off the edge of a cliff.

The age-graded one-size-fits-all curriculum guarantees a poor fit for most students.

Cow cookies. Just the fact that you are so poorly acculturated does not mean that the system failed. The fact that there are, so far, so few people who think like you is a good sign that it is working nicely.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

("Context" discussion deleted)...
Hey look, a different context than the question was originally posed in. Broadening the definitions of 'support' and 'user fees' beyond what they were¹.

("Disingenuous" discussion deleted)...

No I did not².

Hey look, more out of context stuff! Police != security services³.

And how much is left for the government institution, how much gets pocketed by the private, and if what's left is enough to fund viable choices. I contest that in most cases it would not be⁴.

That doesn't change anything said⁵.

("Disingenuous" discussion deleted)...

(Tyr's masturbation discussion deleted)...

Was that footnote '9' supposed to go somewhere else, because what you said doesn't address what I said there. Besides that, are you really claiming that because there are several similar methods or systems you are advocating for, that it's wrong to claim you're advocating⁶? I'm being kind here because I'm not even going into the horrors of some of your example options.

(Discussion deleted)...

So the children who can't afford effective schooling because the most cost effective option is to not provide the service can get some 'on the job training' in their local sweatshops⁷.

And I disagree strongly⁸.

That doesn't address my criticism. No they don't. If they did, they would be actionable against under anti-monopoly laws. They are exempt from them because of compelling state interests⁹.

So¹⁰?

1. The "context" of our discussion is the issue of user fees in support of schools (versus the currently prevailing method of support through local property taxes and State-level tax support). I don't see a definition of user fees anywhere, so I'm not "broadening" any original definition. tyr is...what's the word?...disingenuous, here.
2. Ummm...

1. I say the idea is ridiculous and nasty, yes. Why? It's like asserting that people should only pay taxes for the roads they use. No functioning society has ever worked this way, because it simply doesn't make a functioning society.
...
...a user-fee based school system would mean expensive public schools (or terrible, underfunded schools).

1. Maybe it's like asserting that people should only pay for the movie tickets that they use, the cars they drive, or the groceries that they eat. One advantage of market pricing over the command economy is that market pricing creates incentives for both buyers and sellers to avoid waste of resources. Lots of societies have worked that way. If the twentieth century taught us anything, it's that command economies do not work.
2. The US spends more, per pupil-year, that every industrial democracy except Switzerland and gets a wretched result. "What resources are required to bring a child to __x__ level of reading comprehension, mathematical and scientific literacy, and vocational readiness?" is an empirical qyestion which only an experiment can answer with any degree of accuracy. A State-monopoly system is an experiment with one treatment and no controls, a retarded experimental design.

Malcolm, do you apply that reasoning to road construction and maintenance? Why or why not? Do you apply it to police? Do you apply it to the military? Do you apply it to regulatory agencies?

As to your second point, that means that other countries with public school systems spend less and get better results as well. Not exactly an endorsement of free market education.

So, yes, tyr asked if user fees could support road construction and police functions, and my answer was "yes" for roads (gas taxes and vehicle weight taxes are user fees, and the state generally contracts out the actual construction work) and "some" for police (e.g., security for private functions on public property).
3. Private security services substitute for some police functions. Whether the abstract economic reasoning that indicates a welfare-economic benefit from a switch to user fees for schools applies as well to "the police" would depend on which police functions policy makers decided to fund through user fees. This is hardly "more out of context stuff". It's the context tyr introduced.
4. This depends on the particular policy option. Some forms of enhanced parent control over educational choices use market mechanisms (e.g., user fees) directly. All forms of enhanced parent control create incentives for education service providers outside the State-monopoly school system. Competitive markets generally improve goods and services and lower costs. Taxpayers and students would gain from a shift away from the prevailing State-monopoly system toward a more market-oriented education system.
5. It falsifies what tyr wrote. Corporations are not cartels. I did not call unions "cartels". I said the NEA, AFT, and AFSCME form a cartel. Further, tyr wrote: "A cartel is an explicit agreement between competing producers and manufacturers". The parties in a cartel do not compete. That is the point of the cartel. The point of anti-trust legislation is that consumers benefit from competition.
6. Misapplied footnote? Likely. Is it mistaken to assert that I advocate for enhanced parent control? Not at all. Tyr errs in the implication that all forms of enhanced parent control have the same effects ("your method", "your system". "your proposal" would do __X__). This is why I asked "Which method?" Tyr dodged.
7. Please elaborate. Why expect this result? Why has it not happened in countries that subsidize parent choice of school?
8. Japan has private mail service. Fed Ex, DHL, and UPS deliver parcels and would deliver letters if Congress repealed the Postal Service's legally-imposed monopoly. e-mail and fax have drained that cash cow. Without tax-subsidized life support, the postal service is doomed. Without their legally-enforced exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy, the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel would be just one (unusually corrupt, abusive, and inefficient) of many suppliers of education services.
9. Schools operated by government employees initially acquired their exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' pre-college education subsidy for reasons buried in history (theocratic indoctrination in pre-Revolutionary religious colonies, and, later, anti-Catholic bigotry). The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools retain their exclusive position in receipt of the subsidy through dedicated lobbying. There's no "compelling state interest" in preserving the cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy.
10. So an assertion like "your method" (singular) or "your proposal" or "your system" would have __X__ malign effect is unclear. Which method?

 

[tyr_13]

1. The "context" of our discussion is the issue of user fees in support of schools (versus the currently prevailing method of support through local property taxes and State-level tax support). I don't see a definition of user fees anywhere, so I'm not "broadening" any original definition. tyr is...what's the word?...disingenuous, here.

We were discussing user fees such as movie tickets. Nice try though.

2. Ummm...So, yes, tyr asked if user fees could support road construction and police functions, and my answer was "yes" for roads (gas taxes and vehicle weight taxes are user fees, and the state generally contracts out the actual construction work) and "some" for police (e.g., security for private functions on public property).

That is not what I asked.

You said..

1. Maybe it's like asserting that people should only pay for the movie tickets that they use, the cars they drive, or the groceries that they eat. One advantage of market pricing over the command economy is that market pricing creates incentives for both buyers and sellers to avoid waste of resources. Lots of societies have worked that way. If the twentieth century taught us anything, it's that command economies do not work.

To which I replied,

Quote:
Malcolm, do you apply that reasoning to road construction and maintenance? Why or why not? Do you apply it to police? Do you apply it to the military? Do you apply it to regulatory agencies?

The question was NOT 'if user fees could support police or road construction'. The question was to apply the reasoning of things like movie theaters and grocery stores to road construction and police. Would you apply market economies to police the same way a movie theater does? I'd of course say no, and for similar reason to why I wouldn't apply it to schools.

3. Private security services substitute for some police functions. Whether the abstract economic reasoning that indicates a welfare-economic benefit from a switch to user fees for schools applies as well to "the police" would depend on which police functions policy makers decided to fund through user fees. This is hardly "more out of context stuff". It's the context tyr introduced.

That was not the context I introduced it with, that is the context you latter applied different form the one that I introduced that I then addressed.

4. This depends on the particular policy option. Some forms of enhanced parent control over educational choices use market mechanisms (e.g., user fees) directly. All forms of enhanced parent control create incentives for education service providers outside the State-monopoly school system. Competitive markets generally improve goods and services and lower costs. Taxpayers and students would gain from a shift away from the prevailing State-monopoly system toward a more market-oriented education system.

You assert, I disagree.

5. It falsifies what tyr wrote. Corporations are not cartels. I did not call unions "cartels". I said the NEA, AFT, and AFSCME form a cartel. Further, tyr wrote: "A cartel is an explicit agreement between competing producers and manufacturers". The parties in a cartel do not compete. That is the point of the cartel. The point of anti-trust legislation is that consumers benefit from competition.

What I wrote was the definition of the word 'cartel'. If you don't like me using the actual definition that's too bad.

6. Misapplied footnote? Likely. Is it mistaken to assert that I advocate for enhanced parent control? Not at all. Tyr errs in the implication that all forms of enhanced parent control have the same effects ("your method", "your system". "your proposal" would do __X__). This is why I asked "Which method?" Tyr dodged.

I implied no such thing, although I have pointed out flaws in your proposals for achieving more parental control and some flaws with them having that more control in the first place. Those criticism apply to those proposals. It isn't a dodge on my part.

7. Please elaborate. Why expect this result? Why has it not happened in countries that subsidize parent choice of school?

Because other places aren't the US, and in some places it does.

8. Japan has private mail service. Fed Ex, DHL, and UPS deliver parcels and would deliver letters if Congress repealed the Postal Service's legally-imposed monopoly. e-mail and fax have drained that cash cow. Without tax-subsidized life support, the postal service is doomed. Without their legally-enforced exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy, the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel would be just one (unusually corrupt, abusive, and inefficient) of many suppliers of education services.
9. Schools operated by government employees initially acquired their exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' pre-college education subsidy for reasons buried in history (theocratic indoctrination in pre-Revolutionary religious colonies, and, later, anti-Catholic bigotry). The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools retain their exclusive position in receipt of the subsidy through dedicated lobbying. There's no "compelling state interest" in preserving the cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy.

Japan is not the US, Japan doesn't have Alaska, Japan doesn't have the Great Plains. Confounding factors will determine things like if private or public schools, private or public roads, and private or public water are optimal choices. Where I live, private water is optimal. In a city, public water is. In Japan, private mail services are either optimal or does well enough. In some places, private schools are as good as they can get. That isn't the case in most of the US.

10. So an assertion like "your method" (singular) or "your proposal" or "your system" would have __X__ malign effect is unclear. Which method?

Vouchers. Vouchers that let parents get back the 'overage'. Repealing child labor laws. Breaking unions. Take your pick.


Nice dodge by calling some of my post 'masturbation discussion' and ignoring how wrong you are on what words mean.

You're not bringing up anything new. You're simply retelling the same dodges, goalpost moves, et all, again and again. Don't advance the discussion for all I care. You're not going to change your view or advance the discussion and I'm fairly sure that anyone spectating has been provided adequate information on this line of though to not be swayed. Good day.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Just one example of the disingenuity in tyr's discussion:...

(Discussion deleted)
...
What I wrote was the definition of the word 'cartel'. If you don't like me using the actual definition that's too bad⁵.
...

Well,...

Calling unions cartels is going off on them.

The definition is partially correct. Cartels are anti-competitive agreements or organizations. Tyr errs in the assertion that I called a union a cartel. I called the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel a cartel. I did not call any union a cartel. I have no problem with organized bargaining at the factory level. If a group of employees want to hire some agent to negotiate a contract for the group, and if the employer finds it convenient to negotiate one contract rather than many individual contracts, that's none of my business. The economic case against monopoly applies to industry-wide collective bargaining.

I'm fairly sure that anyone spectating has been provided adequate information on this line of though to not be swayed. Good day.

 

[WildCat]

Calling unions cartels is going off on them.

They are cartels. You think they aren't?

 

[tyr_13]

They are cartels. You think they aren't?

Go back and read what Mal claimed and what my objection was. Some union organizations are cartels. That doesn't mean there is no competition or that they are a monopoly, or that state protected monopolies on some activities, such as police, are automatically harmful.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Go back and read what Mal claimed and what my objection was. Some union organizations are cartels. That doesn't mean there is no competition or that they are a monopoly, or that state protected monopolies on some activities, such as police, are automatically harmful.

The NEA is not a catel. The AFT is not a cartel. The AFSCME is not a cartel. The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel is a cartel. In many US States, legislatures and school districts have given to schools operated by members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy. The cartel is a sole supplier of pre-college education services to the State. As a sole supplier, the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools qualiy as a monopoly. I called the cartel a cartel and the cartel's school system a monopoly. Further, I observed that a public sector union might object to a policy of contracting out to non-State organizations some services currently provided by members of public sector unions. Tyr called this "attacking unions". Tyr said that the cartel's schools do not qualify as a monopoly.

Milton Friedman called the US "public" school system a monopoly.

A corpse by any other name would smell as rank. Regardless of names, the current institutional structure produces results that differ from the results that a different structure would produce. Defenders of the curent structure (why are they not called "conservatives"?) assert that a move to a more competitive institutional/legal environment would yield more harm than good. Opponents of the cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 educational subsidy argue that a move to a more competitive structure would benefit students, parents, real classroom teachers, and taxpayers. Abundant evidence supports an expansion of parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy.

 

[leftysergeant]

The NEA is not a catel. The AFT is not a cartel. The AFSCME is not a cartel. The NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel is a cartel. In many US States, legislatures and school districts have given to schools operated by members of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel an exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy.

Nobody is buying it. You just don't like unions.

Get a clue, dude. The uniuons don't run the schools. They just make sure that whiney people like you do not screw the teachers out of what they deserve for the services they provide.

Further, I observed that a public sector union might object to a policy of contracting out to non-State organizations some services currently provided by members of public sector unions.

They bloody well should. The whole idea of doing something so stupid is to destroy the public schools as they now exist.

Tyr called this "attacking unions". Tyr said that the cartel's schools do not qualify as a monopoly.

You are entitled to your own opinion, but you do not get to create an alternative reality and expect everyone else to live ion it.

Milton Friedman called the US "public" school system a monopoly.

Friedman was wrong about a lot of stuff. He should burn in hell for giving any aid to Chile while that scumbag Pinochet was in power. The idiot actually trhought that the privater sector would take better care of public lands and the infrastructure than does government. What an ass clown!

A corpse by any other name would smell as rank. Regardless of names, the current institutional structure produces results that differ from the results that a different structure would produce.

Well, DUH!

The current system at least ensures that every child has access to some educational services regardless of how rich the parents are. This means that there are opportunities for upward social mobility. That's why most people have agreed to be taxed to provide those services to everybody's children. That you didn't like having to go to school with ordinary folk does not make it a bad idea.

You remind me of that snivelling protagonist from "Anthem." He was so full of himself that he just figured he would have to be assigned to some prestigious position in society, but was so annoying and hard to put up with that he was assigned to a menial position. What you and that looney tune Rand failed to grasp is that the world does not revolve around what you think you deserve.

Defenders of the curent structure (why are they not called "conservatives"?) assert that a move to a more competitive institutional/legal environment would yield more harm than good.

And they would be right. Public schools would be starved for funds when the rich flee from them to enroll their precious little larvae in fancy schools on my dime.

It's like this. We rational people know that having an educated population is an absolutely good thing for the collective. We do not "subsize" education for the poor. We make it available to them. For decades, the system worked perfectly. Then the investor class got greedy and an old jelly-brain POTUS sold the country the idea that that greed was what had made us a great nation. The fiancially secure got the idea that they had what they had on their own merits and didn't have to give back to the institutions that made their prosperity possible.

Opponents of the cartel's exclusive position in receipt of the taxpayers' age 6-18 educational subsidy argue that a move to a more competitive structure would benefit students, parents, real classroom teachers, and taxpayers.

Yeah, but it is total bull ****. "Competition" does not benefit the students who can't get into the better, more selective schools. Your parents were never barred by law from sending you to a better school on their dime. Most people are not going to have the option of paying more than what the tightwads in their communities are willing to provide per student. The poor get screwed every time.

\

Abundant evidence supports an expansion of parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy.

The bleating of a bunch of anarcho-capitalists is not actually evidence.

 

[Toke]

I'm not sure how widespread this philosophy is among libertarians, but the idea that an educated populace isn't good for society as a whole is painfully stupid.

Yeah, nothing will bring peace and prosperity to a nation like having a huge underclass of uneducated people with little or no hope for living decent lives! Just look at France, right before the Revolution. And Russia, right before the Revolution. And China, right before the Revolution. What could go wrong?

The truth of the matter is that a large pool of uneducated people allows the haves to control the have-nots more or less completely.

Hence the cuts in education we see from the Republicans, among other things.

Good points.
Outsourcing manufacturing might work fine if you have population with the education for this new "knowledge economy", doing it while cutting back on education is heading for 3. world status.


Why is this tread still going?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Good points.
Outsourcing manufacturing might work fine if you have population with the education for this new "knowledge economy", doing it while cutting back on education is heading for 3. world status. Why is this tread still going?

Because ...people... post nonsense that begs refutation. NOT(government = society). The government of a locality is the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in that locality. A society is free in direct proportion to the amount of social interactions that fall between compulsory and prohibited. Markets in goods and services outperform institutional provision through command economies. Read Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Friedrich Hayek, The Road to Serfdom, The Constitution of Liberty, Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, The Role of Government in Education, C. Eugene Steuerle, et. al. eds.,Vouchers and the Provision of Public Services, Myron Lieberman, Privatization and Educational Choice, John Chubb and Terry Moe, Politics, Markets, and America's Schools, Robert Enlow and Lenore Ealy, eds. Liberty and Learning: Milton Friedman's Voucher Idea at Fifty, Sheldon Richman, Separating School and State, Edwin West, School Vouchers in Principle and Practice: A Survey (the World Bank Research Observer).

NOT(attendance at school = education). In many cases, they are mutually exclusive. "Education" includes on-the-job training. Compulsory attendance statutes, child labor laws, and minimum wage laws put on-the-job training off limits to many children. NOT(government-operated schools = public education). Students and teachers at the Academy of the Sacred Heart or Hawaii Baptist Academy are as much "the public" as are students and teachers at W.E.B Dubois High School or Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School. Homeschoolers are as much "the public" as are students and teachers in the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools.

The welfare-economic case for a State role in the education industry, beyond the role that the State plays in, say, the sportswear industry or the kitchenware industry, an original asignment of title and a stable system of contract law, contains gaping holes. Beyond a very low level, there are no economies of scale at the delivery end of the education industry as it currently operates.

What is needed is choice in education. School choice has not and will not lead to more productive education because the obsolete technology called ʺschool” is inherently inelastic. As long as ʺschoolʺ refers to the traditional structure of buildings and grounds with services delivered in boxes called classrooms to which customers must be transported by car or bus, ʺschool choiceʺ will be unable to meaningfully alter the quality or efficiency of education.

The "public goods" argument implies subsidy and regulation, at most, not direct State operation of an industry. Since corporate oversight is a public good and the State itself is a corporation, oversight of State functions is a public good which the State itself cannot supply. State assumption of responsibility for the provision of public goods (such as subsidization of school) transforms the free rider problem at the root of public goods analysis but does not eliminate it.

What people in the US call "the public school system" originated in religious indoctrination in the theocratic colonies of British North Amereica, bureaucratic empire-building by public-sector entrepreneuers like Horace Mann and Richard Armstrong, and anti-Catholic bigotry. It survives on dedicated lobbying by current recipients of the US taxpayers' $500 billion+ per year K-12 subsidy.

 

[leftysergeant]

Why is this tread still going?

It was started by an anarcho-capitalists.

Rather like trying to reason with a twoofer.

 

[Toke]

It was started by an anarcho-capitalists.

Rather like trying to reason with a twoofer.

I see what you mean.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Johnny): "...the idea that an educated populace isn't good for society as a whole is painfully stupid."
The idea that the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in your neighborhood (the State) has anything positive to contribute to the education industry, beyond what the State contributes to the shoe industry or the hand tool industry, an initial assignment of title and a stable system of contract law, is painfully stupid. Are we naked because the State does not operate cotton farms, textile mills, and clothing stores? Are we starving because the State does not operate vegetable farms, cattle ranches, canneries, slaughter houses, or grocery stores?

State control of the education industry does for education what collective farming did for nutrition in the Ukraine, 1932-1933.

Socialism is an infantile power fantasy.

 

[leftysergeant]

(Johnny): "...the idea that an educated populace isn't good for society as a whole is painfully stupid."
The idea that the largest dealer in interpersonal violence in your neighborhood (the State) has anything positive to contribute to the education industry, beyond what the State contributes to the shoe industry or the hand tool industry, an initial assignment of title and a stable system of contract law, is painfully stupid.

Total crap. The state is the collective will of the p[eople. The people want schools and submit to taxes to pay for them. If the elite and the drooling whackadoodles have a problem with sending their larvae to the same schools with the sons and daughters of normal folk, they can go out of pocket for the schools they think are better, but we have no reason to hand them some of our money to subsidize them to a greater advantage over the rest of us.

Are we naked because the State does not operate cotton farms, textile mills, and clothing stores? Are we starving because the State does not operate vegetable farms, cattle ranches, canneries, slaughter houses, or grocery stores?

No, but the chances are that, without government oversight and the power to seriously punish violators, we might be poisonmed or injured by those products. Without government oversight, the industrialists and landlords would probably offer us the choice of being worked half to death or starving.

You are just ignoring that public schools are an expression of the public will, brought about because the average person could not provide such services for himself.

State control of the education industry does for education what collective farming did for nutrition in the Ukraine, 1932-1933.

An infantile anarcho-capitalist power fantasy.