Run schools off "user fees"

[leftysergeant]

Wait a tick, don't those criticisms apply to the method you're advocating?

It does seem to open the door to all manner of fly-by-night corporations to open rival schools, kind of like some of the health care facilities that a certain Florida governor was involved with.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Wait a tick, don't those criticisms apply to the method you're advocating?

No, because "do what you like" is not a prescription. Inevitably, for each sub-adult, somebody or some body decides how that sub-adult will spend the time between age 0 and age 18. Certainly a policy which gives to parents the power to determine the course of study and the pace and method of instruction is a policy, and it makes sense to consider the relative costs and benefits of that policy compared to other policy options, but those other options include either a prescribed curriculum and a pace and method of instruction or they include a body which prescribes the curriculum and the pace and method of instruction for other people's children. Parent control is not a curriculum prescription.

The difference between a government-operated school system and a competitive market in education services is the difference between a politically-determined breakfast menu for the citizens of a State and a policy of "buy and eat whatever you like, within your budget".

Politically-determined menus give me a rash.

 

[tyr_13]

No, because "do what you like" is not a prescription. Inevitably, for each sub-adult, somebody or some body decides how that sub-adult will spend the time between age 0 and age 18. Certainly a policy which gives to parents the power to determine the course of study and the pace and method of instruction is a policy, and it makes sense to consider the relative costs and benefits of that policy compared to other policy options, but those other options include either a prescribed curriculum and a pace and method of instruction or they include a body which prescribes the curriculum and the pace and method of instruction for other people's children. Parent control is not a curriculum prescription.

The difference between a government-operated school system and a competitive market in education services is the difference between a politically-determined breakfast menu for the citizens of a State and a policy of "buy and eat whatever you like, within your budget".

Politically-determined menus give me a rash.

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.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Malcolm): "We can do with fewer people who see other people's children as their meal ticket and as raw material for their social experiments."
(tyr_13): "Wait a tick, don't those criticisms apply to the method you're advocating?"
The difference is "other people's children". Policies which give to individual parents the power to determine for their own children which institution, if any, shall receive the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy and to determine, through this choice or otherwise, the curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, place this power in the hands of people who know children best and who are most relaibly concerned for their welfare.

Parents are not perfect, but neither are bureaucrats.

 

[leftysergeant]

The difference is "other people's children". Policies which give to individual parents the power to determine for their own children which institution, if any, shall receive the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy and to determine, through this choice or otherwise, the curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, place this power in the hands of people who know children best and who are most relaibly concerned for their welfare.

I frankly don't give a rat's what the upper crust want to do with the subsidy. It is given to all who wish to use it, because it benefits society that those who cannot afford to privately educate their children have free schooling available. We cannot afford to become a nation divided into the ignorant and the lettered.

The well-to-do can already send their offspring to fancy schools on their own dime. Why should we subsidize them to further lock in the availability of quality education to their own class and leave the rest of the children of the country to struggle to find good teachers?

The rich have what they have largely as a result of the labor of others, and it is only right that they should return something for that wealth. We do not exist only for the enrichment of swine like the Waltons or the Koch roaches.

Most parents do not have the resources to educate their children themselves, whether we are talking about money or skills. Illiterate, foreign-born parents are not likely to home-school the next Pulitzer Prize winner.

Most families need the income of two parents to survive financially. How much time can they really spend with the kids?

Vouchers do not really open up opportunities to the children of the poor, or to struggling students who need the attention of a dedicated teacher, unless any child can show up at any school and demand admission for the price of the voucher.

In order for the USA to adopt that marvelous European voucher system which you so admire, we would have to bear European-level taxation.

Don't argue, you cannot have it both ways.

 

[tyr_13]

(Malcolm): "We can do with fewer people who see other people's children as their meal ticket and as raw material for their social experiments."
(tyr_13): "Wait a tick, don't those criticisms apply to the method you're advocating?"
The difference is "other people's children". Policies which give to individual parents the power to determine for their own children which institution, if any, shall receive the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy and to determine, through this choice or otherwise, the curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, place this power in the hands of people who know children best and who are most relaibly concerned for their welfare.

Parents are not perfect, but neither are bureaucrats.

No, that is not a difference. The educators in your method are still teaching other people's children. Still using them as a meal ticket. 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. The people making the choices switches from parents as power through voting and courts, to through market forces. The criticisms apply at least as well to your method.

But at least in your method you'd get to teach about Christ as Lord, creationism, how the left is always wrong, and how Ann Rand was a visionary profit. Plus then you could keep out the darkies. You know, the real goals.

 

[leftysergeant]

Yeah, and what tyr_13 said.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

(Malcolm): "Policies which give to individual parents the power to determine for their own children which institution, if any, shall receive the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy and to determine, through this choice or otherwise, the curriculum and the pace and method of instruction, place this power in the hands of people who know children best and who are most relaibly concerned for their welfare."
(lefty\): "...the subsidy...is given to all who wish to use it, because it benefits society that those who cannot afford to privately educate their children have free schooling available¹. We cannot afford to become a nation divided into the ignorant and the lettered².
The well-to-do can already send their offspring to fancy schools on their own dime. Why should we subsidize them to further lock in the availability of quality education to their own class and leave the rest of the children of the country to struggle to find good teachers³? The rich have what they have largely as a result of the labor of others⁴, and it is only right that they should return something for that wealth⁵. Most parents do not have the resources to educate their children themselves, whether we are talking about money or skills⁶. Illiterate, foreign-born parents are not likely to home-school the next Pulitzer Prize winner⁷. Most families need the income of two parents to survive financially. How much time can they really spend with the kids⁸? Vouchers do not really open up opportunities to the children of the poor, or to struggling students who need the attention of a dedicated teacher, unless any child can show up at any school and demand admission for the price of the voucher⁹. In order for the USA to adopt that marvelous European voucher system which you so admire, we would have to bear European-level taxation¹⁰. Don't argue, you cannot have it both ways."
1. School can cost as much as people will pay. Education is potentially cheap. One large cost of the current system is the opportunity cost to students of the time that they spend in school. This cost falls most heavily on the children of poor and minority parents, whom the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel consigns to wretched schools. The most effective accountability mechanism that humans have yet devised is a policy which gives to unhappy customers the power to take their business elsewhere.
2. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.
3. As Milton Friedman observed, a program for the poor alone is a poor program. Such a structure invites meddling that politically adept parents would not tolerate. Further, it does not take $12,000 per pupil-year for 12 years to teach a normal child to read and compute. Parents who spend more than $6,000 per year buy prestige or social exclusion, not education.
4. We al coast on millenia of on accumulated knowledge. In a market economy, the difference between what the rich and others have is largely due to their talent and work ethic, seems to me.
5. Again, in a market economy, people become rich by providing goods and services to others. I see no obligation to "return" anything. Talented or skilled people earn their income. From a welfare-economic point of view, progressive taxation is counter-indicated (that's complicated. For another time).
6. a) Vouchers address this objection.
b) Homeschooling parents do not need to know everything. There are these amazing resources that experts call "books".
7. Defenders of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools use the critical role of family involvement to excuse their failure. Neither are their schools likely to produce a Pulitzer prize winner from a child of illiterate immigrants. Such is more likely, however, from homeschoolers or independent schools than from the cartel's wretched schools.
8. Parents would have more time if the State did not take command such a large share of their time (through taxation) and their children's time (through compulsory attendance). In Hawaii, nothing in the law requires that homeschool instruction occur between 0800 and 1430.
9. Any expansion of the range of options available to parents enhances parent control over education. A $5,000 voucher puts a $12,000 school within reach of a parent who can afford $7,000.
10. Vouchers good for some fraction 1/2 < a/b < 1 of a school district's per pupil cost would reduce the tax burden. Obviously.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

No, that is not a difference. The educators in your method1 are still teaching other people's children. Still using them as a meal ticket. And people in your system still don't get to choose everything their children learn, only those with enough resources to choose different schools¹. Those with the money would in effect be able to dominate the market and do their own social experiments on other people's children². The people making the choices switches from parents as power through voting and courts, to through market forces³. The criticisms apply at least as well to your method.

But at least in your method you'd get to teach about Christ as Lord, creationism, how the left is always wrong, and how Ann Rand was a visionary profit. Plus then you could keep out the darkies. You know, the real goals⁴.

Dunno what you mean by my "method" or my "system". I have argued that overall education system performance (measured by standardized test scores or lifetime earnings or incarceration rates) will relate directly (scores, income) or inversely (incarceration) to the degree of parent control.
2. This has not happened in markets for other goods and services. Do "those with the money" dictate your diet or the type of car you drive? Such dictation is more likely in a politically-controlled system.
3. We agree here. We disagree as to which feedback mechanism works better.
4. Surveys find greater support for vouchers among blacks than among whites, and that support for vouchers is inversely related to income.
5. That's "visionary prophet". What do you teach? P.E.?

 

[Travis]

No, that is not a difference. The educators in your method are still teaching other people's children. Still using them as a meal ticket. 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. The people making the choices switches from parents as power through voting and courts, to through market forces. The criticisms apply at least as well to your method.

But at least in your method you'd get to teach about Christ as Lord, creationism, how the left is always wrong, and how Ann Rand was a visionary profit. Plus then you could keep out the darkies. You know, the real goals.

Malcom, parents already have loads of control over the schools. I should know I've been to enough freaking school board meetings where parents forced the school to go in directions the school itself did not want to go. Eliminating trade education such as woodworking is one example at my old school.

 

[leftysergeant]

1. School can cost as much as people will pay. Education is potentially cheap. One large cost of the current system is the opportunity cost to students of the time that they spend in school.

Cry me a river. So the little tykes don't like having to learn at least some modicum of discipline. Must have really annoyed you, huh? Too bad. Some people actually learned those lessons and are trying to function in a society built by people like me and under attack by people like you.

This cost falls most heavily on the children of poor and minority parents, whom the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel consigns to wretched schools.

Cow cookies. The tightwads who take the attitude "I've got mine, screw you and your whelps" confine them to crappy schools by refusing to fund them properly. The idea of funding schools by property taxes is idiotic to begin with. It should be funded by income taxes, statewide so that one school doesw not get an advantage in beign in the middle of a bunch of rich slobs while the school in the poorer area gets crumbs.

The most effective accountability mechanism that humans have yet devised is a policy which gives to unhappy customers the power to take their business elsewhere.

Horse feathers. School boards are elected. They are more acountabvle than some damned corporation. The poor, even with a voucher, are not going to be able to find a private school that is any better without kicking in a little extra themselves. That means it is no different from today.

2. Political control of school harms most the children of the least politically adept parents.

I will remind you that school boards are elected. Corporations do not have to answer directly to the parents.

3. As Milton Friedman observed, a program for the poor alone is a poor program. Such a structure invites meddling that politically adept parents would not tolerate. Further, it does not take $12,000 per pupil-year for 12 years to teach a normal child to read and compute. Parents who spend more than $6,000 per year buy prestige or social exclusion, not education.

Friedman talked out his ass an awful lot ands should have ended his life bouncing at the end of a rope for what he did in Chile. And let me point out to you that there is a hell of a lot more to education than just having the skills the corporate swine need you to have to assemble whamdiddlies on an automated line. There are things like history and art that need to be taught. A more intensive course in basic nutrition and cooking would be a really good idea, too.

4. We al coast on millenia of on accumulated knowledge. In a market economy, the difference between what the rich and others have is largely due to their talent and work ethic, seems to me.

Seems to me you live in a fantasy world. Read the newspaper some time. Better some McClatchey publication than any of pig boy Murdoch's toilet paper of the Washignton Times.

5. Again, in a market economy, people become rich by providing goods and services to others. I see no obligation to "return" anything. Talented or skilled people earn their income. From a welfare-economic point of view, progressive taxation is counter-indicated (that's complicated. For another time).

Tilt your head to one side and beat it until that idiotic notion that there is such a thing as a slef-made man, aside from a naked savage chasing down antelope in the bush, falls out your ear.

6. a) Vouchers address this objection.
b) Homeschooling parents do not need to know everything. There are these amazing resources that experts call "books".

You have to have some skills to teach the rug rats how to use those resources. FAIL.

7. Defenders of the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel's schools use the critical role of family involvement to excuse their failure. Neither are their schools likely to produce a Pulitzer prize winner from a child of illiterate immigrants. Such is more likely, however, from homeschoolers or independent schools than from the cartel's wretched schools.

Totally pulled out of your lower torso.

8. Parents would have more time if the State did not take command such a large share of their time (through taxation) and their children's time (through compulsory attendance).

Oh, my, have you bought into the idiotic notion that people have to work extra hours to pay their taxes in a country that taxes income progressively? Really?

In Hawaii, nothing in the law requires that homeschool instruction occur between 0800 and 1430.

What has that to do with the price of kumquats?

9. Any expansion of the range of options available to parents enhances parent control over education. A $5,000 voucher puts a $12,000 school within reach of a parent who can afford $7,000.

And if they close the free school down the street for lack of funding, the person who could not afford $500 is totally screwed.

10. Vouchers good for some fraction 1/2 < a/b < 1 of a school district's per pupil cost would reduce the tax burden. Obviously.

So what? It fails to deliver the services to those who cannot afford to send their kids to a decent school even if they could get into one. Where is the money for the voucher going to come from?

Oh, that's right. From the budget of the schools that HAVE TO take any kid who shows up.

Don't even pretend that you give a rat's about the choices available to the poor. You want our kids like Wall Street wants our Social Security funds.

 

[leftysergeant]

5. That's "visionary prophet". What do you teach? P.E.?

That's probably a Freudian slip. Only thing the greedy little twit understood was profit. She couldn't write for beans, but she sure could push greedy people's buttons.

By the way, do you notice all the pudgy little twerps runniung around these days? Maybe they should be spending more time learning some sort of motor skills to burn off extra calories instead of being coached to take a test that does not measure how well acculturated they are, but serves as a measure of how useful the corporate swine will find them when they walk out the door. I know that youer lack of social skills does not bother you, but you should try to see what other people see when you come here to spew.

 

[tyr_13]

Dunno what you mean by my "method" or my "system".

Vouchers with governmental regulations hands off. You can't play ignorant of what you yourself are saying.

I have argued that overall education system performance (measured by standardized test scores or lifetime earnings or incarceration rates) will relate directly (scores, income) or inversely (incarceration) to the degree of parent control.

That's a gross oversimplification of your own argument.

2. This has not happened in markets for other goods and services. Do "those with the money" dictate your diet or the type of car you drive? Such dictation is more likely in a politically-controlled system.

Yes, it has. It's funny that you picked cars, because car companies definitely design cars based on new car buyers. People who buy new cars instead of used tend to be the ones with more money. So those with money do dictate what cars are available for everyone. I have an incredibly difficult time finding properly fitting shoes, even though the market should have taken care of that too. But different industries and business respond differently to market forces based in large part on regulations, and the actual product. So do parents take out student loans for high school just to have an actual choice, as opposed to a theoretical choice? Food is a different market from education, and market forces direct it in a different fashion, just as the car market is different from the food market. For someone who advocates a free market solution, you seem to not take into account a lot of free market dynamics.

3. We agree here. We disagree as to which feedback mechanism works better.

We are in disagreement over when which feedback mechanism works better.

4. Surveys find greater support for vouchers among blacks than among whites, and that support for vouchers is inversely related to income.

And?

5. That's "visionary prophet". What do you teach? P.E.?

I'm not a teacher. My degree is in English. I know what I wrote.

 

[Beat]

Nope.
0. Seems to me I included more context than do most of those who participate in this discussion.
1. Not at all! It's advocates for compulsory attendance statutes and tax aupport of schools who "insists on enforcing their expectation on to other people".
2. You say you "always" respond to the "nasty" idea that schools "should" have user fees with the rejoinder "'fine, if you want it that way, you cannot benefit from anything these children contribute to society when they are older, because you didn't help them" and that this "shuts them up every time". "Nasty" is your value judgment. Obviously the people who advance the proposition that schools "should" operate on user fees disagree. The difference could well turn on different assessments of the impact of the current system, the imagined impact of some alternative system, and the strength of the "public goods" argument as applied to the pre-college education industry. Until these considerations receive examination, it's inappropriate to "shut them up every time", seems to me. If you "shut them up every time" at that preliminay stage in the discussion, how do you know what "style of reasoning" is behind the value judgment "should"? The missing context here is their reasoning, which you admit to (actually, brag about) excluding from consideration.

0. By saying you "provided more context" what you actually did was provide a *different* context for my comment than it was used. I actually didn't provide very many details about when I say this, like what types of arguments I use it against, why, besides some slightly pretty vague words like "always" and "shuts them up every time." You're making explain myself more clearly, which is good. This topic really does get emotions out of me, which I'll explain later in this post.
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.
2. Of course they disagree. What I do by using their reasoning to make another assertion is give them an example of their own reasoning for why they should reconsider. By saying that it "shuts them up" I don't mean that they literally stop speaking, I mean that they take it back and think about the implications of the society they are proposing.
As for their explanation, yes, there are plenty of reasons why someone would want a user-fee based system, but most of the people I've come across (where I use the little two-line rebuttal) have told me that they shouldn't have to pay for things that other people use. I'm not pinning this belief to anyone, but it seems pretty common.
Anyway, as you can tell now, I would very strongly not prefer a society where only people with money can get an education, and a user-fee based school system would mean expensive public schools (or terrible, underfunded schools). In fact, if I had grown up in a society where school is only paid for by people who attend, I easily would not have been able to afford it. Is that fair? Who wants to live in a society that doesn't encourage all of its members to be competent and succeed?

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

...I would very strongly not prefer a society where only people with money can get an education, and a user-fee based school system would mean expensive public schools (or terrible, underfunded schools). In fact, if I had grown up in a society where school is only paid for by people who attend, I easily would not have been able to afford it. Is that fair? Who wants to live in a society that doesn't encourage all of its members to be competent and succeed?

We agree on goals. We disagree about the path to those goals, about the performance of competitive markets and State-monopoly enterprises. As Milton Friedman said: "I'm on youir side, but you're not."

 

[leftysergeant]

We agree on goals. We disagree about the path to those goals, about the performance of competitive markets and State-monopoly enterprises. As Milton Friedman said: "I'm on youir side, but you're not."

Friedman was a criminal and charlatan. He was on the side of the investor class and against the productive class. Don't cite that rotten SOB as an authority on education. He was a sociopath.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

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 society¹.
...
...a user-fee based school system would mean expensive public schools (or terrible, underfunded schools)².

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.

 

[tyr_13]

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.

 

[Travis]

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.

Yes, because it is not like any other nation has public education systems that do things differently.

 

[Malcolm Kirkpatrick]

Malcolm, do you apply that reasoning to road construction and maintenance? Why or why not?¹ Do you apply it to police?² Do you apply it to the military?³ Do you apply it to regulatory agencies?⁴
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.?⁵

1. Yes. City and State governments commonly put road construction and mainenance contracts out to bid.
2. Possibly. Since competitive markets are generally more productive per unit cost and since violence is a bad, not a good, a near-monopoly in violence is a benefit to society. Still, if, for example, some judge ordered a city to provide round the clock police protection to some individual and if that individual offered to relieve the city of its obligation for some amount less than the cost to the city of the police department's resources and then to hire a private protective service, I don't see why taxpayers or their agents would object. The police union might, though.
3. Like Blackwater, you mean? Or like the ship builders and aerospace manufacturers who supply the Navy and Air Force?
4. Depends on what's regulated. Government employees are contractors to the government. The difference between an employee and an independent contractor is mostly a difference in who's responsible for tax paperwork. It's easier to shift to other suppliers if the government uses independent contractors. The government may apply stronger legal oversight of direct employees and may write more detailed job specifications. Coalitions of insiders (the NEA/AFT/AFSCME cartel, for example) may sabotage such oversight, with the result that parents more effectively represent taxpayers' interests. Consider regulatory capture. Consider the tragedy of the commons and compare the performance of the regulated commons to the private wildlife preserve or the private woodland.
5. I wrote: "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 question 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." This does not mean that these other industrial democracies restrict parents' options for the use of the taxpayers' age 6-18 education subsidy to schools operated by government employees. Some do and some do not. In general, competitive markets work better than State-monopoly providers of goods and services.

Gerard Lassibile and Lucia Navarro Gomez
"Organization and Efficiency of Educational Systems: some empirical findings"
Comparative Education, Vol. 36 #1, 2000, Feb., pg. 16

Furthermore, the regression results indicate that countries where private education is more widespread perform significantly better than countries where it is more limited. The result showing the private sector to be more efficient is similar to those found in other contexts with individual data (see, for example, Psucharopoulos, 1987; Jiminez, et. al, 1991). This finding should convince countries to reconsider policies that reduce the role of the private sector in the field of education.