School Vouchers

[shanek]

By the way, who says that the drop in literacy over time should be linear?

Not me.

But the point—which remains unrefuted—is that there is no reasonable basis for believing that government education improved literacy in any way above what private education would have done.

 

[jj]

Not me.

But the point—which remains unrefuted—is that there is no reasonable basis for believing that government education improved literacy in any way above what private education would have done.

It is quite obvious that without government funded-schooling, schooling that may not espouse religion, we might well be living in a theocracy, rather than a semi-republic and partial democracy.

The members of the Inquisition were quite literate.

 

[Silicon]

Not me.

But the point—which remains unrefuted—is that there is no reasonable basis for believing that government education improved literacy in any way above what private education would have done.

BZZZZZT!!!

STRAW MAN.



Just because your homemade chart doesn't show it, doesn't mean there isn't a case to be made.


There may be plenty of reasonble bases for believing that government education has improved literacy. There's more data out there than just your chart.

A chart which says more about what you don't know about statistics than anything else.

Can we chart Shanek's statistical illiteracy?


I'm especially fascinated by the fact that you chose not to post all those disclaimers about how the data was collected using 3 different methods. An honest chart wouldn't require hiding that information, Shanek.

 

[shanek]

It is quite obvious that without government funded-schooling, schooling that may not espouse religion, we might well be living in a theocracy, rather than a semi-republic and partial democracy.

Bull. There are numerous secular private schools.

The members of the Inquisition were quite literate.

Yes, and they were also the government. Your point?

 

[shanek]

BZZZZZT!!!

STRAW MAN.

No, it isn't. It was a direct refutation of the claim. You've tried to wriggle out of it several ways now, but none of these constitutes a refutation of the point.

 

[Occasional Chemist]

Bull. There are numerous secular private schools.

From a previous article linked in this thread:

Approximately 55 percent of private school enrollment was in Roman Catholic schools, 31 percent was in other religious schools, and 14 percent was in non-sectarian schools

So, they're not that numerous.

 

[Silicon]

No, it isn't. It was a direct refutation of the claim. You've tried to wriggle out of it several ways now, but none of these constitutes a refutation of the point.

So prove there's no reasonable basis for believing that government education improved literacy in any way above what private education would have done.


YOU "proved" only that your chart doesn't show it. Your chart was only showing one thing, measured 3 different ways.

"PROVE" that there's NO evidence out there (no reasonable basis) to show that government improved literacy better than private education could have.

See how you're trying to prove a negative?

All your graph (to you, though your methods are very suspect) did is fail to show a positive. It does not prove a negative.




BTW, Shanek, are you STILL denying that that jump in your chart is probably caused by the Great Depression, other social upheavals, or differences in data-gathering methods?

And of course, you didn't cross-multiply those numbers against public-school enrollment figures, did you. Or against the number of adults alive who had attended american public school. So those fluctuations aren't checked against things like waves of immigration, large casualties of the younger population (WWII), the Great Depression, etc.


Oh, and I must have missed it, tell us again why you neglected to report in your graph that the illiteracy data was gathered 3 different ways?



Figures lie, and liars figure, I guess.

 

[Silicon]

WAIT SHANEK!!!


I'll reply for you!







I PROVED IT!!!!!! Nothing you've written refutes that fact one bit!!!

 

[shanek]

Is this REALLY someone's idea of rational debate?

 

[Tmy]

This thread has been derailed. Time to push it back towards topic.

Im working on a voucher formula. Since you cant trace where your taxes are spent well just assume that all goverment is funded by a portion of your taxes. You take the amount the parents paid in taxes, then divide by the number of govt agencies/programs that exist and then you get you "share" back. Im guessing the average voucher will be about 3 dollars.

 

[Mahatma Kane Jeeves]

Originally posted by shanek
But the point—which remains unrefuted—is that there is no reasonable basis for believing that government education improved literacy in any way above what private education would have done.

Except for the fact that government mandated a free education for all children. Your artificial distinction between public and "government" schools would only impact the curriculum, and in no way addresses the issue of access to schooling.

Regarding public vs. "government" schools: You have never provided any evidence supporting this distinction. What specific government interventions would have affected literacy rates?

In my opinion, "government schools" go back further than 1870 and are the major factor responsible for the drop in illiteracy.

The High School Policy of Massachusetts: pp. 854-874
New Englander and Yale review. / Volume 16, Issue 64
November 1858

The Board of Education, in their Twentieth Report, made
the statement "that the public schools were losing their effi-
ciency, and the system itself its vitality. This alarmed pat-
riotic and good men, and gave rise, in 1834, to provision for a
school fund, and to the establishment, in 1837, of the Board of
Education."
The peril was indeed imminent. "Patriotic and good men
were alarmed" with reason. The Honorable Horace Mann,
in his First Report, as Secretary of the Board of Education,
speaks of the state of the public schools as "calculated to ex-
cite the deepest alarm in every mind which sees the charac-
ter of the next generation of men foreshadowed and prophe-
sied in the direction which is given to the children of this."
The causes, nature and extent of this peril of a system, so vi-
tally important to the highest welfare of the state, may be ex-
pressed in few words.
In speaking of the causes of this deplorable state of things,
the Board of Education, in their Twentieth Report, as quoted
above, use this language "With the increase of population,
the concentration of wealth, and the division of sects and of
classes, numerous private schools sprang up, and it was found
that the public schools were loosing their efficiency, and the sys-
tem itself its vitality." Here is indicated the root of the evil,
and one sentence declares it. By common consent the High
School feature of the old colonial system of 1647, had gone
into disuse, and the private school system had taken its place.
So those deeply interested for their own children, and having
the wealth to do as they pleased, diverted their children, their
money and their interest, from the public to the private
school. The consequences were natural, necessary, and full of
evil for the community at large. [Italics in original (!)]

There came also into the schools a great and perplexing
variety of text-books, making classification and reasonable
progress in the pupils impossible. An indifferent commu-
nity would not sustain the committee in obeying the laws that
required a uniformity of text-books. Each new teacher in-
troduced his favorite author; stranger scholars brought their
books from another district, or town, or state; the old ones of
others were supposed by the parents to be good while they held
together, and when one disappeared, leaf by leaf like those of
the Sibyl, it was replaced by the one last pubhished.*

* It is fresh in our own memory, that at a much later period than this we found
as Superintending Committee, ten different arithmetics in one district school.
And we remember, too, that cloudy Clan-Alpine gathering of the constituency, to
hear our reasons for excluding the motley ten, to give place to (Greenleaf’s
series. And we remember, too, that one man, the head of a large family, who
had but lately become able to read in simple sentences, gave it as his deliberate
opinion that Greenleaf’s Arithmetic was not fit for his children. We never told
the author, being tender of his feelings, and so he has since published several
other mathematical works. And we very distinctly remember, too, that all the
little mathematicians in that school did use Greenleaf’s Arithmetic

A state mandating uniform textbooks? Before 1858? Good Heavens--the state has been brainwashing children longer than we thought!

 

[Occasional Chemist]

I posted a graph here awhile back showing illiteracy rates plummeting like a brick before there was any state or Federal taxpayer funding of schools, which didn't start up until the 1940s-'50s in the case of the states, and the '60s in the case of the Feds.

Can you provide a source stating that state funding of schools did not start until the 1940s?