Education Reform

[BlackShanglan]

Yes. And my apologies to you, also. Regrets for having neglected that. It was also a wrong judgement, as your loyalty proves.

Thank you.

 

[amicus]

Weird Harold]No doubt we need skilled tradesmen and technicians, but the need for education goes beyond the simple needs of a specific career. Those Mechanics, Tradesmen, Merchants, accountants, etc also vote, invest, file lawsuits, and out-number talk-show hosts about 500 million-to-one.

The public education system doesn't need to provide "diversity," it needs to provide a single common knowledge base to build diversity on top of.

The nation, and the world, needs that single common knowledge base AKA "Universal Literacy" to function, let alone progress.

A recent History Channel Classroom segment on the Belgian Congo's troubles when the Belgians simply gave them their independence without correcting the lack of education -- the deliberate lack of education dictated by the need to keep the population from rising up against the colonial governement -- is a graphic example of how the lack of general literacy is death to any organized civilization.

Your children and grandchildren may be exceptionally literate and I know that my granddaughters are exceptionally literate -- but the key word is exceptional. The exceptional students are surrrounded and outnumbered by other students who don't have parents/grandparents with the time or inclination to encourage them to learn and are in a system that is stuck in the past.

The current system is ignorant of and unresponsive to the needs of a modern and constantly changing society and caters to the prejudices and sensiivities of minorities and local intersts to the point where essential information for the protection of all of society is not only not offered, but actively suppressed -- Sex education is only one instance where that is the case, IMHO, although it's the one that presents the most direct threat to public health.

One reason the current system is ignorant and unresponsive is because it is in the hands of people who it failed to educate to a basic common information base that includes the importance of a good general education.

[/I]

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I went scrolling back and discovered your post; I think I did not return comment.

I understand and agree the need for an 'Universal basic literacy' that needs to exist, but as usual, I question those who insist it must be supplied by the use of force and taxation.

There are many issues that infringe upon individual rights and some are in very grey areas. For example, infant immunization against communicable diseases. About one in a thousand infants die from the original 'mandated' obligatory immunizations. But as a society, we accept that risk for the greater good of preventing disease.

But there are limits to what I will personally accept in terms of giving up individual choice and freedom for the 'greater good' of society.

While I fully agree as to the importance of education for both the individual and his society, I still maintain that the free market would do a much better job of providing both the universal basics and the specialized education.

And I simply do not accept the argument that the 'poor' would suffer from poor or no education and that society in general would suffer also.

Although I have used 'McDonalds' as an example before, I drag it out again as I think it demonstrates how the 'fast food' industry, by quantity and quality, provides a superior product for all classes of people, rich or poor.

The principle is exactly the same if applied to education. There might even be 'McDonald' like franchises in every neighborhood to meet the demand for inexpensive but high quality education at every level.

Aside from the fact of my certainty that the market would provide, a free system also does away with laws forcing parents and children to obey and eliminates heavy taxation investment in a field that is mostly unaccountable for the results.

In other words, public education has failed and we all know it.

But...freedom and the experience of it, takes a 'leap of faith' for those who don't understand that human freedom is the keystone upon which all other values rest.

sorry for the delay...


amicus...

 

[Weird Harold]

[/I]I went scrolling back and discovered your post; I think I did not return comment.
...
Aside from the fact of my certainty that the market would provide, a free system also does away with laws forcing parents and children to obey and eliminates heavy taxation investment in a field that is mostly unaccountable for the results.

No you had not commented.

The only problem I have with your faith in the free market providing an adequate and consistent level of education is the historical record that the free market will NOT provide education for the poor and that the majority of the "poor" are as enlightened as you are and be willing and able to make the necessary sacrifices to scrape up the money for even a "fast food." education.

FWIW, I am "poor" and dinner at a fast food franchise is a rare treat for me -- I get my pension on the first of he month and by the second it is nearly all spent on rent, utilities, phone, food and internet service.

Even at that, I'm far better off than many of my neighbors who have to decide which essential bills won't get paid in any given month because their income doesn't cover even the essentials.

Many of them struggle to find the money for just the incidental expenses of a "free" education like paper, pencils, and decent, clean clothing. If people like my neighbors had to depend on the free market for education, they would get no education; they don't have the money to spare, they often don't see the necessity, and they usually don't have enough education themselves to home school.

Is your "freedom" and faith in free market forces important enough to want to live in the kind of world that would result from a nearly completely uneducated electorate?

The government we've got now from the output of the current inadequate public education system is bad enough, thank you very much. I have absolutely no desire to find out first-hand what kind of chaos a completely uneducated poor and middle class would produce.

The government has no business being involved in education beyond providing the opportunity for a basic education, but it has a serious interest in providing every citizen the opportunity for enough basic education to vote intelligently.

You can whine about "the use of force and taxation" all you want, but History has shown that relying on the self-inerest of the free market for a universal education is NOT going to result in anything remotely resembling a "universal education," let alone "a common base of information and knowledge."