Saturday
11Jul2009
More evidence of the need for private education
Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 07:04PM I've become convinced that one of the most critical problems facing the US is education. Public education is a mixed bag, and I know it still has its defenders, but with all the problems, it seems anyone interested in education would have to admit it's time to begin seriously considering private solutions. Throwing more money at the present system and resisting private solutions are purely political and stubbornly ignorant.
Reader Comments (5)
The question then becomes one of how you encourage private education i.e. get more schools built. I don't see a lot of education corporations popping up now, despite the fact that a lot of people are dissatisfied with their kids' education. And if these schools are essentially relying on govt vouchers for tuition, how independent could they really be?
It's because money is being directed to public education. I always ask "what if" questions. What if the DOE was abolished? The private sector would then have reason to respond, and then you would know if private education is the answer. This is highly unlikely, but what is a possibility is that the rest of the nation follows Calif over the next ten to twenty years and it's no longer possible to support public education. I can envision a private effort which receives enough funding from private donors, who also respond to the need, to deal with the problem of those who can't afford private education. I believe the private sector could develop innovative solutions which are much more effective than public efforts -- especially in the much needed area of trades so that we don't have a one-size-fits-all leading everyone to college.
One thing that's overlooked sometimes is there is a certain amount of money going to education -- nothing necessitates that money going through the hands of government first, and as long as we're taxed to support public education, you won't see a concerted effort on the part of private education.
I'm not convinced universal or near-universal private education is the way to go. One point I have made many times, as a graduate of private schools myself, is that the strength of private schools often lies in their exclusivity. They can expel bad kids and the barrier of tuition often keeps out kids with parents who have zero interest in helping them succeed. So in that sense the praise we give to private schools is a bit misleading. Yes, they are often quality institutions with quality teachers, but their greatest strength may be in the fact that not everyone can go there. I don't see how you can replicate that with a universal model.
Well, what i look at is the past situation where private schools have been forced to serve a niche market, whereas in the situation I'm talking about where the private sector would be challenged to respond to the educational needs of all social levels, I believe the diversity of approaches that would develop, and the competitive innovation, would answer the problems better than public education. Private efforts, funded by visionary citizens who understand how dealing with these problems will help all of us, will not be constrained by politics, bureacratic bogs and, hopefully, not by self-serving teacher unions.
As a society, if government abolished public education, we would not allow large parts of society to rot in ignorance -- not only because it would be the wrong thing to do, but because it would hurt all of us -- there would be a challenge to society to solve the problem, and we would solve it -- this is what i believe, but I have no way of proving it -- regardless, I believe it's the only viable solution, because government will never be able to handle the problems effectively -- government is not meant to do certain things, running education is one of them -- it will become so costly and ineffective, it will hurt the nation as the global economy heats up.