What Libertarians Do

[Seth]

Personally anyone who uses the word tyrant or 'marxist' shouldnt be let within 10 miles of any child never mind a school

Yeah, fuckwitted Marxist useful idiots don't like it when their secret agenda is revealed. But that's exactly why it's necessary to do so.

[Seth]

Personally anyone who uses the word tyrant or 'marxist' shouldnt be let within 10 miles of any child never mind a school

And what's wrong sweeping, and inappropirate, generalization in the support of carpet-chewing fanaticism please?

I don't know-- I'm a big fan of carpet-chewing, myself.

No, that's "rug munching."

[Seth]

So, evidently the answer is to subject all children to shitty schools by force, so that there will be "equality" of crappy education?

hadespussercats has a young child, so issues about education are probably of more than abstract political interest to her. It might be worthwhile taking her questions as good faith questions and providing your best reasonable answer, rather than assuming she has an ulterior motive.

It was a sarcastic rhetorical question, not a suggestion of ulterior motive. And I provided a full answer shortly thereafter.

[Seth]

Just a couple of things to be noted about this
First you need to have a geographical limitation
on where parents can send their children to school
Otherwise they shall all opt for the best and that can
not work practically

That's the unionized public school teacher's claim. But it's a false claim based in the desire to keep sub-standard schools open and sub-standard teachers employed. Of course parents will opt for the best, but they will also opt for convenience as well. Most parents will pick the best school in their district that's within a reasonable distance, and why shouldn't they. But if parents want to drive their kids clear across town or to another town entirely in order to provide them with the best possible education, why should they not be allowed to do so?

: I do not know if you have league
tables pertaining to performance in America but we have
them here in England and no one would send their child to a
badly performimg school if they could not : hence the need for
these limitations :

Yes, we rate individual schools by district, and you're quite right parents would not willingly send their kids to a shitty school. But right now they are FORCED to do so, and the reason is so that the shitty public school, with the shitty public school union teachers who can never be fired will stay open and the teachers and administrators can continue to get paid for doing a shitty job.

Such schools should die on the vine precisely because nobody would choose to send their kids there if they had any other choice. This is what happens in India, where even the desperately poor scrimp and save so that they can send their kids to the effective private schools rather than to the unbelievably shitty public schools where teachers literally sleep away the day in class, teaching nothing.

but as the state generally educates majority
of children there should be no bad schools :

When the state runs the schools, it GUARANTEES that there will be shitty schools...lots of them. Government never does anything better, more efficiently or more cost-effectively than private industry, ever.

may be ones which are
worse than others but all should be of an acceptable standard though

Nice idealism, but it doesn't work out that way in practice, due to corruption and the natural inability of government to properly manage anything or anyone that gets tax money from the public.

Finally even if parents choose to opt out of the public system the exams
their child takes will be the same as other children so there cannot be too
much deviation from the curriculum :

That's already in place. Standardized testing is nearly universal in the US. It was called the Iowa Skills Test when I was a child, and that was back in the 60's.

what is this ideological indoctrination
that you are constantly referencing : is it political correctness or something else

It's subtle and insidious but outright Marxist socialist and progressive political indoctrination, and yes, it's "political correctness" run rampant. It's teaching very young children to reject the values of their parents and accept the values of collectivism and socialism. The means and methods are too numerous and insidious to recount, but include outright propaganda, discipline of any individualist tendencies, inculcation of socialist collectivist rhetoric and behavior beginning in the first grade. It's a carefully constructed agenda put forward by Frankfurt School Marxists that's been going on for a century in our public schools.

[MiM]

Government never does anything better, more efficiently or more cost-effectively than private industry, ever.

As this line seems to be at the base of many (if not most) of your claims, I am sure you can base it on a plethora of good research results? Especially the superlatives "never...ever" needs backing, as there is little dispute that the private sector is often more efficient than the public.

Maybe, once you have shown your evidence, you would also indulge me in explaining how the (according to you necessarily ineffective) public schooling in Finland manages to strike the top PISA result year after year? As a Finn, I would obviously be flattered by it all being a consequence of our superior intellect, but somehow I still don't believe that's the point. And while you might want to check the numbers yourself, we are not using uncanny amounts of money on our elementary schools, either.

[Seth]

Government never does anything better, more efficiently or more cost-effectively than private industry, ever.

As this line seems to be at the base of many (if not most) of your claims, I am sure you can base it on a plethora of good research results? Especially the superlatives "never...ever" needs backing, as there is little dispute that the private sector is often more efficient than the public.

Maybe, once you have shown your evidence, you would also indulge me in explaining how the (according to you necessarily ineffective) public schooling in Finland manages to strike the top PISA result year after year? As a Finn, I would obviously be flattered by it all being a consequence of our superior intellect, but somehow I still don't believe that's the point. And while you might want to check the numbers yourself, we are not using uncanny amounts of money on our elementary schools, either.

Try the free market. It's always better, more efficient and less costly because for one thing it doesn't have to support the overhead of a typically wasteful government bureaucracy and all the bloated bureaucrats who are most interested in padding their own incomes at public expense.

Also, no government-run agency has a profit motive to keep costs down, so they spend whatever they can get, in many cases so they won't have their budgets cut for not using all of last year's budget.

Any private business can and does easily outstrip government in every single area where services are offered precisely because of the profit motive.

We keep government programs as a costly necessary evil, not because they are efficient or cost effective, and in most cases we keep costly government programs through sheer bureaucratic progressive and socialist inertia based on the stupid idea that government can provide for the needs of the people.

That's not what government is for. It's for keeping the peace and keeping society stable, not providing goodies for people. It's a regulatory necessity, not a paternalistic mommy or daddy. People can take care of themselves and each other quite well without government's help if they are left to it.

[MiM]

Government never does anything better, more efficiently or more cost-effectively than private industry, ever.

As this line seems to be at the base of many (if not most) of your claims, I am sure you can base it on a plethora of good research results? Especially the superlatives "never...ever" needs backing, as there is little dispute that the private sector is often more efficient than the public.

Maybe, once you have shown your evidence, you would also indulge me in explaining how the (according to you necessarily ineffective) public schooling in Finland manages to strike the top PISA result year after year? As a Finn, I would obviously be flattered by it all being a consequence of our superior intellect, but somehow I still don't believe that's the point. And while you might want to check the numbers yourself, we are not using uncanny amounts of money on our elementary schools, either.

Try the free market. It's always better, more efficient and less costly because for one thing it doesn't have to support the overhead of a typically wasteful government bureaucracy and all the bloated bureaucrats who are most interested in padding their own incomes at public expense.

Also, no government-run agency has a profit motive to keep costs down, so they spend whatever they can get, in many cases so they won't have their budgets cut for not using all of last year's budget.

Any private business can and does easily outstrip government in every single area where services are offered precisely because of the profit motive.

We keep government programs as a costly necessary evil, not because they are efficient or cost effective, and in most cases we keep costly government programs through sheer bureaucratic progressive and socialist inertia based on the stupid idea that government can provide for the needs of the people.

That's not what government is for. It's for keeping the peace and keeping society stable, not providing goodies for people. It's a regulatory necessity, not a paternalistic mommy or daddy. People can take care of themselves and each other quite well without government's help if they are left to it.

Blah, Blah, Blah. Circumstantial and argumentative, but in no way evidence.

[surreptitious57]

If state education is in a useless condition why not
then transfer responsibility to the private sector as
the standard would be comparably higher and better
This is rather idealistic because it does not take into
account the fact that the private sector solely operates
with the profit motive as its raison d etre : and there is
no profit in educating below average children who do not
get any qualifications : so there are some sectors that can
not therefore be entrusted to the private sector because of
this flaw : education is one of them and health is another one
The poor can not afford medication and the private sector will
have nothing to do with them but yet they are most in need of it
though : I agree individuals should not be dependent on the state
Though not everyone can go from cradle to grave guaranteeing this

So this is where Seths argument fails : his presumed response that it
would not be the responsibility of any one but the individual concerned
belies the basic human compassion we should all show to our fellow man
Referencing them as being perfectly adaptable to any given situation is a
tad naive : humans are not programmed to function like that unfortunately
One should be resolute in the face of adversary but this is not always possible
Seth fails to acknowledge that humans are not machines designed to overcome
anything and everything : this is the failing of libertarianism and the reason why
I do not identify with it : The Golden Rule however is a more preferable alternative

[Warren Dew]

What American schools do need is compulsory uniforms kick the individuality worship out of them and remind them that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Would be a good cure to the disease of libertarianism

Because fascism would be so much better?

[Warren Dew]

Maybe, once you have shown your evidence, you would also indulge me in explaining how the (according to you necessarily ineffective) public schooling in Finland manages to strike the top PISA result year after year? As a Finn, I would obviously be flattered by it all being a consequence of our superior intellect, but somehow I still don't believe that's the point. And while you might want to check the numbers yourself, we are not using uncanny amounts of money on our elementary schools, either.

Are there any numbers comparing the Finnish school system to, say, just the private schools from the U.S.? Otherwise, it's just a ranking among public school systems, which has little bearing on whether the free market could do better.

[MrJonno]

What American schools do need is compulsory uniforms kick the individuality worship out of them and remind them that they are part of something bigger than themselves. Would be a good cure to the disease of libertarianism

Because fascism would be so much better?

Two sides of the same coin really

[Seth]

If state education is in a useless condition why not
then transfer responsibility to the private sector as
the standard would be comparably higher and better

Indeed.

This is rather idealistic because it does not take into
account the fact that the private sector solely operates
with the profit motive as its raison d etre :

Not take the profit motive into account? Are you kidding? You don't understand the argument evidently because it is the profit motive that is precisely the reason and motive to do things that way. The profit motive is what keeps private school education lean, mean and high-quality, for if the private school does not provide a superior education, parents won't send their children and their money to them.

and there is
no profit in educating below average children who do not
get any qualifications :

If there's $6000 per year attached to that child, someone will pursue that profit. At the moment, public schools don't have to compete for that money even when they do a shitty job of educating the "below average" child. If they had to compete, and didn't have essentially a government-protected monopoly on education children, they would soon go out of business and some person wanting to get that $6000 will step up and provide an educational program that is explicitly tailored to such children...in fact MANY people will do so, resulting in stiff competition for EVERY student of every caliber, and better yet, those who specialize in teaching "below average" children (like Sylvan Learning Centers or any of the numerous add-on tutoring companies) will know how to teach such children much more effectively than putting such children in a class with average or above average children, thus leaving them further and further behind every year as they are unable to keep up.

The free market will deal quite nicely with the problem you suggest merely because there is money to be made doing so.

so there are some sectors that can
not therefore be entrusted to the private sector because of
this flaw :

Wrong.

education is one of them and health is another one

Wrong again.

The poor can not afford medication and the private sector will
have nothing to do with them but yet they are most in need of it
though :

If the problem is that the very poor cannot afford medication, then the solution is still a free-market solution where charity steps up to provide medication to the poor by buying it from manufacturers. Government need not provide either medical care or medicine to anyone because the free market, if left to function properly, will provide different levels of care as is needed. For that very small number of people who are truly penniless or indigent, it may be appropriate for the government to step in to provide them with necessary emergency care, and that is in fact what happens today. No person can be turned away from a federally-funded emergency room in any hospital in America, by law.

But the vast majority of people don't need government intervention, and the fact is that government intervention is precisely what has driven medical care costs through the roof. If government would butt out, very soon the free market would recover, competition would flourish, prices for actual medical care would drop, and people would begin using their medical care dollars much more wisely than forking it over to an "insurance company" every month.

I agree individuals should not be dependent on the state
Though not everyone can go from cradle to grave guaranteeing this

We must be vigilant not to succumb to the "least common denominator" effect of making public policy based on providing equality of outcomes for the tiny minority of people who are physically incapable of caring for themselves and then applying those solutions to the society as a whole out of a misguided notion of "fairness." If the destitute must be taken care of, then let's take care of them, but let's not make everyone else dependent on government largess in the process, because the terminus of that path is economic ruin. Always has been, always will be.

So this is where Seths argument fails : his presumed response that it
would not be the responsibility of any one but the individual concerned
belies the basic human compassion we should all show to our fellow man

Compassion, altruism and charity do not require the coercive force of government. They occur quite naturally in the majority of the population, as proven by the willingness of people to donate to charity. Interestingly, the less the government engages in social welfare redistributive taxation and spending, the more likely the citizens are to behave charitably, as proven by the fact that the citizens of the United States give of themselves, voluntarily, at nearly twice the rate of almost all other nations on earth, including the UK.

Referencing them as being perfectly adaptable to any given situation is a
tad naive :

That's not really the argument. That's just making the point that assuming that most people are incapable of caring for themselves and substituting government control over them, and making them dependent on government for their well-being is idiocy of the highest order.

humans are not programmed to function like that unfortunately
One should be resolute in the face of adversary but this is not always possible

Indeed. But this is where the altruistic, charitable instincts of one's community members comes into play, and where government should avoid intruding unless an individual's situation is so dire that they cannot survive without government assistance. The problem is that whenever government presumes to know what's best for people, it always oversteps its legitimate authority to increase its own power, and then politicians use government largess as a tool to garner votes in order to maintain their own power and privilege, not necessarily to help anyone else.

Government should always be the instrument of last resort to keep people from starving to death. It should never be the first resort, or even any sort of resort for most people, except in the most dire of circumstances.

Seth fails to acknowledge that humans are not machines designed to overcome
anything and everything :

Actually, they are well-designed to do exactly that, and the vast majority of people throughout history have done exactly that. We must not, as I said above, fall into the intellectual trap of conflating the small minority of those not so well adapted to overcoming the challenges of life with the vast majority who are well-adapted to that challenge, and we must never formulate public policy on the notion that any but the most ill-equipped and ill-adapted are in need of government oversight or assistance.

this is the failing of libertarianism and the reason why
I do not identify with it :

It's not a failing of Libertarianism at all, it's merely that you don't properly understand Libertarianism and you are making false assumptions about how it deals with the issues you have brought up.

The Golden Rule however is a more preferable alternative

The Golden Rule is, in fact, a founding principle of Libertarianism. It's called "Rational Self-Interest" in the parlance of Libertarian philosophy, and any rational Libertarian knows full well that doing unto others as you would have them do unto you is by far best for the individual and society as well. Libertarianism, however, eschews the practice of making the Golden Rule part of government's coercive force in which individuals are required to be "charitable" and "altruistic" by the naked force of the Mace of State, on pain of expropriation of their labor and goods.

The Golden Rule works just fine when it's left up to the individual to decide when it's appropriate to apply it.

[Warren Dew]

Thanks for the feedback, Warren. You're right that my image of private schools is high-end, mostly-- particularly since my dad went to a pretty chi-chi boarding school, back in the day, and a lot of the boys I went to school with left our public high school to go to an expensive private one nearby. Plus, here in NY the sense I get is that most private schools cost the same as college-- with the only cheaper option being parochial schools (which I worry about, in terms of science education and free thought and so forth.)

A large majority of private schools are parochial schools. They still get better results than public schools, on average. Granted, the majority of parochial schools are Catholic schools, where evolution is not considered problematic to teach.

Based on people I know who are K-12 teachers, the prep schools do get the best teachers. However, the Catholic school teachers are somewhat better than the public school teachers, even though they make a lot less money. They seem to be the ones who actually consider it a privilege to have kids to teach. Granted this is based on a limited sample, but it's consistent with the empirical results.

There aren't a lot of equivalent secular private schools because it involves paying for two sets of schooling - the public schools through taxes one has to pay anyway, and the private school one actually sends one's kids to. That would change with vouchers. I think we'd see a lot of nonpremium secular schools with vouchers.

What would they look like? Well, I used to think I was the product of public schools, and that they would be fine. Then I realized that the school I went to in Taipei, while it felt like a public school because nearly all of the English speaking children in the city went there, was actually a private school. And then I realized that I learned far more in the 3 years I went to that school than in the 10 years I went to public schools. I think that if we had a voucher system, there would be a lot of schools with the secular culture of present day public schools, but with the quality benefits of private schools.

I've been mentally banking on Sprog making it into a good charter school. Every day it seems I'm hearing about another school closing on the news.

The figures I've seen indicate that charter schools don't actually do a better job than public schools, which surprised me. However, having since paid attention to the process by which two schools tried to get their charters, I think I understand why. The main thing that's needed for a charter school to stay in business is for it to get and keep its charter. That means the party it has to keep happy is the government, as it is for public schools. Private schools, in contrast, primarily need to keep the parents happy, and the parents are far more focused on their children's learning than is the government, which has other political concerns.

[hadespussercats]

@Warren--
I'd heard that about charter school performance not being as strong as once thought. Still there are some charter schools here in NY that are widely respected, and have been operating at a high level for a fairly long time.

Actually, I've heard good things about my neighborhood public schools, too. I live in a, I guess you'd call it "highly gentrified" enclave carved from Washington Heights, where there are many young families with a big interest/investment in monitoring the local schools. Unfortunately for us, we'll probably want to move out of our one-bedroom at some point, and when we do we probably won't be able to stay. So I've been considering other options.

I went to public school, and did well, but my parents were always encouraging us to learn, read, experiment, research on our own time-- which makes a big difference (actually, I think there have been formal studies recently that support this.) But then, take that idea to a logical conclusion and you have us homeschooling -- which I've tended to hold in contempt. I may be changing my views on that. Still, if paying for a private school is expensive, staying home indefinitely isn't cheap-- and we'd still need to consider his social life, and his opportunity to experience or learn about things that we don't know about or can't provide.

Anyway, I'm starting to see the benefit of a voucher-style program. Though it's doubtful one could be developed and implemented in time to help us directly.

And I still have reservations, regarding special education/special needs, and how education is evaluated in terms of cost effectiveness (I don't think a profit-based system is appropriate.)

[Beatsong]

What Warren said - I'd like to see ALL schools private. I got a damn good education at a private school, but not many families could afford the $20,000+ annual tuition (and that back in the early 70s). Vouchers would allow parents without the financial means to send their kids to better schools.

Not that the Florida public school system is that bad, actually there are some pretty decent public schools. However, I think that privatizing the educational system would benefit all parties, except perhaps the officials at the teacher's union.

Sorry lak I'm open to any way of thinking about it that might improve education, but I'm seriously missing something here.

Many (not all) private schools are better than state schools for one basic reason: they have more money. They don't have access to some mysterious secret formula or education wizardry. It's not rocket science: if your spending on the education you provide works out to 20 grand per pupil, then all else being equal, you will be able to do more, better, than if you were spending 10 grand per pupil.

Which means the only way your voucher system is going to have the desired effect of raising standards for all to private school levels is if THE FUNDING OF THEM IS RAISED TO PRIVATE SCHOOL LEVELS.

And if you're going to fund them to private school levels, then YOU COULD ACHIEVE THE SAME EFFECT JUST BY PUTTING THAT FUNDING INTO THE CURRENT STATE SYSTEM ANYWAY!

Furthermore, how the fuck does all this tally with your whole libertarian low-tax thing anyway? You celebrate the fact that you got an education that cost much more than most peoples', then say that the government should make that available to everyone through your voucher system... but of course all within the context of small government and low taxes?

I fail to understand what you think a voucher system is going to change, without a truly massive change in funding that would make current libby outrage about that pinko Obama look like small beans in comparison.