Propose:Business, Economy, Policy:Proposal for the eventual deregulation and privatization of public education
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Proposal for the eventual deregulation and privatization of public education
Purpose of public education
Federal public education is perhaps one of the largest and most important federal programs in place today. It plays a critical role within the intellectual development of most individuals living within the US. The existence and current importance of public education however, do not make this institution valid from a fundamental philosophical perspective. Furthermore, public education is rife with problems that cannot be solved through the application of additional policy and regulation. It is common consensus that improvements need to be made. The continual failure of our current system to make the improvements necessary for the education of our youth is a result of a flaw in the fundamental premises behind public education.
It is my theory that the existence of a public education institution paid for by forced tax dollars prohibits a free market education system from existing. Current private institutions are necessarily only available for the rich and elite upper classes of our society. This is necessarily the case because of the inability of less expensive and competitive private institutions from competing with the mandatory public education system currently in place. Hence it is precisely because we have a public education system that there is class stratification within our education system; not, as is common parlance, in spite of public education.
There are several philosophical reasons that the public education should not be funded through or controlled by the federal government. The primary being that public education, health, and welfare simply do not fit the purpose of government in a free market economy (which I do realize we do not have, but am a proponent of). I would like to discuss these philosophical issues, but I would also like to identify the rational reasons behind having a private education and the benefits that privatized education would have for our society.
Public education is a large institution with the inevitable bureaucratic momentum inherent and necessary in its design. Therefore I am not proposing that we do away with public education in some unrealistic clean sweep without a rational process of deregulation and the necessary time to conduct such an endeavor. After identifying the potential benefits of a non-mandatory and purely free-market education system I would like to formulate the potential structure that such a system could have and to identify foreseeable caveats within such a system and potential problems in its creation. I would like to do this for the purpose of formulating a solution to current problems in our education systems.
There will be many conflicts between the ideas discussed here with our existing system, but there are methods for resolving these conflicts and to begin moving in the direction of an ideal system for the education of our youth.
The failure of public education
The purpose of education is to teach individuals how to be successful adults. The human is a rational animal and the human individual's means of survival is the proper use of their mind. The primary failing of our education system is obvious in the inability of american students to think critically and to make rational decisions. Public education cannot claim to achieve anything close to teaching rational and critical thinking skills. This is not to say that many student do learn these skills from their home environments and from skilled instruction within a public education system. There are good instructors within public education and many student come out of public education far better than they would given no education. However, the skill of the thinking methods used by students is not the measure by which students are assessed or taught.
I believe that the primary reason for the failure of public education in this regard lies in the policy of mandating education for our youth. This immediately devalues their mind and prohibits them from thinking for themselves and enslaves their rational mind to the choices made by our government. If students were allowed a choice in the matter of their education, both that choice of attending and that choice of the specific institution attended we would place confidence and value in the individual students use of their own mind. As it currently stands we do the exact opposite and we foreclose on their necessary ability to think before they have even learned how.
Allowing a choice
It is both possible and practical to allow choice in the matter of education. There are several objections that can be raised concerning student choice. The primary being that it cannot be assumed that the very young student is capable of making a choice in the matter of their own education. It is commonly assumed that age determines the ability to make rational choices. This is absolutely false. The ability to make choices is a function of the individuals ability to think rationally. The validity of their choices is then a function of the validity of their premises.
A possible method by which the rational thinking skill and underlying premises of a student might be assessed is through the use of consulting organizations, foundations, and businesses dedicated to the objective evaluation of this very fundamental student skill set. Such businesses would enter a very large market and would likely be very profitable. These private ventures might be paid for by the communities, local and national charities, and the current government institution of public education. These groups would enable the validation of a students current success in education (this being the quality of the students thinking processes and concept formation facilities, or more generally; the students ability to think rationally and to make decisions from valid premises). Such a system would also provide for a direct method of assessing the gaps within a particular student's education.
The articulation of choice
Within the child's choice the teaching institution could make several safe assumptions that would protect the student from poor parenting. Only those students that chose to choose a different path; to leave public and private education altogether, or to attend another institution, would be attended by the critical thinking teams.
Within the scope of the choices made by children, the institution would assume first and foremost that the student desired to attend an educational institution. Thus the students rational choice to attend a given institution would overrule a different choice made by a guardian, of good or poor parenting skill.
A guardians choice would overrule an irrational child, but would not overrule the assumption of the institution that the child would attend a public or private school, thus mandating only that the guardian make this same assumption as the guardian is clearly unable to teach the child critical thinking skills for whatever reason. For guardians that do not wish their children to attend these institutions this gives them explicit incentive to teach their children methods of reasoning and decision making skills.
An irrational parents choice thereafter only affects the specific institution that a child attends unless a rational child can escape their reasoning through choice and arguments put forth for themselves. A rational child would always overrule an irrational parent proven so by the arguments put forth by the child.
Voucher systems as a means to an end
It has been raised that a voucher system may provide for better education and greater choice between institutions given a voucher system. I will argue that a voucher system as it is likely being considered would accomplish nothing. This is primarily because of the set value placed upon vouchers that is based upon the institution the child will attend. This does not give institutions incentive to provide a quality and value in education. It does not help in privatization of public education because it still fixes the market price for education in the same illegal way that corporations may price-fix to ensure high profits.
I suggest that the voucher system be employed for the purpose of the eventual privatization of public education. This might be done by giving each student within a given city the same voucher amount and allowing the student to retain the excess of cost of education and voucher amount within a college fund. This would allow for private institutions to enter the market currently monopolized by public education. This would provide market incentive for private institutions to compete for students by providing a good education at a good value. The students would then have a greater number of choices between institutions between which they could apply to and change between on a semester or yearly basis. Such a system would also give students incentive for attending a K-12 institution and since the remaining funds could only be spent on college education, would both provide incentive to attend a college or university and prevent greedy and stupid parents from making bad decisions for their children.
I also argue that this would provide a means for the gradual privatization of public education and simultaneously increase the quality of education and decrease class stratification problems within our education systems.
This short essay is the result of a conversation between myself and Craig Bettles
[ Edited ]
--sunny Sun Jan 11 17:02:25 2004
charmed_quark Sat Mar 27 14:58:48 2004
Education is the most important aspect of has a healthy nation. We cannot afford to privatize it.
Where do you get this notion of federal educations system? Public schools are largly funded funded by state and local taxes. The federal government provides less than 8% of public school funding Unfortuneatly the federal government makes certain requirements to continue provide these funds. This tends to stifle using new creative educational methods.
People are cheap. I can just imagine the evolution of a Wal-Mart education system. Minimum wage teachers. Advertising sponsored textbooks. Corporate mergers. Accounting scandals. It would be a fiasco.
Privatization is not the solution. Name a present corporation that you would entrust with education. Microsoft? AT&T? General Motors? Disney? Viacom? You can bet that if education became a succesful and profitable business, then schools would be bought up by some monopoly or another. That is the nature of 21st century economics.
I agree the education system needs an over haul. It has become a babysitting service to prevent teenagers from entering the work force and bringing down average wages.
The most necessary improvement would be choice. Academic minded students should be given more challenging in depth classes. Career oriented students should be given trade school classes. Ideally there would be some chance for cross over, after all some of those college bound kids could end up working in a body shop.
Second, life-time education needs to be re-emphasized. The notion that your schooling end at 18 or 22 is damaging. More opportunities should be given for working adults to return to school. And the Universtiy of Phoenix b.s. (not bachelor of science) isn't going to cut it.
On a final note, this is a good topic and deserves more attention both in the public and in this forum. It's an urgent problem that demand a lot of smart people with different backgrounds to find a satifactory solution. In other words a perfect 'daVinci' problem. I'd like to read more people's thoughts.
--charmed_quark Sat Mar 27 14:58:48 2004
