I was going to bring this up in the liberty thread, but I figured since splinter threads have been working well so far, lets try it again.

 

What are people's general opinions on public education?

 

To get the discussion started:

 

Should a good public education be a right for all? And I mean a literal right. Some have gone so far as to argue that it is implicit in the bill of rights. Some states have it in their state Constitutions. Or should those who use education pay for it? In the same mold, should public education expenditures always be limited to communities? If a community wants it for their kids, they pay for it. Does this follow the libertarian bridge principle?

 

Furthermore, what about the federal government being involved in public education? I ask this because, as per my beliefs, that low income kids just dont come close to matching the education of their wealthier brethren.

 

For example, I am currently here in Chicago. I am staying with a family and the kids go to one of the top public schools in the city(Whitney Young, craig probably has heard of it). Its a magnet school and its success has a lot to do with drawing all the smart kids. The non-magnet schools are nothing to look to. But even this top magnet school in Chicago just lost its best teacher because the top public school in the wealthy north suburbs(New Trier) offered him twice the salary. (80k over previous 40k). They can do this because of their greater intake of property taxes. It just seems to me that even if we say yes to public education but isolate it to communities, we solve few problems.

 

I also want to note that I dont think its impossible for kids from the bad schools to succeed. But I definitely believe they dont get the sparks and support that kids in richer schools get. Its like the difference in paying 1000k for an SAT test prep class.

The problem here is that you would need to define a "good" education. I think that this country NEEDS an intelligent, articulate, well-educated populace in order to function in a manner that would allow us to maintain a high quality of living. Does this mean that we need a populace capable of passing some random aptitude test? Absolutely not.

 

Therein lays the problem. How do you define a quality education? What is the role of education in society? How do you measure the effectiveness of an education? The number of questions and variables make this an almost impossible question to answer because each variable is open to debate.

The basis of a democracy/republic is within the need for an educated masses. A well structured and educated middle class is a must for a culture based upon the sound beliefs this country is based upon. Without such the country itself would be in collapse. Private companies managing the public school system would destroy the education system. Please see HMO for a showing of how well it works.

 

Every citizen of the US should in my eyes be given the right to an education throug the 12th grade and also the ability to continue it into college with standard grades in high school for Free. The unniversity system in this country is corrupt to the core and needs to be restructured for the betterment of the populace. They are there for us, not us here for them.

Of course everyone should be able to get a free public education. Otherwise, equality of opportunity of equality, a key element of our captialist system, would be vialated. The problem is that education is underfunded and most public schools are garbage. Doing absolutly nothing except basing everything in education on one test effs up the system even more. I remember all throughout school until 10th grade, everything was about the FCAT, which helps you pass the FCAT, but really doesn't help you get a quality education.

Depends.

 

My Public Education sucked...sorta.

 

IF I wanted to do well in High School I probably couldve.

 

Is the point of High School to do well or to get an education.

 

Im in my Junior year of college and I am doing very well. I enjoy school now. I enjoyed school during High School but it was different. I went to a school of 4000 students. My graduating class had 900 people. The school only cared about the best and the worst. They wanted to help the worst to graduate and they wanted to help the best because it brought up the program. The problem was that...many student as myself fell between the cracks. The do only enough to pass. Far too many students fall in this and the school system could give two S#!TS about them.

 

In a good private school, they dont let you strike for mediocrity, they push you to be good. In public schools, the bureaucracy is at too high a level to get anything truly accomplished for everyone.

Well first of all as a % of GDP we're a country that is in the top 10 in education spending. So underfunded? Maybe not. Mismanaged is more like it. Furthermore private schools cannot be grouped into such a generalized group, b/c like all private organizations they are all different. There are good private schools and not so good ones.

 

Vouchers are a great idea, but limiting vocuhers only to 'intelligent' kids stillleaves a bunch of other ones in the air. How about letting parents pick which public school to send their kids to? Based on those such trends money will be reallocated where needed for new facilities and such. Problem with this, is possible overcrowding and dilution of resources.

 

Now how about making high school more like college? 2 years mandatory and afterwards children can begin to chose a life path. Not that it has to be a point of no return but some kids that are more inclined to fix cars instead of be doctors should have th eopportunity to focus on that. Apprenticships should return as well.

 

I'm just throwing out ideas, the education conundrum is a huge one