At 10/8/12 06:19 PM, HiryuGouki wrote: Then why not get rid of the most useless parts of these programs and save money? Oh wait, Obama already did that, but it was to fund the Affordable Care Act of 2012. WHICH, by the way, makes healthcare a LOT cheaper for EVERYONE, and keeps others' premiums from being jacked up because some asshole doesn't have insurance, and gets hit by a car or something.

You haven't read the bill, have you? Don't worry, neither did Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, or Obama himself. It has already cost at least 500,000 jobs, and it is going to cost an extra $700 billion - $1.1 trillion dollars to the deficit... per year. If it gets repealed quickly, we'll be alright, but if Obama gets another four years then the U.S. will be bankrupt by 2020, regardless of who is elected next or what policies are implemented.

At 10/8/12 05:24 PM, leanlifter1 wrote: So you try and claim that Medicare is a bad thing well guess what you are wrong LOL. National "Defence" budget was just as much as Medicare which is just pathetic and highly Fasict. 130 Military Bases out of 190+ total countries in the world is highly Fasict. Spending as much on the military as Medicare is highly Fasict. Heck if more people where healthy in the states they would not need to spend so much on medicare.

Helping poor people to pay for healthcare is a laudable goal. But Medicare blows, and Obamacare is going to be worse. National Defense has been and always will be the #1 priority of the federal government, and you can cry "fascist" all you want, even if you can't spell it, but terrorist attacks tend to be bad for everyone's health.

At 10/8/12 06:42 PM, MattZone wrote: It has already cost at least 500,000 jobs, and it is going to cost an extra $700 billion - $1.1 trillion dollars to the deficit... per year. If it gets repealed quickly, we'll be alright,

Big claims. Now back them up.

At 10/8/12 05:07 PM, MattZone wrote: The goal of the market, or rather of the individuals that make up the market, is to get the most/best product and service for the lowest cost. Each individual is their own master, and serves their own interest. On the other hand, educational institutions have multiple masters. Parents have a say, yes, but so do politicians, teachers unions, and taxpayers. Educational institutions are turned into political battlefields with each faction trying to gain control.

Sure there is politics in government, but to think there is no politics in the free market is just plain dumb. Also, the goal of public education is to provide the best education possible to as many people possible. The goal of the market is to make as much profit possible at all times. Can't you see how those two goals can often run in completely different directions from each other? For a service so vital to society, the goal should NOT be to make the most money for the owners. Healthcare is privatized and look at the mess it's in. Costs are astronomical and service is subpar. Are we really looking to skyrocket education costs whilst putting downward pressure on education quality?

A free market changes the battleground. All the arguments over how much teachers should be paid or what should be taught and what should be censored or how much to spend on sports or what the dress code should be or any of a thousand other arguments... all that goes away when individuals have the right and the power to choose for themselves.

In a market, individual students are the consumers, individual teachers are the producers, and the only thing for the politicians on both sides to fight over is what the tax rate should be because every other question has the same answer... let the market decide.

This description is flawed on so many levels it's just sad. First off, the students are NOT the consumers. The parents are. The students are merely the users. Having seen how many parents treat their children, this is a scary separation. Many parents don't give a shit about their children. Many more parents would easily give less shit about their children for a buck. Second, while the teachers may technically be the producers, they would not be in control. They would have as much control over the quality of their school as an assembly line worker in an auto plant has over the quality of the car. The owners would have the control. So the two people who should have control do not. Unlike government which has a fundamental goal to help the people and whose employees can be ousted by the people, there is no such obligation or process for a private organization.

The idea that politicians would not fight over something else besides taxes is just foolish. What about when the only schools in a region teach that creationism is the only truth, that Bush caused 9/11, and/or blacks are inherently inferior?

At 10/8/12 06:31 PM, MattZone wrote:

You're confusing consumers with producers. Producers try to maximize their profits, consumers try to maximize the value they get for the price they pay. Producers can only profit if they make a product or provide a service that consumers want. If they don't, they go out of business. Which is exactly what will happen to shitty schools the instant that a free market provides better choices.

No I am not confusing anything however you are not considering that "the market" is based off fiat currency, wall street, Baking Cartels, and an un payable Debt mechanism. Commerce and Capitalism which is what you are talking about have almost nothing to do with "the market". Privatization has proven to not work which has materialized into an insane amount of crime, debt, derelict infrastructure and pollution etc in the US.

At 10/7/12 12:11 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
I don't see any problem here. Getting into college is merit based. If an applicant is truly left out because of any small group, they were just barely good enough to begin with. Cheating is definitely not so big a problem that the very qualified applicants are left out.

You're also assuming that the extreme cost of policing every school and every teacher would be worth the money spent. Seeing as cheating is hardly a college admissions problem now, I'd have to say that any money spent on it, lest it be ultra-efficient, is a waste.

Cheating is a huge problem with college admissions. Most students don't realize it because of how loosely they define the term cheating themselves. Honest, hardworking students who aren't in the top 10% of the GPA are being cut out of desired colleges because of a large proportion of cheaters.

You're right in saying that to manage it within every school may cost a bit. Employing people to mitigate cheating will only lead to more legislation that requires each student to take an anti-cheating course, etc...

I know I can't, and that is a risk I'd be willing to take. The 50% off would at least be enough to ensure that kids are force fed a religion is not theirs as it would deter most non-religious/other religion parents from sending their kids there.

Tax dollars can't fund a religious institution, it's just unethical.

Your numbers are off. The cost per student at $10K is a stastically altered figure. That includes the extreme cost of caring for special ed students. The actual cost per mainstream students in closer to $6.5K/yr.

Ah that's a great point.

Again you have far too much trust for families and the money. What about a family that does not plan to send their child to college? The incentive then becomes to send the child to the cheapest school possible so that they can get as much of that money back as possible at the end.

Once the child turns 18, those vouchers and savings are immediately turned over to his/her name, and can only used for college or trade school expenditures.

School and education should be about education and opportunity. Injecting the private sector into it makes it about profit and money. Those two goals are not the same and often times they are diverging, even to the point of being mutually exclusive. Making something other than education the master of education is hardly a recipe for bettering our schools.

Our current system puts education at the bottom of our priorities and like I said earlier it's budget is the first to be slashed. High school students in my hometown barely attend class four days a week because there's just no money in the system! The school's budget is still getting slashed and student are only attending school four days a week! In the public sector, the education budget is just something politicians can sell under their proposed tax cuts.

Making the system entirely privatized with government support of the student actually puts the responsibility directly into a tax-paying families hands! These families are never going to be in favor of slashing their voucher funding! That's the idea, this privatized base and voucher/savings system would protect the student throughout his/her life!

The school systems do have funding. It's a little low, but they have everything they need to compete, and I know this because we do compete. Our college bound students are just as intelligent as every other country. In fact, our college bound students are not only just as intelligent, they are better prepared to lead, to create, and to handle changes in the world around them than other developed nations. The problem with our "competition" is that on the shelf next to the other countries' top brands, we place our dropouts, our assembly line workers, our bus drivers and so on.

Are private schools cutting back on the amount of days per week they actually teach students? Of course not, because if it's a decent public school they have the funding.

Why does the person who flips my burgers at McDonalds have to know geometry or algebra? Why does a mechanic need to know about the Teapot Dome Scandal? Why does a physicist need to know the allegorical limits of Animal Farm? Why does an attorney need to know calculus? Why does anyone but a journalist need to know the definition of effervescent?

All of the subjects attempt to broaden a students knowledge as well as possibly create an interest in pursing a higher education. I can't tell you how much I hated math, reading, physics, painting while I was in high school, but that one biology class I took solidified my drive for going to college to pursue a degree in biology.

I'm sure it has worked the same way for other students that were skeptical about the credibility of school and learning. a student takes one class or even just learned one concept within one class that ignited his/her desire to pursue it.

Now I know there are benefits to having a society educated in basics, but most of the subjects taught in high school are merely exercises in time wasting for all but a third of the students. Why are we wasting MASSIVE amounts of money teaching non-college bound people academic classes? Wouldn't it be a better use of our money to be teaching subjects like shop, cooking, personal finances, and other job skills? Every time we teach a student all of this academic material, we throw away over $28K of tax money.

Wouldn't you imagine these to be the optional classes? One you'd might see in a specialized private school, not within the broad education spectrum of public school. Whether public schools are required to teach trade classes or academia, a large group of students are being cut out while billions of tax dollars are being wasted on this system.

But to reform the public system to encourage students to pursue a lower-level trade job rather than a college education? That's heading into the opposite direction. However, if the system is privatized, there will be schools available that specialize in teaching trade skills at the high school level I'm sure.

Also, have you ever thought that the profit driven educational enterprise would end up converting to this manner as the best way to minimize waste and maximize profit?

Of course, but where the whole system is privatized there will be a massive variety of schools. Broad education, trade schools, religious institutions, even schools most specialized to prepare a student for a specific college degree! All of these different types of schools may specialize into a specific subject or field in order to reduce waste and maximize profits. The fact of the matter is there will be a much wider variety of educational options for a student and parents to consider.

Funding is a big issue, but it's not an issue that holds back the forward extent of our schools' value, like teaching academic courses to folks who will not go to college. Lots of funding does not help, but low funding hurts. Teaching proper courses would help.

For a public school to teach broad academia courses on top of trade school classes would be nuts and way out of any school's budget. Also, to cut math, reading, and science for trade classes would be completely unfair to a large portion of our college-bound students!

One thing is clear, a decent education is not something an average public school just cannot provide. It doesn't have the resources, a good education requires at least adeqi

Oh and lets keep the "Obamacare", the National Debt, and apparently the thing that going to end the world again, fascism, out from this topic.

Hypothetically, after the system has been privatized, do you think shifting education dollars into vouchers and savings bonds within each student's name will effectively prevent the majority of voters from slashing the education budget? After all, the dollar amount of these vouchers directly contribute to which private school a family can afford.

Obviously I'm proposing a private system with state/federal regulation and funding. Would it be save to assume that Democrats would push for further legislation and funding while Republicans reduce government involvement AND directly or indirectly reduce government spending on vouchers? Or will we expect to see both parties take the stance of supporting voucher/bond funding? Will the majority of Libertarians be in favor of government funding within this private system.

If we allow our school system to shift entirely to private funding without federal/state funding of vouchers, how else can we construct the system to guarantee that every child has a proper education?

And the big question. Can all of the flaws within public education system and education in general be solved by reforming the system? Or is a complete overhaul of the current system with a more privatized one now a more realistic approach?

At 10/8/12 10:20 PM, Saen wrote: Cheating is a huge problem with college admissions. Most students don't realize it because of how loosely they define the term cheating themselves. Honest, hardworking students who aren't in the top 10% of the GPA are being cut out of desired colleges because of a large proportion of cheaters.

Do you have any sources to the amount of cheating? It seems the only real argument on this point is to the numbers.

Tax dollars can't fund a religious institution, it's just unethical.

I'm just trying to find a way to not punish those whose religions command them to go to religious schools. Perhaps certain exemptions can be made.

Once the child turns 18, those vouchers and savings are immediately turned over to his/her name, and can only used for college or trade school expenditures.

Still, that presents a downward incentive toward cheaper schools, rather than good ones.

Our current system puts education at the bottom of our priorities and like I said earlier it's budget is the first to be slashed. High school students in my hometown barely attend class four days a week because there's just no money in the system! The school's budget is still getting slashed and student are only attending school four days a week! In the public sector, the education budget is just something politicians can sell under their proposed tax cuts.

That is a very good example of poor funding. However, once the schools have enough money to get a full school week the benefit of money drops dramatically. After the fundamental needs point money becomes and extremely innefficient way to improve school quiality.

Making the system entirely privatized with government support of the student actually puts the responsibility directly into a tax-paying families hands! These families are never going to be in favor of slashing their voucher funding! That's the idea, this privatized base and voucher/savings system would protect the student throughout his/her life!

Cutting the voucher amount wouldn't hurt families unless the schools would be allowed to charge the difference out of pocket. Otherwise it's just a backward way of doing things exactly as they are done now.

All of the subjects attempt to broaden a students knowledge as well as possibly create an interest in pursing a higher education. I can't tell you how much I hated math, reading, physics, painting while I was in high school, but that one biology class I took solidified my drive for going to college to pursue a degree in biology.

Those who enter the highest track would be exposed to all the subject we have now. As they're all expected to go to college these opportunities are very important.

I'm sure it has worked the same way for other students that were skeptical about the credibility of school and learning. a student takes one class or even just learned one concept within one class that ignited his/her desire to pursue it.

Again, this is true, for the higher end students. How commonly does someone who isn't that smart and has no goal of doing anything after school get inspired to suddenly become very smart and have goals? It's extremely rare.

But to reform the public system to encourage students to pursue a lower-level trade job rather than a college education? That's heading into the opposite direction. However, if the system is privatized, there will be schools available that specialize in teaching trade skills at the high school level I'm sure.

There is a huge swath of students who, by the age of 13 have already set their track well below the needs of college. Why force these students to pretend they're something they're not? Wouldn't it be a better use of our money for these students to learn vlauable skills instead?

For a public school to teach broad academia courses on top of trade school classes would be nuts and way out of any school's budget. Also, to cut math, reading, and science for trade classes would be completely unfair to a large portion of our college-bound students!

The college bound students would be getting all of the academic classes. The large chunk of students, who by the age of 13, have already shown they don't have the intellect, work ethic, desire, or talent to go college will not be wasted taking college prep (purely academic) courses.

At 10/6/12 10:29 PM, Saen wrote: A reply to my reply

I don't think you get my point about critical thinking etc (the first paragraph or so). I'm saying that factual education - education centered around accumulating random tidbits of how the world works - is outdated. This is because all of those random tidbits are available at our fingertips already. Instead, students should be taught how to verify and digest those tidbits.

I did not yet go on to explain why this is relevant, as I expected you would show some interest in a better education system considering that's what this whole topic is about. The idea is relevant because corporations literally depend on people failing to think critically. This is how advertising works. Advertising has become an emotional appeal rather than a rational one, and if you were to be able to think and outweigh the benefits you probably wouldn't wind up buying the things you do. If corporations got involved in education they would stray as far away from this model as possible. My view would be different if education were to remain fixed on factual stuff, but I find it impossible to think about privatizing education before moving to a better model. I'm entertaining privatization towards a better system.

This isn't a tangent at all. If you have no interest in what I'm saying then clearly you have no interest in making education any better than it is. Honestly, who thinks about the major flaws we have in our education system and says "You know what would fix that? Large corporations running schools!" and just ends it there? Most of the points you made about quality aren't even relevant to privatization, yet I'm directly talking about why privatization would ruin the chances of a better education.

At 10/9/12 01:08 AM, Camarohusky wrote:
Do you have any sources to the amount of cheating? It seems the only real argument on this point is to the numbers.

A the valedictorian of the senior class a year behind mind was caught creating on an AP Literature test and was put on his record. However this wasn't the first time he cheated, but rather the first documented time. If you want, you can look up Fletcher High School class of 2011. He was convicted of cheating and yet still was accepted into a university (UNiversity of Florida I believe), allowed to graduate, and allowed to give his acceptance speech and even the farewell speech to the class of 2011.

This was just one documented example in my school, I personally knew cheaters who had a GPA .1 or .2 points higher than mine or an Sat score 50 points higher and they were accepted into the summer semester of the University of Florida while I was denied. So yes, choosing whether to cheat or not to cheat can directly determine which universities you are accepted to.

I'm just trying to find a way to not punish those whose religions command them to go to religious schools. Perhaps certain exemptions can be made.

A slippery slope indeed.

Once the child turns 18, those vouchers and savings are immediately turned over to his/her name, and can only used for college or trade school expenditures.

Still, that presents a downward incentive toward cheaper schools, rather than good ones.

What, a student may choose a cheaper school so that he/she may afford better housing or food later on for college. Also a cheaper school doesn't necessarily mean a less-reputable or lower-class school.

That is a very good example of poor funding. However, once the schools have enough money to get a full school week the benefit of money drops dramatically. After the fundamental needs point money becomes and extremely innefficient way to improve school quality.

ahahaha what!? So now the bottom line is at least providing 5 school days a week wow that's a pretty low bar! How about legitimate AP classes and teachers for students grades 9-12 and a wide variety of sports and extracurricular activities at the very least?

Making the system entirely privatized with government support of the student actually puts the responsibility directly into a tax-paying families hands! These families are never going to be in favor of slashing their voucher funding! That's the idea, this privatized base and voucher/savings system would protect the student throughout his/her life!

Cutting the voucher amount wouldn't hurt families unless the schools would be allowed to charge the difference out of pocket. Otherwise it's just a backward way of doing things exactly as they are done now.

The government can't force a private school institution to change its tuition rates along with a cut to voucher funding, that's unconstitutional and ridiculous. So if voucher funding is cut, yes families will have to pay out of pocket that's the whole idea. This scenario protects the minor student's education, because all families would rather not pay anything for education. They won't vote to cut their own funding.

Those who enter the highest track would be exposed to all the subject we have now. As they're all expected to go to college these opportunities are very important.

Again, this is true, for the higher end students. How commonly does someone who isn't that smart and has no goal of doing anything after school get inspired to suddenly become very smart and have goals? It's extremely rare.

There is a huge swath of students who, by the age of 13 have already set their track well below the needs of college. Why force these students to pretend they're something they're not? Wouldn't it be a better use of our money for these students to learn vlauable skills instead?

The college bound students would be getting all of the academic classes. The large chunk of students, who by the age of 13, have already shown they don't have the intellect, work ethic, desire, or talent to go college will not be wasted taking college prep (purely academic) courses.

How can you even say all of these things? 13-year olds havent even reached high school yet and you're discounting them already! Your grades in school don't even matter until a student begins high school, and even then it's your junior year that's most important! To label students as burger flippers or ditch diggers before they've even graduated high school is insane! Not only that, we need to protect the rights and the futures of all students, not just file and force feed them into specialized education systems we think are appropriate for them!

When we set the education standards and expectations of our young students short, we sell our whole country short. The public education system needs much more funding everywhere than it's receiving now along with cutting out all of the useless legislation.

Our public school system is going into the direction of increased legislation AND cutting funding! It just doesn't make any sense!

At 10/9/12 06:11 PM, WizMystery wrote:

I don't think you get my point about critical thinking etc (the first paragraph or so). I'm saying that factual education - education centered around accumulating random tidbits of how the world works - is outdated. This is because all of those random tidbits are available at our fingertips already. Instead, students should be taught how to verify and digest those tidbits.

"factual eduction centered around accumulating random tidbits of information of how the world works..", in what classes within any class, public or private is this the case? Random tidbits of how the world works?

Also, the only information gathered from the internet you may trust as factual are journal articles and other non-fiction publications. You just can't guarantee anything is viable information. For now, schools aren't looking up random information on the internet they can teach you. School teaches kids ideas and events that they wouldn't have the capacity or prior-interest to look up or research themselves, much less on the internet.

Most of what I know about reptiles, insects, birds of prey, apex mammalian predators, etc. came from books I read while in my elementary school library (I spent my recess either catching anoles, damselflies, grasshoppers or in the library haha), not from some internet forum or blog! Then again, my elementary school back then had much more funding and resources than it does now..

I did not yet go on to explain why this is relevant, as I expected you would show some interest in a better education system considering that's what this whole topic is about. The idea is relevant because corporations literally depend on people failing to think critically. This is how advertising works. Advertising has become an emotional appeal rather than a rational one, and if you were to be able to think and outweigh the benefits you probably wouldn't wind up buying the things you do. If corporations got involved in education they would stray as far away from this model as possible. My view would be different if education were to remain fixed on factual stuff, but I find it impossible to think about privatizing education before moving to a better model. I'm entertaining privatization towards a better system.

Absolutely not. Corporations depend on the people who they hirer that actually received an education, so that they may collaborate to sell their product to the consumer. Corporations depend on educated people for inovation, to maximize profit and reduce waste, to make critical financial decisions. Maybe that's why most of all major corporations give charitable contributions and scholarships to students, like Exxon does for prospective chemistry majors.

This isn't a tangent at all. If you have no interest in what I'm saying then clearly you have no interest in making education any better than it is. Honestly, who thinks about the major flaws we have in our education system and says "You know what would fix that? Large corporations running schools!" and just ends it there? Most of the points you made about quality aren't even relevant to privatization, yet I'm directly talking about why privatization would ruin the chances of a better education.

I have no interest in your emotions like I said earlier. What I did not say is what you just quoted me for, which shows that you have entirely ignored the numerous points, ideas, and questions I have presented.

I believed I asked three or so questions before and 3+ more in a previous post. Why don't you try and answer some of them, discuss a solution, or even present your own relevant questions?

At 10/9/12 06:59 PM, Saen wrote: So yes, choosing whether to cheat or not to cheat can directly determine which universities you are accepted to.

And at my high school there was very little cheating among the college bound and they got into where they wanted. Anecdotal evidence isn't enough here to warrant a massive infrastructure built on preventing colleges from accepting cheaters.

Also, if the college knew about the cheating, seems like the problem here is the college accepting cheaters, not the high schools' failure to prevent cheating.

What, a student may choose a cheaper school so that he/she may afford better housing or food later on for college. Also a cheaper school doesn't necessarily mean a less-reputable or lower-class school.

But under your argument that the major issue in education is funding the better funded a school is the better the school is.

My biggest fear, which has shown itself is almost all other sectors of the market economy is the mixture of "race to the bottom" and cost cutting. Education is not one of the areas that should be sacrificing anything in order to make a buck for anyone. It's bad enough when education gets sacrificed due to budget shortfalls, but having it cut so the owner can put some more money into their pocket? That's just reprehensible. Either way, in society we have dictated other industries that are of such vital importance that they cannot be controlled by outsiders. The law profession is one of these. A person's right to get a basic education without the financial will of another controlling it is no different than the right of a person to get legal advice without the financial will of another effecting or controlling it.

ahahaha what!? So now the bottom line is at least providing 5 school days a week wow that's a pretty low bar! How about legitimate AP classes and teachers for students grades 9-12 and a wide variety of sports and extracurricular activities at the very least?

To clarify my baseline: full 5 day school week and the more common (with 1 or 2 regionally common) extracirricular activites (band, debate, the regular sports) and the core AP classes (english, calc, history, etc.). The extras are beyond that. The difference between having Ipads and not having Ipads is negligble. The difference between an old but clean, safe, and adequate building, and a state of the art complex is negligible. The difference between adequate and fancy is negligible. The difference between poor and adequate is massive.

The government can't force a private school institution to change its tuition rates along with a cut to voucher funding, that's unconstitutional and ridiculous. So if voucher funding is cut, yes families will have to pay out of pocket that's the whole idea. This scenario protects the minor student's education, because all families would rather not pay anything for education. They won't vote to cut their own funding.

The government can condition the acceptance of vouchers upon the agreement that schools will not charge more money than the vouchers provide, unless the school gets a special classification. Thus eliminating the schools' ability to recoup any lost voucher value.

How can you even say all of these things? 13-year olds havent even reached high school yet and you're discounting them already! Your grades in school don't even matter until a student begins high school, and even then it's your junior year that's most important! To label students as burger flippers or ditch diggers before they've even graduated high school is insane! Not only that, we need to protect the rights and the futures of all students, not just file and force feed them into specialized education systems we think are appropriate for them!

You say that 13 year olds haven't established any of this yet? I seriously beg to differ. I can remember 1 assignment (yes, 1 specific assignment) I had at the age of 11 that dictated my math level future for the rest of my life. My ability to read well at the age of 13 dictated what English level I was in for the rest of my academic life. My scientific level at the age of 12 dictated what Science level I was at for the rest of my academic life. The only academic sector I hadn't been set in was my social studies, and that is heavily reliant upon English skills. As in those who are not college bound in English proficiency do not have the chops to be proficient in social studies.

We already segregate our educational population into low, medium, and high at the age of 14. All I am proposing is that we make this segregation more dramatic and more fit to the likely ends the three current levels already arrive at. If mobility between the three classes was common, then yes, my plan would sell short, but mobility is not common. It's extremely rare that someone from the lower or middle tiers moves up a tier. It's actually far more common that someone from a higher tier maxes out and ends up lowering their level.

Our public school system is going into the direction of increased legislation AND cutting funding! It just doesn't make any sense!

Examples of both how legislation hurts schools, and the increase of such legislation, please.

At 10/9/12 07:47 PM, Camarohusky wrote:
And at my high school there was very little cheating among the college bound and they got into where they wanted. Anecdotal evidence isn't enough here to warrant a massive infrastructure built on preventing colleges from accepting cheaters.

Also, if the college knew about the cheating, seems like the problem here is the college accepting cheaters, not the high schools' failure to prevent cheating.

There is no guarantee that the college knew about any of his cheating incidents. Grades on a semester basis, G.P.A's, criminal records, and placement test records are all that are sent to a college from the student's high school. That's why I'm suggesting a permanent cheating record of each student should be implemented and submitted along with a student's G.P.A. etc.

Preventing and preventing by punishment are the most effictive ways to discourage cheating among students, but what legislation would be effective, non-intrusive, and non-flammable in doing so?

What, a student may choose a cheaper school so that he/she may afford better housing or food later on for college. Also a cheaper school doesn't necessarily mean a less-reputable or lower-class school.

But under your argument that the major issue in education is funding the better funded a school is the better the school is.

A cheaper school within a privatized system doesn't mean that the school is underfunded at all. I know you're smart i shouldn't have to explain this to you. The school may be more specialized to specific potential majors, may have only the essential academic courses, but are thoroughly taught, etc.

My biggest fear, which has shown itself is almost all other sectors of the market economy is the mixture of "race to the bottom" and cost cutting. Education is not one of the areas that should be sacrificing anything in order to make a buck for anyone. It's bad enough when education gets sacrificed due to budget shortfalls, but having it cut so the owner can put some more money into their pocket? That's just reprehensible. Either way, in society we have dictated other industries that are of such vital importance that they cannot be controlled by outsiders. The law profession is one of these. A person's right to get a basic education without the financial will of another controlling it is no different than the right of a person to get legal advice without the financial will of another effecting or controlling it.

If this was the general consensus, that education is too sacred to be put into private corporation's hands, then why are there currently private schools? All private industry has some sort of federal regulation it has to abide by. Once again, i'm obviously not proposing a purely private school system here. Are you saying that no amount of regulation within an entirely private school system would make you comfortable? The whole purpose of privatizing education is to protect the funding of schools and expand the opportunities of all students.

ahahaha what!? So now the bottom line is at least providing 5 school days a week wow that's a pretty low bar! How about legitimate AP classes and teachers for students grades 9-12 and a wide variety of sports and extracurricular activities at the very least?

To clarify my baseline: full 5 day school week and the more common (with 1 or 2 regionally common) extracirricular activites (band, debate, the regular sports) and the core AP classes (english, calc, history, etc.). The extras are beyond that. The difference between having Ipads and not having Ipads is negligble. The difference between an old but clean, safe, and adequate building, and a state of the art complex is negligible. The difference between adequate and fancy is negligible. The difference between poor and adequate is massive.

Ipads!? What? Students have access to Ipads in public schools, wow. I wouldn't described any part of my high school as fancy, or even fancy enough to cause a concern if our funding is being used wrongfully. You may need to ask yourself, where you do or did attend high school and how it compares to the rest of the nations. You seem seriously out of touch concerning this lack of funding issue and school's budget crises.

My senior year of high school, the education board of Duval county was debating on how to cut our public school's funding, whether through getting rid of all extracurricular activities and art classes, or shortening the school week to 4 days. The ended up choosing the 4 days a week proposal and it was implemented the following school year. Duval county contains two of the nations most best public high schools, rated by the proportion of students who are accepted into reputable colleges. These schools are Stanton College Preparatory School (ranked as high as 4th in the nation by Newsweek) and Paxon. They are ranked the top in the nation, but are still severely underfunded and are by no means "fancy" schools.

The government can condition the acceptance of vouchers upon the agreement that schools will not charge more money than the vouchers provide, unless the school gets a special classification. Thus eliminating the schools' ability to recoup any lost voucher value.

The government cannot do that. Even if they could, that would be terrible legislation. Schools would in retaliation charge or raise the cost of books, charge extra for certain classes, charge more for lunch, charge more for school/class gatherings, etc. Who suffers as a result of this, the student and families.

Regardless, tax payers will not vote for a bill that cuts their voucher dollars period!

You say that 13 year olds haven't established any of this yet? I seriously beg to differ. I can remember 1 assignment (yes, 1 specific assignment) I had at the age of 11 that dictated my math level future for the rest of my life. My ability to read well at the age of 13 dictated what English level I was in for the rest of my academic life. My scientific level at the age of 12 dictated what Science level I was at for the rest of my academic life. The only academic sector I hadn't been set in was my social studies, and that is heavily reliant upon English skills. As in those who are not college bound in English proficiency do not have the chops to be proficient in social studies.

What is the rest of your academic life, high school? Please. 7th grade math is no where near the level of calculus, physics, engineering, even business math! Math goes beyond computational skills later on in life, it reaches the conceptual, even theoretical levels! How well a person learns these concepts cannot be determined from a test taken in middle or high school. The science you learned at age 11 will have been greatly updated, even completely altered by the time you reach college age!

We already segregate our educational population into low, medium, and high at the age of 14. All I am proposing is that we make this segregation more dramatic and more fit to the likely ends the three current levels already arrive at. If mobility between the three classes was common, then yes, my plan would sell short, but mobility is not common. It's extremely rare that someone from the lower or middle tiers moves up a tier. It's actually far more common that someone from a higher tier maxes out and ends up lowering their level.

We don't force the population into segregation, students choose whether or not they want to take standard, honors, AP, or IB classes! They aren't forced into any category, they choose the classes themselves!

Our public school system is going into the direction of increased legislation AND cutting funding! It just doesn't make any sense!

Examples of both how legislation hurts schools, and the increase of such legislation, please.

Already gave my Duval County and the evolving "freshman experience" class examples. Why don't you research your own county's board of education and the decisions and cuts it's making behind your back?

At 10/9/12 07:22 PM, Saen wrote: "factual eduction centered around accumulating random tidbits of information of how the world works..", in what classes within any class, public or private is this the case? Random tidbits of how the world works?

All of them. They all sort of form a branch mechanism that creates a larger view of the world that starts at small, factual statements.

I'll just choose one at random: American History. You have the class as a whole, which is supposedly the entire span of the history of the United States (and other stuff thrown in). Break that down and you have time periods, IE the Civil War. Break that down and you have events, IE the attack on Fort Sumter. Finally, break that down and you have several qualitative statements that can be made about the event like who fought in it, how many people died, and you can even break that down into smaller events that also have qualitative statements about them. These qualitative statements are the random tidbits I'm talking about.

Now what this class does is it takes those to generate a larger picture about our country. But there is very little explanation for where this picture comes from - often it's simply stated. What I'm concerned with is the generation of this larger picture - a picture that is a combination of opinion and objective assessment. The reason for this is you can never learn all that there is to know about American History, but you can learn how to take facts about it and come to a conclusion. This might seem like a common sense sort of thing, but I guarantee if you created an experiment where you gave students an assortment of factual statements they would put them together in completely different ways from each other.

This process is a lot like mathematics - it's essentially logic, which is a component of mathematics. And since there are people who suck at math, chances are there are people who suck at logic. That's a much more serious problem than anything else.

Also, the only information gathered from the internet you may trust as factual are journal articles and other non-fiction publications. You just can't guarantee anything is viable information. For now, schools aren't looking up random information on the internet they can teach you.

That's where source evaluation comes in. You might have had a short seminar in the library that talks about this, but that's as far as public schools go. That's not a good thing, especially when you consider that journals and textbooks have their own biases as well. Bias is inescapable. We should be teaching kids to identify bias, but that's not happening at all even within these short source evaluation seminars.

School teaches kids ideas and events that they wouldn't have the capacity or prior-interest to look up or research themselves, much less on the internet.

You were just saying that you can't make kids interested in things, and now you're relying on the fact that you can for your argument? Also, you know that whole "teach a man to fish" parable? That's what's at work here. Give them the capacity and interest. That's really all they need.

Most of what I know about reptiles, insects, birds of prey, apex mammalian predators, etc. came from books I read while in my elementary school library (I spent my recess either catching anoles, damselflies, grasshoppers or in the library haha), not from some internet forum or blog! Then again, my elementary school back then had much more funding and resources than it does now..

How do you know that everything you know isn't a lie? You really don't. You can say that it's based on scientific studies, but even those are fallible. So is the transfer of that study on to paper. And the transfer of that paper to the book. Yet you remain certain that what you learned is true.

Certainty is never a good thing. It's an over-attachment to knowledge than can lead to some really bad consequences, and students should know this. It's why innocent people get the death penalty. It's why the Spanish Inquisition even happened. Certainty is essentially closed-mindedness, and it's an extremely bad habit that should be broken through education. The scientific method is anti-certainty, are you one to argue with that?

Absolutely not. Corporations depend on the people who they hirer that actually received an education, so that they may collaborate to sell their product to the consumer. Corporations depend on educated people for inovation, to maximize profit and reduce waste, to make critical financial decisions. Maybe that's why most of all major corporations give charitable contributions and scholarships to students, like Exxon does for prospective chemistry majors.

But these innovative people are so few and far between, and their innovation certainly can't be contributed to schools, which is probably why so many dropouts are able to reverse their fortune and become billionaires in the process. They're able to learn on their own - a skill that schools should be taught and CAN be taught. Also mind the fact that most people consume, not generate. And if a corporation's goal is to get more money, it almost seems like the generation part is something they're forced to do. If they didn't have to be innovative, they wouldn't be, and they could easily set up a situation where innovation is no longer needed if given enough power.

I have no interest in your emotions like I said earlier. What I did not say is what you just quoted me for, which shows that you have entirely ignored the numerous points, ideas, and questions I have presented.

I believed I asked three or so questions before and 3+ more in a previous post. Why don't you try and answer some of them, discuss a solution, or even present your own relevant questions?

What is this bullshit about my emotions? This has nothing to do with emotions. I was saying that there's no connection between privatization and the points you're making, which means you are essentially leaving the privatization part to exactly what I put in quotes.

But I'll answer those questions in my own context.

Would private institutions be able to introduce more responsibility to high school students? For example, signing up for classes ahead of time online, a student's individual online profile, and increased time between classes (to possibly ask the teacher questions after lecture).

This is an example of what I meant by having no connection between privatization and the points you're making. Public schools could just as easily provide more responsibility to high school students. It's also a rather shallow question and can only be answered with a yes or no.

Yes.

How would we expect high tuition schools to differ from lower tuition?

This is more relevant to privatization. It would be extremely unfair to have a better quality education based on tuition - that's why we have the public school system in the first place. Granted even that doesn't guarantee equal education (just compare math in Florida to New York. We're like, two-three years ahead of Florida in terms of extra curriculum), but the point still stands. It should only provide extra perks like facility, food quality, etc. All the unnecessary stuff. Since the skill set I insist on being taught to students doesn't leave much variation in quality, though, if private schools adapted it (which I doubt they would, pointing to my other arguments) there wouldn't be much of a problem here.

Will we see increased subject specialization among different high schools, or a widening of material taught?

This is actually something I'd like to see. In addition to the foundation skill set of critical thinking, maybe the school could help facilitate a career path for each student, which is NEVER done in public schools (I'm transferring to a completely different major - I know what this is like). This could also happen in a public school, though, so I have to say this is also irrelevant to privatization.

At 10/9/12 08:42 PM, Saen wrote: That's why I'm suggesting a permanent cheating record of each student should be implemented and submitted along with a student's G.P.A. etc.

That should be sent nowadays. If it's not, i am nothing less than disapointed.

Preventing and preventing by punishment are the most effictive ways to discourage cheating among students, but what legislation would be effective, non-intrusive, and non-flammable in doing so?

Nothing different than now, just making the enforcement more strict, and perhaps ramping up the penalties.

A cheaper school within a privatized system doesn't mean that the school is underfunded at all. I know you're smart i shouldn't have to explain this to you. The school may be more specialized to specific potential majors, may have only the essential academic courses, but are thoroughly taught, etc.

It still puts a downward pressure on cost. As places like Walmart and products like those "who the hell made this?" brands many stores sell for cheap are perfect examples of why I don't trust this. You pay less, but you get what you pay for: less. Often times you pay less than the thing should cost and end up getting a piece of shit masquerading as a TV or something. Now, I don't care too much when that happens in consumer products, but something as one and done and as permanent as education is should not be subject to such detrimental pressures.

If this was the general consensus, that education is too sacred to be put into private corporation's hands, then why are there currently private schools? All private industry has some sort of federal regulation it has to abide by. Once again, i'm obviously not proposing a purely private school system here. Are you saying that no amount of regulation within an entirely private school system would make you comfortable? The whole purpose of privatizing education is to protect the funding of schools and expand the opportunities of all students.

There's a huge difference between private options to a public institution and making the whole system private. With the private options you've got the upper end of schools for those with thew money to throw down in order to ensure the most basic levels of quality. When you get rid of the public back up you rid the market of 2 things: A well established system that strives for certain levels of baseline quality; and an option that has a baseline quality for those who cannot afford the private assurance of quality. I am not afraid for the wealthy. They will always have enough money to ensure their needs are met. I am worried about the middle and the bottom who can't part with the several thousand dollars it takes to buy that assurance.

ahahaha what!? So now the bottom line is at least providing 5 school days a week wow that's a pretty low bar! How about legitimate AP classes and teachers for students grades 9-12 and a wide variety of sports and extracurricular activities at the very least?

Ipads!? What? Students have access to Ipads in public schools, wow. I wouldn't described any part of my high school as fancy, or even fancy enough to cause a concern if our funding is being used wrongfully. You may need to ask yourself, where you do or did attend high school and how it compares to the rest of the nations. You seem seriously out of touch concerning this lack of funding issue and school's budget crises.

First, you completely misplaced the examples. Second, I know what it's like to go from a school flowing in money to one that is extremely strapped.

My ipad example was of the limits of money's usefulness. Yes, there are some schools that have ipads for every student. Those schools do not learn better than their non ipad counter parts. The point being that once you have the essentials, anything further that money can buy, such as ipads, won't really make a difference.

My high school went from having so much money that they could buy the frivolous stuff, to having the shortest school year in the nation because they could not afford to keep us. One article. Another. If you're able to access the Doonesbury comics from Feb 24 to Feb 28th 2003, you'll find my school district named. Those special frivolities the school got two years earlier didn't provide me with a lick of extra education at all.

The government cannot do that. Even if they could, that would be terrible legislation. Schools would in retaliation charge or raise the cost of books, charge extra for certain classes, charge more for lunch, charge more for school/class gatherings, etc. Who suffers as a result of this, the student and families.

The government not only can do that, the government should do that if they adopted your idea. Otherwise the schools would be free to all charge more than the vouchers for mere profit's sake.

Regardless, tax payers will not vote for a bill that cuts their voucher dollars period!

Tax payers will vote for ANY bill that cuts taxes. How do you think my school district went from massive surplus to "shit, where'd the money go?" in just 2 years?

What is the rest of your academic life, high school? Please. 7th grade math is no where near the level of calculus, physics, engineering, even business math! Math goes beyond computational skills later on in life, it reaches the conceptual, even theoretical levels! How well a person learns these concepts cannot be determined from a test taken in middle or high school. The science you learned at age 11 will have been greatly updated, even completely altered by the time you reach college age!

You are wrong. I did not complete a pre-algebra assignment in 6th grade (because my teacher sucked) and thus I took multi-vector calculus in college instead of high school. Had I chose to go to engineering, I would have been at least one term behind my potential because of that one single assignment. But, I'm not the best example because I was near the top level at all times. If someone goes into 9th grade not yet having finished pre-algebra (roughly 25-30% of students) they will NOT make it to Calculus (would be lucky if they made it to pre-calc) in high school, and will thus likely never do math in college, if they go to college at all.

We don't force the population into segregation, students choose whether or not they want to take standard, honors, AP, or IB classes! They aren't forced into any category, they choose the classes themselves!

We do allow upper tier students to under achieve. However, we do not allow lower level students to flounder. Someone who can't properly place there, their, or they're as well as your and you're will NOT be allowed to take advanced English, let alone AP. Based on the fact that you're even using the AP courses as an examples makes me think you were in the upper tier, if not on the cusp of it. You would be an example of a student who might be robbed by this, but I can guarantee that by the end of the 8th grade you had already established yourself, through GPA, tests, and the teacher's experiences with you, as such an upper level student.

Already gave my Duval County and the evolving "freshman experience" class examples. Why don't you research your own county's board of education and the decisions and cuts it's making behind your back

I think you might need to restate that freshman experience thingy, I don't remember seeing it. I have actually attended school board meetings for my district. They hardly did much. I know there are some pieces of legislation that are worthless and take up time,such as the pointless state standardized tests. However, other than that,most legislation regarding schools is fund based and rarely has any direct effect on the schools' daily operation and the students' daily lives.

At 10/10/12 10:52 AM, Cootie wrote: The problem with the education system is the kids themselves not giving a shit.

I agree. Though I would push it one step back and lay it on the parents who fail to instill any joy for learning, expectations, or work ethic.

My proposal of setting three different school tracks would helps this as students who have no desire or skill to go to college would be taking courses relevant to their future, as opposed to attempting to do algebra and biology.