Oh Billy, what pays for it now? I only mentioned the delivery method. Obviously, a funding method is needed no matter which delivery method is used. Currently, that funding method is primarily via property taxes. Our lovely federal government also funds it some, but that only covers a portion of the costs the federal government imposes on the schools to meet certain dumbing down America standards. My prefered funding method would be an investment method, similar to the futures market. Afterall, that’s what real education is, an investment in the future.
Lots of possibilities out there about school vouchers: http://www.google.com/search?q=school+vouchers
Futures??!
I hear they are among the riskiest investments…
Therefore the need for a free market system that optimizes the output is even greater.
When it comes to investments, risk is good. It allows one to diversify the risk across many risky investments for the greatest reward with the lowest combined risk.
That is definitely NOT for the gov’t, and it’s hardly what anyone would call diversification.
Lots of risky investments doesn’t lower the risk. You need more relatively SAFE investments to lower the risk.
Let’s compare to the current system. Right now, we have a one size government program for education. The risk of this program verses another education program is the same. We put all our eggs in one basket and the risk is huge.
In a voucher program, where parents choose, the risk for each program is the same, but since you have the option to diversify, that total risk is lowered.
In other words, the “relatively SAFE” doesn’t exist because all the programs have the same expected risk.
Actually, the education system varies widely based on the SES of the parents in the neighborhood.
Poor neighborhoods get stinky education, outdated equipment and text books, unmotivated instructors (with exceptions).
Kids from PS 321 in the affluent Park Slope section of Brooklyn do just as well on standardized tests as kids in area private schools, where the tuition is upwards of $24,000/year per kid.
The educational system assures we’ll always have an uneducated underclass.
Is it any accident that both Clinton and Bush were governors of states ranking last and second last in education in the USA?
Keep 'em down, and get your reward.