This is a move to "voucher" systems, which give parents control over which school their kid goes to. This basically is a way of letting the free market fix the mess that the government has made of the school system. Two questions:

- Can we get rid of government regulations on schools, so that the free market really can do it's work?

- Why not close all public schools, and let private institutions compete with each other? Why should any schools be run by the government?

"1. Funding should follow the child, on a per-student basis, to the public school that he or she attends."

"...the public school..." That's the biggest problem with the idea.

Read the first graph sober.

After that, do what you need to do.

This sounds basically like how it was when I went to school at least for state funds. If I went to any public school in the state they got a certain amount. So say (I am making up the numbers) if a school had 300 students they would get 30000 from the state (100 per student). If I went to a private school in the state they would usually get most of the money (say $95) and the remaining amount would go to the public school district which provided some services.

Local funds had purpose when the tax/level was passed. A couple of years ago when taxes dropped and the schools were having to lay-off teachers one district was still build and expensive new school because the tax still applied and the money could not legally be used for anything not relating to building that school. When the school was build they likely would not be able to staff it until taxes were up (or they closed other schools).

2. Per-student funding should vary according to the child's needs and other relevant circumstances.

Hmmm, where have I heard "... to each according to his need" before"?
Now I remember

Two words: Teacher's Unions. Like Global Peace, reality stands in the way like a pit bull, thwarting yet another idealistic solution.

Anyone who thinks public education is primarily for the benefit of the student, or about education, is not paying attention. A place that blindly follows zero tolerance policies, and punishes thought crimes is about control, not education.

Why should any schools be run by the government?

***

Because we require children to go to school. Left to private industry, there will be people unable to afford to go.

What's that? We should give the kids money so that they can pay for the school, and then everyone can go? Yeah, that's worked out REAL well with the universities, what with costs having been so very stable and affordable the past couple decades.

Kids with autism, for example, need special services.

Yes, they do. Kids with broken legs need medical attention. Kids with poor vision need glasses. Kids with bad breath need mouthwash.

Lots of kids have lots of needs - but why do unrelated, unconnected, uninvolved people have to pay for them?

Because we require children to go to school. Left to private industry, there will be people unable to afford to go.

And this is different than government schools graduating people who can neither read nor write?

Nicole, I'm not sure your conclusion follows from your premise, but I need to look up some numbers on per-student spending, and I don't have time right now. Will try to get something together later.

> I think just parents should pay for kids'
> schooling.

I'm more happy about being childless than any human being you'll ever meet, OK? I got credentials.

But I think that's going too far. Education isn't a minor fashion choice for a child. It drastically and permanently changes their sociability and capacity for cooperation, including capitalist fulfillment. My life is a LOT richer for your (metaphorical) kids knowing how to read.

(See the Pinker book: He theorizes that widespread literacy, including the occasional serving of fiction, is one of the reasons the world is so much more peaceful than it used to be.... People are better able to imagine the expectations and righteous needs of other people. It's at least possible that one of the things kids learn in school is not to be a sociopath.)

But I admire your taste for libertarian positions... Let me propose an alternative. Let's insist that parents attentively compel their children to get the most out of their education, in a manner similar to the Asian immigrant stereotype.

If parents would "pay" for their kid's education by exploiting it, America would be four-fifths closer to paradise. As it is, parents, students and schools are in a mutual death-grip of mediocrity.

"Why should any schools be run by the government?"

Because prisons are paid for by the government, too.

Educating and civilizing children is cheaper than imprisoning or otherwise defending against desperate and uncivilized children and adults.

At its very least, public education is a cost-effective investment in public defense. At its best, it's what Crid speaks of above.

I'm more happy about being childless than any human being you'll ever meet, OK? I got credentials.

But I think that's going too far. Education isn't a minor fashion choice for a child. It drastically and permanently changes their sociability and capacity for cooperation, including capitalist fulfillment. My life is a LOT richer for your (metaphorical) kids knowing how to read.

While crid may be wrong about a great many (if not nearly every) things, I do agree with him on this

Why should any school be run by the government?

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The government shouldn't run schools. The government should collect taxes and allocate some of that money to provide vouchers for privately run schools. They should also regularly inspect these schools to make sure that health and safety codes and some basic curriculum standards are met, that the money isn't being completely wasted. Vouchers should be available for homeschool, too, for buying supplies and paying for activities that allow the kids to socialize, but the parents must be willing to account for how they are spending the money and how the education is going. Don't produce results, no voucher for you. Misuse the funds (basically stealing from the state and the kids), get prosecuted.

> I could maybe argue with you on that --
> about who's happier.

Well I don't even have kids next door! I kinda chased them away! True fact! An anecdote!

More

I mumbled Pinker's point pretty badly. He said reading and fiction compel you to think about other people's feelings in an important way, one not present in illiterate cultures.

Read the book. Here's his pitch for it.

Destroy the Department of Education. Schools are a state obligation, and have never been in the federal purview.

States should figure out how and what funding they want to do.

In states, schools may or may not be in the state's Constitution. But each state needs to figure it out on it's own.

How the states run their school systems, is subject to what their state constitutions say. They also have to abide by a few supreme court decisions regarding equal protection, racial or sexual discrimination, either overt or covert (how they allocate their funding).
The best state systems tend to be places where the teachers are state employees.
In states where they are not, the teacher's unions have used a divide and conquer strategy to defeat sound management in school districts with local educational control, by stacking the school boards with former teachers and administrators, who owe their elections to the unions, and have little incentive to stand up for the taxpayers against the unions.
When they run out of money, it will come crashing down, but some states are so well managed that it may take a long time for the parasites to kill the host.

Cousin Dave, per student spending varies wildly from district to district (if I remember the ones I looked at when I was getting my EdM, MA schools were 6k-12k or so). The strongest indicator of student success, however, is parental income, not school spending.

The government shouldn't run schools. The government should collect taxes and allocate some of that money to provide vouchers for privately run schools.

***

Why? Why should the government provide vouchers for privately run businesses?

Nicole, if you mean "why should the government pay for schools at all" that question has been answered by several folks above. An uneducated population is a dangerous nuisance. We're all better off when all the kids get to learn.

If you mean "why should the schools be run by actual educators instead of the government"then that's simple. The government sucks at running schools, just like they suck at running grocery stores and medical practices. Take food subsidy programs (please) when they distribute food directly, through the USDA seniors programs and the WIO markets they spend gobs more, waste food and mess with local markets, even driving costs of foods up. When they distribute vouchers they spend less, waste less food and actually help local economies. The same private sector does it better, faster, cheaper more often than not.

Really, though, schools are a different ballgame. Government run schools are neighborhood schools, one size fits everyone from Third Street to the 400 Block of Bell Drive. Not all the kids in that neighborhood need tbe same thing. My twins share a birthdate and a a bedroom and yet they have vastly different needs from each other, let alone from the kid down the block. My boys will even be going to different schools next year.

Oh and re: government subsidy causing university costs to skyrocket:

Yes,but K-12 education is limited in ways that university isn't. People can get Pell Grants and those stupid loans their entire adult lives. K-12 vouchers would only be available from age 5 to 18. Colleges can teach any old thing---clown studies, nursing, whatever---while K-12 have certain things they must teach.
But basically, the problem with college right now is that people who shouldn't be going are going. They're going because society told them to, and government paid them too. This is different from K-12 education. Every child between 5 and at least 15 should be going to school.The only question is who decides which school. If the government runs the K-12 schools, they decide who goes to which school. With vouchers, the parents decide.