[clarkmoody]

As long as education is controlled by government, directional decisions will be made politically. Try bringing up the idea of shrinking class sizes by eliminating the football program at your next town-hall and see what happens.

The only lasting solution will be to allow true market competition for education to replace the centralized top-down system we have. Yes, it's a libertarian pipe dream. No, I don't want to hear about how "poor people will not be educated" by such a system. You cannot know what a free market in education would look like, because we've never tried.

[tdaltonc]

I love the idea of a "free market in education" in theory but I do think that we have enough data to know that '"poor people will not be educated" by such a system.'

Every implementation of a freer market for education that I've read about has had a significant amount of scamming and kids left behind.

We have a free market for food, we subsidize food for poor people, and the market for food is much 'thicker' and 'fluid' than the market for education -- but we still have food deserts. If the free market + subsidies can't make healthy food available to everyone, what chance do we have with education.

[clarkmoody]

We also prop up US agriculture against foreign competition, so prices are not set on a free market.

Also, many of the poor don't get a good education with the current system.

Imagine if the current school system was completely free-market, and we were seeing the same performance as the public schools. There would be complete outrage and calls for nationalization. But somehow government gets the benefit of the doubt, and the only comeback is "but, but the poor."

Government schools do not respond to consumers, since the process is political. Thus, we have our current mess. There must be a better way. We've given the government over 100 years to get things right. Why don't we try something different?

[eli_gottlieb]

>You cannot know what a free market in education would look like, because we've never tried.

Why doesn't the time before public schools existed constitute a try? Seems to me humanity had centuries to millenia of a free market in education: anyone was free to offer or purchase as much education as they could afford.

It wasn't very nice.

[realusername]

We've never tried what? Private schools? I don't see how this would work since schools are always expensive to run by nature and the working class is getting poorer (for those still having a revenue), I don't see this working very well.

[clarkmoody]

Private schools are required to compete with "free" public schools.

> I don't see how this would work since schools are always expensive to run by nature and the working class is getting poorer (for those still having a revenue), I don't see this working very well.

That's why in my comment I said I don't want to hear this comeback. It's as predictable as sunset that every time someone mentions a free market in education, someone else can't imagine it working for educating the poor.

How well does the current system educate the poor?

[realusername]

So you don't want to hear about this argument but you have nothing else against it than "we never tried it"? It's does not seem to be very convincing.

It's already difficult for the working class with a free school so I can't imagine it would be better with a non-free one, the alternative to no public schools is simply no schooling at all for some people

> How well does the current system educate the poor?

You need to ask the US government for that, most public school systems are working well in western Europe so the US must be doing something wrong somewhere.

[kmicklas]

> Yes, it's a libertarian pipe dream.

Yes, yes it is.

> No, I don't want to hear about how "poor people will not be educated" by such a system.

Libertarianism summarized: have you ever tried hating poor people... on weeeeeed?