RoR: Forum

Ed,

Excellent article! Have you considered submitting it to the Alliance for the Separation of School and State?

Luke Setzer

Post 1

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 1:10pm

Ed,

Good article as usual.

I have three comments not meant to be criticisms, but observations in general.

All of the benefits of freeing education from government control are correct, but I would like to see it emphasized that even if these benefits were not realized, it is still morally wrong for the government to have anything to do with education.

One of the criticism the article itself will receive is, "how do you know?" How do you know education will be better, that teachers will seek to improve themselves, that the poor will have enough money for private schools? Be ready to answer those, but keep in mind my first point. It doesn't matter if none of those things are actually realized, it is still immoral for the government to force people to pay to have the children kidnapped for several hours each day and subjected to whatever the government wants to force into their pliable minds.

Finally, most people do not want to hear this. They are perfectly happy to have someone babysitting their children several hours each day for, "free." (I know it's not free and you know it's not free, but they still think its cheaper than hiring a babysitter.) However, the homeschool movement is one of the more hopeful movements going. Homeschool and private schooling is the way those who want freedom of education now can have it. It's expensive either way, but freedom always has a price.

Regi

Post 2

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 2:13pm

Hi,

Regi's comment brings to mind the distinction among three types of ethical systems identified in Len Marrella's book In
Search of Ethics:

Ends-Based
Rule-Based
Care-Based

Marrella's book hardly qualifies as Objectivist, makes many altruistic assumptions and generally impressed me as
unintegrated, superficial and unsystematic. But the aforementioned insight proved to be the wheat in the chaff.
In the realm of political rights, I estimate that Objectivism leans heavily toward a "rules" basis whereas utilitarianism
leans heavily toward an "ends" basis and socialism leans heavily toward a "care" basis. Critics can make contrary arguments
if they wish.

Assuming my estimate withstands scrutiny, the task of dissuading the masses of the "goodness" of government schools would
involve a paradigm shift toward a "rules" basis of negative rights, e.g. the right to "be" let alone rather than the right to
"get" some good or service. As Regi implied, the masses are asses, so expect no such shift any time soon.

Luke Setzer

Post 3

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 3:14pm

Luther,

That is an excellent analysis.

Assuming by, "rules," is meant, "objective principle" (and not just some arbitrary "rules" determined by "consensus" or "tradition" or some other non-objective method) that simple breakdown is an wonderful way to see the differences in these views, and also shows in a graphic way the real difference between Objectivism, and Libertarianism or the Austrians, for example.

I love, "the masses are asses." I'm a sucker of alliteration, but when you have rhyme and truth too, well I'll be plaigerizing that expression all over the place.

Thanks!

Regi

Post 4

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 7:12pm

Luke,
Maybe Objectivist politics are rule-based, but the 'rules' originate from the need for a particular end - individual liberty. So I think it's less clear what sort of system Objectivism is, according to this classification.

Phil

Post 5

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 8:13pm

Philip,

Your point crossed my mind. My counter point would be that each of these systems ultimately come to ends-based, but what ends? Liberty would be a means to some ends while totalitarianism would be a means to other ends. Justifying the ends philosophically proves the big challenge. Most Americans would probably support utilitarianism if you asked them. Many might even support "from each according to his ability to each according to his needs". So from these various collectivist ends come the totalitarian challenges to the political means of liberty necessary for the ends of *individual* life.

Luke Setzer

Post 6

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 8:31pm

Regi & Luke, if the "masses are asses", then Ed's fine arguments for private education are useless, because the masses won't understand them -- and besides, even if somehow education were privatized, parents would be too asinine to bother having their children educated. You can't have it both ways. If you truly believe people are stupid, it is pointless to fight for a society of personal responsibility; which asses are to take on that responsibility? You'd have to grant that the totalitarians of all kinds are correct: someone has to tell us how to live.

Barbara

Post 7

Wednesday, September 8, 2004 - 11:08pm

Barbara,

I can reconcile this through application of the concepts of codependency and enabling on a massive, social scale. People in codependent relationships tend to look to their "Other(s)" to make them "complete" in some way. Usually, some form of "enabling" occurs by the more able of the participants that allows the immature codependency to continue. A common example involves a sober spouse who "needs" love from her alcoholic spouse and "enables" him to continue his drinking without consequence through abetting his lies to his boss, bailing him out of jail, etc.

Now expand this to a societal scale in which the most virtuous in a society, through the morality of altruism and the politics of statism, "enable" the most vicious in that society to continue indulging their vices without any consequence from reality. The tobacco lawsuits in the USA offer one of the most recent examples, and these in turn resulted from the much more massive Medicare-Medicaid behemoth.

Without enabling from capable people, reality would compel such immature people to shape up or ship out.

My remark that "the masses are asses" conveys several meanings:

Ayn Rand herself contended that many average people simply act as intellectual ballast, following whatever trend the intellectuals set.
Thomas Sowell contends that concrete incentives, not "noble intentions", most readily motivate human behavior in the marketplace.
Generations of government programs have created a sub-culture of "asses" already who will have a hell of a time internalizing the virtues of a rational and productive life of earned pride.
Human beings typically follow the path of least resistance. See point 2.

Multiple generations of government enabling have spawned widespread codependency of body and spirit and yielded "masses of asses". Sadly, these masses can vote and they cheerfully vote in favor of maintaining the codependent cycle. Had the Constitution separated economics and state from the beginning, perhaps these masses of asses would never have arisen.

Regi, any other insights?

Luke Setzer

Post 8

Thursday, September 9, 2004 - 8:00am

Barbara, Luke,

Regi & Luke, if the "masses are asses", then Ed's fine arguments for private education are useless, because the masses won't understand them ...

Absolutely. They not only cannot understand them, they would refuse to if they could. Most people do not want to understand that freedom means being responsible for one's own choices and actions, that life is hard, and in a moral (free) society, the "rule" is, produce or perish.

...and besides, even if somehow education were privatized, parents would be too asinine to bother having their children educated. You can't have it both ways.

Right again. I have no illusions about that at all. I commended Ed's article, not because I think it is possible in the foreseeable future, but because the principles are correct. If freedom in any sphere could suddenly be realized, in education, in personal responsibility, or any other, the number of people who would suddenly find themselves incapable of living, much less living successfully, would be staggering. Luther rightly points out that we have produced a huge dependent (parasitic) class of people. They will not easily give up what they have grown accustomed to getting without "cost" (or one they recognize) to them.

If you truly believe people are stupid, it is pointless to fight for a society of personal responsibility; which asses are to take on that responsibility?

I do think people (very many) are stupid, and, in one sense, "it is pointless to fight for a society of personal responsibility." Individual liberty is never secured by creating the "right kind of society." The liberty enjoyed by individuals during the first 150 years of America was due to the fact there was very little government, and most people were self-sufficient. In those early years, the very real fact that one either worked and produced and supported themselves, or went without and died, could not be hidden behind the huge cloud of government social manipulation that exists today.

You'd have to grant that the totalitarians of all kinds are correct: someone has to tell us how to live.

Certainly not! Somehow we've all gotten the idea that everyone must be happy and successful. Given the present mix of people in the United States, if everyone was suddenly thrown on their own wits, ambition, and ability, most would make total wrecks of their lives. So what? (Most do anyway, but it is hidden by all the government and social programs that describe those failures as something else, and support all those who cannot support themselves at our expense.)

Just because most people do not know how to live their lives, it does not follow that someone must therefore tell them how to live them. That conclusion assumes that there is some kind of moral necessity for everyone to be successful and happy. There isn't.

Now Luther's comments are exactly right, here, I think. The point is, to me at least, if those individuals who do know what freedom is, and do know how to live their lives, did everything they can to free themselves from the constraints of government (like educating their own children), those kind of actions would provide two things, reduced base of support for the government (programs) and provide practical examples of how one does achieve success in life.

Most people look to authority and examples for guidance in how to live their lives. For most, that means, their government, their religious leaders, and the media. If you really want to influence, "society," that is, "masses of asses," it is not going to be done by, "explanations," which they are incapable of understanding, it is going to be done by example and demonstration, and by making available to them in the open market, products and services obviously superior and cheaper than government can supply.

Enough!

Thank you both for the interesting comments, and thanks to Ed for starting this thing off.

Regi

Post 9

Friday, September 10, 2004 - 7:41am

Luther:

Thanks . I will look into the Alliance for the Separation of School and State.

Luther, Regi, Phil, Barbara:

Thanks for the great discussion. I learned a lot from it.

Everyone:

A good book on the topic is: Sheldon Richman's Separating School and State.

Ed

Post 10

Friday, April 1, 2011 - 8:58pm

I decided to revive this old thread with the following questions regarding free market education:

1) who decides what is taught?

2) Who decides the curriculum across the country?

3) How do people of one state, or tax bracket even, ensure their kids get the same quality education as the next state?

4)It costs more to run some states, and some states have more people and expenditures. Who decides?

Post 11

Friday, April 1, 2011 - 9:10pm

1 & 2: People decide whatever they want to teach and the price. Other people decide whether they want to pay to learn it.

3 & 4: Individuals decide how much they want to pay for their own education, and try to get the best quality their money can buy. There is no insurance that one school is better than another, or state better than another. Not sure why you are talking so much about state costs. There are no state costs in free market education. All of the cost and decisions are made by individuals consensually choosing how they spend their own resources.

Post 12

Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 12:10am

I agree with Dean.

Ed

Post 13

Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 12:35am

What if someone, just after the Soviet Union collapse created a thread with the following questions regarding free market housing:

1) who decides what kinds of dwelling are created?

2) Who decides the differences across the country?

3) How do people of one state, or tax bracket even, ensure their kids get the same quality home as in the next state?

4) It costs more to live in some states and more to build buildings in some states, and some states have more people and expenditures. Who decides how to price them?
------------------

Substitute shoes, food, medical care, any product or service... and the free market does better. We only assume those things that government has always provided couldn't exist without government.

Post 14

Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 6:43am

The worst solution is a combination of public education and 'free choice' vouchers, which dumps students from 'failing' public districts into adjoining public districts.

That is because, it is not the districts that are 'failing.'

It neither punishes the districts that are 'failing', nor does it reward the adjoining districts that are not failing. In fact, it punishes them. The additional costs -- not all of them monetary -- associated with accommodating these 'free choice' students are not covered by the vouchers.

These 'solutions' are not about free market risk/performance/reward. These 'solutions' are about spreading costs to adjoining public districts.

Everyone is scared to death to name the problem in 'failing' districts, and everyone knows exactly what the problem is. The problem is cultural. Cultures with little more than contempt for education are going to fail, period, and spreading that disease is not going to fix anything, it is going to spread the disease.

We're already seeing it.

It is cultural behavior and choices that lead to success and failure. When those cultural choices and behavior lead to failure, the corresponding public districts are failures. When those cultural choices and behavior lead to success, the corresponding districts are successful.

The reward for failing choices is failure. The reward for successful choices is success. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This 'free choice public voucher' nonsense is an attempt to turn that calculus on its ear.

The young failures living within ten miles of an adjacent successful school district who choose to attend the successful schools become an out of all proportion disproportionate burden on those (once) successful schools, quickly tearing them down and driving up costs to administer. What is missing is some gateway to turn these schemes into a means of 'rescuing' only deserving students who are not failures in those failing school districts, from wallowing in that failed local culture. The use of these 'free choice' public vouchers should be selectively applied as a reward for good behavior, for giving a rat's ass about education, for turning ones back on the predominate shit for brains gangsta wannabe nonsense turning these 'failing' districts into shitholes of dumbassdom.

Instead, it becomes the short-cut means by which these shit for brains end up polluting the once successful adjacent districts.

The price of admission to the adjacent successful districts used to be successful cultural choices. This scheme short circuits that with a chutes and ladders short cut that serves no positive purpose at all, other than to reward dumbassess for still being dumbasses.

An anecdote. Local suburban once successful public school district. Family moves from out of area, researches districts, moves in, buys home, pays taxes in their district of choice, the best choice for their special needs daughter, because the district has in the past had a great reputation for that, has made it a priority not to simply be a mandated 'check-off', based on the personalities involved. Don't agree, then reside in another school district with a different culture. This is why there are 501 school districts in PA.

She is an outwardly a stunningly beautiful young teenager, is on the competition dance team, is outwardly social and friendly, but can neither read nor write nor add two figures together. In normal conversation, impossible to tell this. But, she is being savaged by some of her schoolmates. As in, incidences of being thrown up against a locker, and so on. She is intellectually defenseless, but physically, in all appearances, not only 'normal' looking, but exceptionally beautiful young girl. At first blush, this seems 'odd' for such a 'successful' public school district, but it turns out, she is white, and her tormentors are uniquely a handful of minority students in the school, some of them having come from adjacent 'failing' school districts. And the true horror of this story is, the administration is having some trouble finding its way to deal with this situation(I don't in a million years understand why)because they have to tread lightly on the subject of minority vs. white special needs child "conflict."

Seriously? We're at the point where we actually have to not only tolerate complete and total dumbasses running amok, but accommodate them with 'free choice' public vouchers?

The GOPers advocating this nonsense have not completely thought it through. What citizens are owed as a birthright is the opportunity to be offered the chance to responsibly take their education. But that comes with a responsibility.

These solutions need to reflect both reward and punishment and value-less 'free choice' vouchers do not.

It is not the fault of teachers in 'failing' public school districts when cultural dumbasses show up, slouch in their seats, and treat the offer of taking their education with nothing more than gangast wannabee contempt.

Instead of coddling and rewarding and tolerating such cultural detritus, we would be offering the the opportunity to be educated as to what the proper consequences are of making shitty life choices.

Post 15

Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 9:22am

Michael, Dean's reply was succinct. Allow me to amplify that from some of my own perspectives. Also, first, allow me to direct you to the posts of Luke Setzer on Education throughout RoR. It is a special passion of his.

1) who decides what is taught?
2) Who decides the curriculum across the country?
3) How do people of one state, or tax bracket even, ensure their kids get the same quality education as the next state?
4)It costs more to run some states, and some states have more people and expenditures. Who decides?

As noted, with a free market, there would be no state education. Also, realize of course, that even within states, you have hundreds of local boards with varying costs and programs and incomes. (We know that the poor subsidize the schools of the rich because poor people buy way more Lotto tickets.) So, again, if there were no form of government schooling - as there is no government shoe industry - then your point 4) goes away.

You point 3) largely reflects 4), but let me focus on "tax bracket" just tor rephrase that as how do poor people get good education, too?

Similarly, your point 2) is actually redirected by the facts of the modern world. While Finland, Hong Kong, etc. have apparently great seconary schools in a national curriculum, no one goes there for college. Actually, everyone comes here specifically because competition - UCLA versus Harvard versus Ohio Weslyan - has created a vibrant mulitphasic set of opportunties for all. So a "national system" may not be the best model.

That brings us to 1 and to Dean's reply. You, the learner, decide, just as you the shoe-wearer tell shoe manufacturers what to produce.

In the absence of government education, private providers of all kinds would spring up. They exist now. If you look around you, you can find all kinds of educational opportunities, ad hoc, informal or more structured and institutionalized. For a year, I did science experiement demonstrations at my local science museum, talking chemistry and physics while making fireworks from medicine cabinet stuff. If you go to any bookstore, especially a big box, you will find a wealth of opportunities. My state coin club (Michigan State Numismatic Society) has hosted seminars and training on a wide range of topics about the forms and uses of money. The garden club, the local history society, antique cars, ham radio, the local airport experimenters, you name it, they are out there. I mean, if you want to learn electronics, you can go to Big State U or you can join the local ARRL (Amateur Radio Relay League). The ARRL even builds satelites that are launched for their use.

I guess the basic question comes back to you: what education do you think you need?

Post 16

Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 11:01am

Fred,

I disagree with a portion of your post. I really like the voucher system as a way to shift from what we have now - an effective monopoly by government schools - to a fully operational private school system. I see the voucher program as a wonderful transition mechanism.

A good voucher system starts with very minimal standards for an organization to call itself a school to be able to cash the vouchers and the government investigates only to minimize fraud. The voucher check represents the total amount of money the state paid, per pupil, in the previous year. That makes a marketplace niche that is awesome - massive profits available leads to schools popping up like weeds. Parents get to choose so the competition is to do the best at pleasing the consumer and the vast majority want the best for their kids. And the legislation should be written so that the taxes supporting schools should be decreased at say 10% per year and the size of the voucher decreased by the same 10%. Year 11, the voucher system goes out of existence and parents have gone from paying nothing to paying the full tuition of whatever school they choose in gradual steps. Transition complete.
---------------

I am not arguing against your point on sub-cultures. Those sub-cultures that don't value education reap what they sow. Or, better said, the kids reap what their parents and grandparents sowed. And it is a real problem. But those dysfunctional sub-cultures continue to exist, to a large degree, because of those failed schools that would end up being replaced by good private schools via a voucher system. The generational cycle that perpetuates the failed sub-culture includes, as an important cog, those government schools and all of their upside-down rules.

Three things are in play here:

dysfunctional government schools (with stupid rules, PC infection, parents having no say, and teacher unions),
sub-cultures that don't value education, and
a small percentage of parents bad parents.

Those are the primary causes of kids not getting a decent start. Vouchers would let parents choose who would educate their child. If we're talking about parents in the grip of a bad subculture, a good voucher system will give them the choice of good schools that wouldn't have been in existence under a government monopoly. A good school will be a force that helps to break that sub-culture.

I agree that those children who aren't raised to grasp the idea of TAKING an education will be at a disadvantage, but a good school, with good rules, and good teachers has a chance of letting them see what their job is. Some will see that and learn how to TAKE an education.

Bad schools are in effect attempting to level the playing field by bringing everyone down to the lowest level - the level of a someone of mediocre abilities who has a bad attitude and conforms to the general rule of resisting taking on any more education than absolutely necessary.

Mother nature and healthy psychology tilt the playing field strongly in favor of rapid, joyous learning - that is what we are 'wired' for as kids - that is our natural state. Bad parents, bad sub-cultures, and bad schools are the barriers a kid has to overcome, and some do, but none should have to.

Post 17

Saturday, April 2, 2011 - 1:54pm

I agree with Dean too, good post.

Michael Philip wrote:

Who decides...

To me there are only two options. Either the individual decides, or a tyrant. I rarely hear people who go with the latter choice justify their position, and instead demand that others justify why individuals should be free. But I like to challenge people's premises. Why should a tyrant decide?

Post 18

Sunday, April 3, 2011 - 5:37am

Vouchers have theoretical merit. The government decides how much one of their schools costs per pupil and offers that to every child through their parent, to be spent on any schooling.

Well, not "any" schooling ...

And that is the problem. State governments use vouchers or "schools of choice" or other programs only to extend themselves into private education.

You must admit that the taxpayers cannot be expected to underwrite just "any" kind of thing parents dream up. I want my child to go to Lottery School and we will spend their $6000 per year on the games. The other problem, of course, is that now the State of Michigan (for instance) denied funds to a "religious" school because several members of the board attended the same church. I fail to see where the State of Michigan gets to ask you what church you go to. Of course this is all motivated by subservience to the MEA, the teachers' union.

I do not know what loophole they used in Ohio, but my oldest nephew attended a "cooperative" school in Cleveland Heights where the parents were the teachers. Here in Michigan, you need government papers to teach. (Substitute teaching is an exception.)

Second, I repeat my endorsement of the community club as a mode of education. We denigrate that. We do not even perceive it as education. But do you not agree that if more kids learned about "numismatics", i.e., the art and science of the forms and uses of money that we would not have the economic problems we suffer? My daughter was a Young Numismatist. She had no interest in collecting. But she learned to buy and sell.

Watch this TED presentation from Cameron Herold a guy who was a child entrepreneur. (It also qualifies as an Ayn Rand sighting.)

We value the public library - at least, I do - though recognizing the problems of taxation. But bookstores provide the same services. In fact, my wife has a "thing" a constant complaint about the people who exploit the bookstore by getting one cup of coffee and reading for free all day. Here in Ann Arbor, we have five used bookstores downtown. After decades in businsess, two of them took the opportunities to move next door to each other in the same block as the Food Coop and Green Restaurant. It made the block. And the one hosts a Wednesday Night reading club, four different ones, actually, through the month. One group is led by a Ph.D. history professor.

Absent public education, these opportunities would blossom for two broad reasons. First, people want them. Second, the public schools now drain off and misdirect resources that would otherwise be invested.

Public education destroyed the apprentice system. Children could have worked in offices. They are safe, clean, quiet, perfect for kids to learn to alphabetize, count, tally, score, read, and write. Offices opened opportunities for women who could compete with men for jobs brain-to-brain. The same would apply to children.

There is no mandate that it must be all-or-nothing, certainly not in a marketplace, though definitely when a government makes laws.

Education is for life. At least it has been for me. The idea that you goto to school for 12 or 16 years and then stop learning simply is false. It always was.

Post 19

Monday, April 4, 2011 - 8:05am