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Thursday, December 8, 2005 - 10:50amSanction this postReply
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Great article, Tibor!

You're absolutely right about the absurdity of government in the business of teaching. In my state of California, not only does government interference make for poor-quality learning, but they also operate in an incredibly inefficient manner- there are over 1,000 school districts each with its own superintendent, payroll staff, unionized transportation departments, custodial services, cafeteria workers, administrative staff, etc. Private enterprise would have long-ago consolidated and outsourced non-core and redundant functions, saving money and redeploying their resources to more efficient use.

Unfortunately, the teachers unions will not allow much-needed reforms without a fight (educational efficiency and choice shrinks the ranks of union laborers, and therefore union "dues", aka theft). Even extremely moderate reforms in the recent California ballot initiative were stifled by the union-led crusade against Schwarzenegger. Instead of fessing up to their own failures and inefficiencies, unions whistle the same familiar tune: more money! Only in government can we see services so grossly mismanaged, with so much public outcry about the failure of an important societal institution, while at the same time the public condones its never-ending expansion and theft from the public purse.

Perhaps not so surprisingly, the people in greatest support of school vouchers are not the rich and middle classes, but inner city blacks. It's interesting to see the party of teacher unions fight so tenaciously to forcibly keep their other constituents in failed, dangerous schools.


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Monday, December 12, 2005 - 5:59amSanction this postReply
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While I agree in general with independence of school and state (perhaps limited to such venues as "reform schools" and maybe orphanages), and further believe that most modern elementary/secondary schooling interferes far too much with education, I think that the politicization of schools has gone well beyond issues relating to their being government-run. Thus, while privatizing education would lessen the politicization of schools, it wouldn't wholly eliminate it.

Take, for example, issues relating to freedom of expression and to tenure/promotion in colleges. Students or professors expressing unorthodox opinions risk retaliation from professors or administrators, if these relate to matters of visceral importance to the orthodox in power. Yet, apart from the overapplication of restrictions relating to government funding, this occurs whether schools are governmental or private. As a result of the widespread occurrence of this phenomenon, it has become politicized in an intermural way, exacerbated, oddly, by the temptation to use government to restore fair treatment.

Of course, as a secondary effect, improving education might result in the secondary effect of improving the character of the orthodox in power, or of reducing their power. But this recurrent struggle is unlikely to go away anytime soon.


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