Sunday 30 October 2005

Reply to Shuggy

In response to this post Shuggy commented as follows:
if we feel that the taxpayer should still be (wrongly) forced to pay for education. Oh, come off it. Have you forgotten the 'no free lunches' dictum? If education was privatised, the 'taxpayer' - i.e. the citizen - would pay through the nose for it directly. And the people who can't afford education - what are they supposed to do? This is, in any event, groundhog day; I asked you, or one of your ideological soulmates, for an example of a country that has mass, compulsory education provided by the private sector. I'm still waiting..... Shuggy | Email | Homepage | 10.27.05 - 9:30 am | #
I'm replying in this new posting because a few days have passed since the 27th.

First, I haven't forgotten the "no free lunches" dictum. All it says is this:

Simply put, it means that one cannot get something for nothing. Even if something appears to be free, there is always a catch.
I'm not arguing that education could somehow be "free" but that it shouldn't be financed through taxation - that's to say by coercion. The only citizens who should pay for education are those who choose so to do. One would expect parents to pay for most pre-university education but anyone is free to contribute voluntarily to educational charities just as has happened throughout history.

Why should people need to pay "through the nose" for private education? Already, state education costs just about the same as the fees charged by some private schools. If private schools had the whole market to themselves, costs and fees would fall considerably and all kinds of innovative alternatives would come into existence.

I really don't believe that many parents couldn't afford to pay for private education in a mass market. Naturally we'd have to end the welfare mentality that's so blighted Shuggy's own city of Glasgow - a place of which I am very fond. In a book that I've just finished Michael Barone writes about the welfare reforms pioneered in Wisconsin:

When Thompson left the governorship to become secretary of Health and Human Services in 2001, the welfare rolls in Wisconsin had been reduced by more than 90 percent.
Where had they all gone?
In Fond du Lac County, I saw women walk out the door when the five-year-limit was explained to them: better not to use up the benefits now, but to save them up for when they might really be needed, and go out and get a job.
Shuggy asked "you, or one of your ideological soulmates, for an example of a country that has mass, compulsory education provided by the private sector." I probably can't. But if you want an example of mass, non-compulsory education provided by the private sector, why not have a look at this:
According to a government survey 95% of children in 1860 had between five and seven years education.
The government in question was British.

95% seems pretty a reasonable achievement for the private sector in 1860. Finally, why on earth would my ideological soulmates or I favour compulsion?

2 comments:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Wild Pegasus
Goddam, Kev, you got a nose like a bloodhound. 
 
- Josh

3 November 2005, 20:31:11 GMT
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Kevin Carson
BTW, Non-Manichean, don't you think "free and compulsory" might be just a little oxymoronic?

3 November 2005, 17:57:22 GMT
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Kevin Carson
Thanks, Josh. Most of the objectors seem to be assuming that the cost of providing an education is fixed. In fact, the current "human resource factory" model of schooling, based on tranporting people to a central processing center, is incredibly costly and wasteful. Like most other examples of factory organization, it's more about control over people than efficiency in production. Information is the cheapest thing in the world to transport--why not transport the information to the point of consumption? 
 
Just look at Illich's work on decentralized learning networks over 30 years ago, and think how it would be affected by computers.

3 November 2005, 17:56:14 GMT
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Wild Pegasus
Private Schooling for the Third World Poor 
 
If the desparately poor third worlders can scrape together some cash and send their kids to school, I damn well think the Scots can manage it. 
 
- Josh

3 November 2005, 05:08:45 GMT
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David Farrer
Excellent point, Dave. I don't know the answer but expect I wouldn't like it.

2 November 2005, 09:09:04 GMT
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dave fordwych
Does anyone know if the published cost of educating a child in the state sector takes account of the cost of the unfunded part of teachers'pensions? Given that so many take early retirement ,often with a package which includes "enhancements" which add to the cost to the state,aka you and me; the cost per pupil of pensions must be substantially higher than the equivalent in the private sector. 
 
It is no longer possible to have a meaningful discussion concerning private versus state, about costs in general and wage levels in particular,without taking account of the vast gulf opening up between private sector pensions and the taxpayer funded, index-linked variety enjoyed throughout the public sector.

2 November 2005, 08:20:42 GMT
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triticale
It should be noted that Wisconsin's "W2" program did not simply kick people off welfare. The transition was subsidized, and child care continues to be. My wee wifey works among former welfare recipiants, and the majority of them are evolving a work ethic.

2 November 2005, 02:23:35 GMT
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Neil Craig
I believe that taxpayer supported education is entirely justified. Education is a good, not just for the pupil, but for society as a whole. If we want somebody to pay our pensions there had better be somebody educated to run the show when we get there. If society as a whole benefits society should pay. I also believe in compulsory education since the people whose parents won't make them go are the very ones we most need to reach. 
 
I also think David is wrong in thinking that economies of scale would reduce the costs of independent schools - currently many independent school fees are roughly the same as state school per pupil costs. 
 
On the other hand the present system is not working. We have more than 5% non-attendance, we have indiscipline & we have a large number of kids who are much more functionally illiterate after a full education than they would be after a good 7 years schooling & who are not going to be able to cut it in the modern world. 
 
On that basis I support vouchers with independent schools. It is true that no state is doing this but, seeing the results of the others systems, this is not neccessarily an objection.

31 October 2005, 19:18:35 GMT
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David Farrer said...



Andrew Ian Dodge
AD thanks for point that out. The teacher's union always try to claim that private education is more expensive per student than state education. Its untrue, of course, I would guess that if parents had the money that state spends per student they could do far better for their off-spring.

31 October 2005, 13:28:20 GMT
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Andrew Duffin
Non-Manichaean Iconoclast: 
 
"And most students in the modern age have 16 years of education before university" 
 
I assume you mean "most students who eventually go on to university", since people who start school at 5-ish and leave as soon as they can will have around eleven years schooling, and this is far from an uncommon pattern. 
 
Again: 
 
" Already, state education costs just about the same as the fees charged by some private schools. 
 
That's not my experience!" 
 
We're not arguing about your experience, we're arguing about the facts, and the facts are (1) that Scotland spends about £5500 a year on each secondary school pupil and (2) that the City of Glasgow spends over £6000 a year on each one. Both figures are well up to the fees charged at the more modest (by which I don't mean bad) private schools.

31 October 2005, 12:16:10 GMT
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dearieme
I gather that after more than a century of free state education we now have literacy rates lower than when it started. The presumption must therefore now be in favour of abolishing our present system of state education.

31 October 2005, 02:21:11 GMT
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Kenny McCormack
"If you want a student's academic ability to be a more important factor in the quality of their education than their wealth, then tax-funded state education is the best way to ensure that." 
 
On the contrary it is probably the most important factor. Not of course their wealth but that of their parents. For I don't think you will find many people disagreeing with proposition that Scotland's best schools are in Scotland's most affluent areas. 
 
If a student happens to be both bright and poor, then he is effectively up the proverbial creek without a paddle, for the current system ensures that he will be trapped in a school were their is a culture of low expectations and low academic standards.  
 
As his parents cannot afford to pay for a private education, what chance does such a student have? None unless he moves "to a more right-wing country than Scotland"

30 October 2005, 13:28:45 GMT
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Non-Manichaean Iconoclast
why on earth would my ideological soulmates or I favour compulsion?  
 
So, not a big fan of the Human Rights Act 1998 then? "Free and compulsory education for all"? 
 
According to a government survey 95% of children in 1860 had between five and seven years education.  
 
And most students in the modern age have 16 years of education before university. Even assuming that the government survey took an appropriate sample, chances are that a large percentage of parents back then couldn't afford more than seven years of education. Seven years of education will not cut it in the modern world. 
 
Already, state education costs just about the same as the fees charged by some private schools.  
 
That's not my experience! 
 
Making people pay for their own private education would just reintroduce the inherited class system. The only people able to afford an average education would be people of average (or above-average?) wealth, and usually only people with an average education would go on to make an average amount of money, etc. 
 
If you want a student's academic ability to be a more important factor in the quality of their education than their wealth, then tax-funded state education is the best way to ensure that. And if you don't, then move to a more right-wing country than Scotland.

30 October 2005, 12:52:16 GMT