Re: [Phys-L] Private schools

[Ze'ev Wurman <zeev@ieee.org>]

On 7/10/2012 6:57 AM, John Denker wrote:
> On 07/10/2012 05:36 AM, Richard Tarara wrote:
> > Public education was established for the welfare of the SOCIETY--not the individual or the parents.
> Yes!  Thank you!
>
> This point needs to be continually emphasized.
Education as a welfare for the society *at large* is mostly a 20th 
century construct in this country. America was established without one, 
and fought a civil war without one. Before last century education in 
this country was for the welfare of the citizens first and the local 
community second, paid by its users and supported by the local community 
for those who could not afford it. So history clearly shows one doesn't 
need state monopoly on education to create a country with a cohesive 
philosophy.

Only in the 20th century it started to be "for the welfare of the 
*society*" with state coercion and under the penalty of imprisonment if 
ignored. With a decreasing focus on the individual, and with an 
increasing focus on making it a tool of the state. Like a military draft 
to a large degree, except that nobody pretends that a draft is about 
developing the individual. And with its attendant unionization and 
barrier-to-entry setting by its entrenched interests and rent seekers, 
like with any large state endeavor.

> There is a powerful minority that seems to argue that there is no
> such thing as a community and no such thing as a public good ...
> but we cannot concede this argument.  We must eternally and vigorously
> refute this argument.  Even 50-year-old people who have no children
> in school should consider school taxes a very very good investment.
> The short version of one part of the argument is that without a good
> education system, the services those people plan on buying will not
> be available at any price.  Survivalists can (sorta) stockpile food,
> but they cannot stockpile services.
Straw argument. Essentially everybody agrees that there is a community 
and public good. What we do not always agree on is how intrusive a 
community ought to be, and what a "public good" is. I already pointed to 
the examples of Belgium and Sweden with their essentially 100% 
voucherized education as a possible model much closer to American ethos 
than the statist education in the 19th century European tradition we 
have developed here last century. On the other end I can point out to an 
anecdote I read some time back about China, where one has essentially a 
single chance to make it on university entrance exams, or be barred 
forever from college. Asked whether it is "fair" to the students, a 
Chinese official responded: "We get sufficient number of engineers this 
way."

Same arguments could be said about making college education a state 
function. Oh, they actually are already made (smile). As I've said 
before, one focuses on building a system, the other on growing the 
individual student. Different visions. Different yardsticks.

Ze'ev