Re: [Phys-L] [SPAM] Re: US schools

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

Competition works when the consumer has a clear idea of what they want and
they can find competing products which give them what they want and they
have a way to figure out which ones suit their needs better.  Competition
works very well at selling products.  But in some cases competition produces
worse results.  Parents do not really have a good way of telling which
schools will give their children a better education.  Part of this is
because the schools that rank more highly have better children coming in.

Shayer & Adey did a graph of output vs input and found that all of the
schools they sampled fell on the same line.  In other words none of the
schools were doing a better job than any others.  But when their Thinking
Science program was implemented the output was raised and schools rose
significantly above the line.  But will parents know that this is going
on???

The medical profession is in the same situation.  You have no way of telling
if you have a good or a bad doctor.  You have no way of telling which
hospitals are better because most hospitals do not submit their statistics.
Consumer Reports did have a survey of hospitals and some had dismal records
for infection.  But then you have no way of choosing a hospital because your
medical plan and MD are the determinants.  If you are in an bad accident you
have absolutely no control over what happens to you, so there really is NO
competition for quality.  But there is competition for MDs to get more
money.  For example they will sell you generic medicines at a huge markup
that you can get at a commercial pharmacy more cheaply.  So again you have a
situation where competition produces a worse result.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> Charting a better course
> Charter schools raise educational standards for vulnerable children
> http://www.economist.com/node/21558265
>
> The article is unabashedly pro-US charters (The Economist is 
> proudly pro-capitalist and pro-competition; though positions are 
> well nuanced -- and data are always included in their arguments), 
> and there are some interesting statistics for STEM teaching.  
> The article does recognize that there are many conflicting studies
> then (to me) draws two noteworthy conclusions.