From: isbell@ai.mit.edu (Charles L Isbell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: Education (Re: Questions about the TEN POINT PARTY PROGRAM.)
Date: 28 Sep 92 20:13:01 GMT
	<ISBELL.92Sep25211132@panther.ai.mit.edu> <qdv99r8@zola.esd.sgi.com>
Organization: MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In-reply-to: thant@void.esd.sgi.com's message of 28 Sep 92 16:33:22 GMT

thant@void.esd.sgi.com (Thant Tessman) writes:
|> |[...]  In this way well-
|> |run educational programs are expanded upon and badly-run ones are 
|> |weeded out.  It is exactly the mechanism by which education will
|> |constantly be improving itself.

|> I really don't see any reason for this to happen one way or the other.
|> Unless you address the problem of where the kids who want to leave
|> some school and go to a "better" one go while they're waiting, it seems
|> to me that they'll just stay where they are and nothing will happen.
|> [...]

|Warning:  The following is sarcasm...

|Sure, the free market is fine for something like education, but for
|something as important as food, it would never work.  What's to guarantee
|that people will know what kind of food to get?  or that food distribution
|centers will be available in small towns?  or that parents will bother to
|feed their children properly?  If it was left to the free-market, only
|rich people would be able to afford food.  We need to regulate who can go
|into the business of selling food, where their stores are located, who can
|be hired in those stores and at what wages, and what kind of food should
|be made available.  We need to set up a central Board of Nutrition to
|oversee all this.  And since nutrition has economic externalities, it must
|be a public good subsidized and controlled by society via government
|regulation.

I think your sarcasm is misplaced (I could also point out the heavy
govt regualtion of food, as well, but I won't) because the analogies
do not fit well (I could even point out that poor people pay more for
their food than their richer counterparts and get less for it,
especially with "fresh foods", but what good would that do?).  I could
also be sarcastic and get into a free market approach to choosing your
govt, but that would be pointless as well.

Instead, I will ask again:

|> I really don't see any reason for this to happen one way or the other.
|> Unless you address the problem of where the kids who want to leave
|> some school and go to a "better" one go while they're waiting, it seems
|> to me that they'll just stay where they are and nothing will happen.
|> [...]

Are you positing supermarket schools?  A school on every corner as a
solution?  In the interim, how would you prioritize your criterion
such that you rank each child to determine who goes where?  Charge
more?  test four year olds?  their parents?  go by proximity?

How does this affect change?  Does it really force improvement of
other schools?  How does it address teacher quality?  Student quality?
Etc, etc.




--
Peace.
  "[Our] advancement never was out of Uncle Sam's goodwill....  It has
   never been out of any internal sense of morality or legality or
   humanism that we were allowed to advance.  YOU HAVE BEEN AS COLD AS AN
   ICICLE WHENEVER IT CAME TO THE RIGHTS OF THE BLACK MAN IN THIS
   COUNTRY.  (Excuse me for raising my voice, but I think it's time.  As
   long as my voice is the only thing I raise, I don't think you should
   become upset!)"
		   -- Malcolm X in a speech he gave at Harvard Law School,
		      December 19, 1964
                                   -\--/-
    Don't just adopt opinions     |  \/  |       Some of you are homeboys
          develop them.           |  /\  | but only I am The Homeboy From hell
                                   -/--\-