From: werme@alliant.com (Ric Werme)
Newsgroups: rec.org.mensa
Subject: Re: Fermat's flunkeys (was Re: A Real Challenge)
Date: 17 Apr 92 16:50:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: alliant.1992Apr17.165045.4985
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems Corp.

In article <BMtz2D.9IC@world.std.com> rhs@world.std.com (Richard H Schwartz) writes:
>werme@alliant.com (Ric Werme) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Apr16.160528.11486@nntpd.lkg.dec.com> jc@sppip7.lkg.dec.com (John Chambers) writes:
>>Instead of forcing people to go to school,
>>perhaps we could do better by teaching kids who respect education
>>enough to want to learn.  
>
>Every decision in life is an economic decision, and this is much more so
>beneath the poverty line than above.  Respect doesn't put food in anyone's 
>mouth.  Private-only education will result in denying schooling to kids 
>who *would* respect education if they could afford it. 

[Disclaimer for the rest of this post]
I've been getting interested in Libertarianism of late, and some of my
posting was aimed at exploring a Libertarian solution.  By no means do
I claim that the Libertarian party has all the solutions, nor am I
naive enough to expect all Libertarian ideals to occur should everyone
suddenly join the party.

One such ideal is to wipe out the Income Tax (like I say, I'm not
naive enough...).  I'll settle for reduce.  A relates ideal is growth
in charitable foundations, which you could view as a self-directed
tax account.  At the very least, there should be growth in personal
donations.  At any rate, scholarships do exist in private primary and
secondary education.  While it is tough to cover all of Harlem, let's
at least agree that not all poor kids will be denied an education
better than the public schools.

>>It's also a good way to select the parents
>>who are interested in helping their kid's education.  And to encourage
>>both. 

>You assume that all kids have parents who are 1) present, 2) loving, 3)
>physically and economically capable of participating in their children's
>education to the extent that they would like to.  All are bad assumptions
>a lot of the time.  

One of the biggest problem with the Libertarian ideal is that it expects
people to be responsible for their actions.  (Yeah, we have trouble with
expecting that from children who are not emotionally mature enough.)

Why do people insist on having children they can't afford or won't
love?  Why do people get all up in arms when government/private
charities offer free birth control to welfare families?  How is
responsibility learned?  Do social programs like welfare, Medicare,
and social security discourage individual responsibility?  Too bad
it's so hard to set up controlled experiments.

>>A mind may be a terrible thing to waste, but to force a mind
>>that wants to learn to go to a public (government) school whose
>>charter includes forcing kids to be there is probably a greater waste.
>
>Now you're assuming that children are capable of making decisions about
>their future.  Before this you were promoting parental involvement.  Which
>do you want?  There's lots of traps in either direction.

As is probably clear now, I want both.  And there are lots of traps.

>>Gee, and I thought it was prohibition that brought out the best of
>>the Mafia.  Any similarity with the current drug crime situation is
>>probably valid.

>You're only considering the product demand market.  The labor demand market
>is a different matter.  Why is it that you don't see a lot of wealthy
>WASP-types pushing drugs on street-corners?  There's good money in it, but
>the risks are too high for someone who *has* other options.  The crime
>labor market attracts those with no other options.

Actually, the whole alcohol/nicotine/prescription drug/illegal drug
deserves a separate thread.  Too bad schools are good places for dealing
drugs.  (One case where the children ultiumately make the choice.)

>>As long as the government is doing the teaching, it can be a while.
>As long as people question the merits of providing basic education to
>everyone, it *will* be a while.

Someone here at work is teaching his kids at home.  He claims that America's
literacy peaked just before public education began.  I don't know what
his sources are.  Certainly we are a more urban society now, and many of
the worst school situations are urban, so I admit I don't know if the
previous system would work today.

>None of my teachers worked for the government.  They worked for the school
>board, who were elected by senior citizens who showed up to out-vote the
>working stiffs who couldn't take time away from their jobs.  Consequently
>schools were under-funded at a time when enrolment (and hence percentage
>of the voting population who were parents of school-kids) was at its peak. 
>The problem wasn't the government at all -- the government was the force
>behind every attempt to make schools better, which the taxpayers voted 
>down every time.  I admit that this is a bad situation, but the cause is
>the people, not the government.  Privatization is not the answer.  Rational
>funding is.

There are some non-sequituers in here, but I appreciate your point.  If the
government wanted to make the schools better, they might have extend voting
hours so that those working stiffs wouldn't have needed to take time off.

On a somewhat different tack, you say your teachers didn't work for the
government, but for the school board.  My concern about government schools
predates my interest in Libertarianism by quite a while.  In fact, it goes
back to when I started working as a consultant and realized that I had no
idea what I needed to do.  Did I need a license like food handlers get?  Did
I need to register with some town/state/US agency?  While I was in the
college prep program in high school (which never claimed to produce
economically productive people), it gradually occurred to me that all but
one of my teachers had been incapable of teaching me what I needed to know.
That exception was our art teacher who spent quite a bit of time as a
freelance artist before becoming a teacher.

Consider the following.  The typical public school teacher got a teaching
degree from a state college after going through public schools.  The teacher
learned the trade from government employees, has become a government
employee, and may have very little exposure with the private sector.  How
is the teacher going teach?  The skills I learned in school are not the
skills I've used in a billion dollar corporation, small corporations
(including a fascinating visit to Chapter 11), a three person corporation,
and my sole proprietorship.  It would be an interesting world if governments
and their schools had to face a few more of the competitive pressures
private business does.
-- 
| A pride of lions               | Eric J Werme                   |
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| A Constitution of Libertarians | Phone: 508-486-1214            |