It's worth supporting public education, even if you don't have kids in public school.

It's cheaper than prison

Public schools are fundamentally broken -- the incentives aren't aligned with the desired outcomes.

How so, Mike? Can you give us some specifics?

As a child-free taxpayer who volunteers weekly in our public schools I see a great many good teachers (as well as some bad ones, admittedly) doing amazing things with their students. Is the public school system perfect? Of course not! But it is certainly not "fundamentally broken".

Oh, and Anne's right. :-)

I think Greg and Mike can both be right. There are a lot of good teachers doing amazing things with their students in public schools, but that doesn't mean that they're supported by the incentives currently in place. I imagine one could even argue that good teachers succeed despite their environment.

However, even if "public schools are fundamentally broken" today, I still think that we as a society should take responsibility for the education and intellectual development of the children in our community. And "public school" is, in my book, shorthand for "state-sponsored education."

I think that for many children with supportive families willing to either fund a private school with a method that works for them, and/or to provide personal instruction and encouragement for the kid to learn on their own, public school is probably not the best way to obtain a quality primary education. However, if no public school system existed, a large fraction of children would be left in the cold as far as education is concerned, which would unquestionably be bad for society.

privatize for the betterment of all.

It would be worth it if the education system produced an actual benefit.

Your support or lack of support for a system should be not be based on whether that system benefits you but rather whether it meets your ethical beliefs.

What better ethic is there to decide on than whether or not it provides a benefit or detriment to society? I'm not saying it doesn't produce a benefit "for me", I alluded that it produced no benefit, period.

So they can steal my job later? No thanks!

I went to a public school. It was a school noted for it's high achievement and difficult classes. I see that no one here has attended a good public school.(Apparently) I do agree that many public schools particularily inner city schools are in trouble. Making the school system would not benefit people either. Perhaps the school I attended was the exception, even wealthy people want to send their children there. Private schools often have outrageous prices and are not affordable for most people, obviously. (It's not about the family being supportive.) Charter schools are also a viable option for many people. I went to one for middle school, it was great!
Everyone should support the public school system. If a parent has enough money to send their children to private school they have enough to help pay for most of rest of the state's children's education. That is how I see it. Education of any kind benefits everyone.

Children that drink coke?

No wonder they are unhealthy and hyperactive.

True, the American public schools are better than nothing, but unless there is so much rot from state and federal mandates to bloated LAYERS of administration to the shabby treatment of teachers in society and on the job, that there is PLENTY of room for improvement. We need more and smaller schools. We need more teachers so that each teacher's load is REDUCED. Teachers should be paid double what they get now and not be treated like hourly manual labor.

Of course, your plan quadruples the amount spent on teacher salary. We should take that out of the military budget, right?

Considering the size of the military budget, I could live with that.

A reorganization of the public education establishment could help too by reducing costs associated with testing mandates and overly paid and duplicative (or even sinecurist) administration.

Redirecting significant money toward teachers would have many effects on the culture of education, which is really the end game here. Instead of a disproportionate number of the bottom third of college graduates going into teaching, there would be increased competition for $60K/yr entry jobs with benefits and civilized workloads (assuming a $30K/yr national average beginning salary for public school teachers in the US).

I think it's worth considering what this change of workforce quality could mean for a host of interlocking factors, including education advocacy, increased expertise and professionalism, and student outcomes.

I'd say that this topic has gotten sidetracked. You're arguing over how much at this point (not that I disagree necessarily with the amount you're aiming for).

For those of you who disagree, if you are saying that it is not worth supporting public education as we have it today, that is one thing, and we all need to strive to improve our public education system. However, opposing public education in general is a mistake.

The points made by the proponents above are good examples of why. The uneducated are much less able to contribute to the society that you and your children will live in. This means that either you will have to support them in some way in the future, or they will die. Not all of them, but enough of them. What good does it do to protect people from foreign enemies if you don't prepare them to fight for their existence?

In addition, there are all sorts of problems that widespread poverty (which is what you will have) bring to a culture and a country. You're buying all of that with your lack of support.

These are things that cannot be replaced by private education, even publicly funded private education, IMHO.

Otherwise, who will drink tomorrow's Coke?

The public education system doesn't work. If things don't work, eventually they will stop.

breakyaneck.myopenid.com:

If I assume you are right, and given that you aren't countering my arguments above, it sounds as if you are trying to say that we are all doomed and we might as well give up and go gently into that good night. Is that what you are saying?

Alternatively if you are saying that private education only (no public education) could work, please explain how private education can accommodate the poor in such a way that their children necessarily get a quality education.

Or, if you believe that children of the poor shouldn't get a high quality education, please explain how you would defend the statement that the United States of America is a land of opportunity. Also, explain how you would accommodate the large quantity of uneducated workers entering the workforce (ideal) or the unemployment or welfare rolls (likely).

I'm talking about major school system reform or abolition. In its current state it is inefficient and serves a lowest common denominator, and arguably measures and develops abilities that are not related to learning or education. Finland and Germany have better school systems which require less time. Making it compulsory (except for a few cases) has done more harm than good, also. When technology is developed enough (in Ray Kurzweil's book, $1000 computers should be able to have as much computing power as a human brain in about 10 years) the system of teachers and students in schools will be done away with also. I'm going to go out on a small limb here and say in 50 years schools as we see today won't exist. One teacher divided among 30 students ain't cutting it.

As a friend I know has said (summarizing a passage from Maturana's _The Tree of Life_), there is no such thing as teaching, only learning.
Learning is more about the student than the teacher anyway, but the system is set up in the exact opposite way.

breakyaneck.myopenid.com: "I'm talking about major school system reform or abolition. In its current state it is inefficient and serves a lowest common denominator..."

Inefficiency alone is hardly deserving of abolition. In addition, while I agree that it doesn't serve children as much as it could, public education is still providing a significant service. We would need to institute something better before removing what we have now.

What system we end up with is for the most part not relevant unless it doesn't provide an education to students regardless of their financial or cultural status.

"Making it compulsory (except for a few cases) has done more harm than good, also."

Care to cite or otherwise support this statement?

"When technology is developed enough ... the system of teachers and students in schools will be done away with also."

I'm not at all clear on what you are predicting here. Are you predicting an end to education because computers will be learning and doing science for us, or are you predicting that computers will take over education from human teachers? As far as your parenthetical goes, by some metrics today's computers already have more computing power than the human brain. Computing is not the primary focus of the human brain; thinking is.

"...there is no such thing as teaching, only learning."

I disagree. There are ways of communicating that are structured more and less appropriately for the purpose of helping the student learn efficiently. Choosing the appropriate means for communicating information to the student is teaching.

Point by point:
I disagree with the concept of institutions entirely. This is a view that I have come to from reading what I've read and my experiences with institutions.

My support for how it is compulsory is the state of homeschooled children vs. public schooled children.

What I was predicting was yes, partly that computers will be doing more (the SINGULARITY!) but more that there will be better technologies to teach. Because teaching involves a human standing in front of 20-30 humans in a high school class, and 50+ in a college class. That is what many people find so great about the internet. For most subjects (and a lot more than school subjects) the information is out there for the individual to learn at his/her own pace. Also, who knows what kinds of technologies will be made that will deliver information to the brain faster than seeing or hearing. I believe that they will be made though.

I disagree. If a student is motivated to learn, then he/she will learn. If they are doing things that ultimately don't matter and they know it, their progress will not be as much as if they did stuff according to their own interest. Also, there are ways that a teacher can annoy their students, which are probably greater than their power to help students, but ultimately the material is there for the student to learn. The student can just zone out if s/he doesn't care. If you look at any classroom, you will see that either most of the students are quiet and probably tuning out, or they are socializing with their friends. Except for orchestra/band classes, which I have my own thoughts on but are not really relevant. Also, in most classes teachers are just reading a teacher's guide. If the students were given the teacher's guide, they could do something competent with it and become as competent as they would have become after taking the class in less time.

*Expanding on one of my points:
The fact that classes have an arbitrary number of days and hours especially high school, in which classes and attendance is less flexible than college, is just wrong. Why do people have classes? Is it to learn something or is it to meet state requirements for education funding? Why is attendance mandatory? Why are some classes mandatory?

"Why do people have classes?"

It is more efficient in some cases to teach multiple people at once.

For the rest of your questions, I'd have to say I don't know, but I don't automatically assume that just because I don't know the reason the reason is bad.. Remember, I don't object to reform, but I do object to throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Were you planning on addressing any of my actual arguments?

My arguments were corresponding to each of your rebuttals.
As far as efficiency, it is questionable. Do students "learn" various facts enough to be able to remember them for tests and quizzes? Probably. Does it encourage learning? Far from it. But also, ultimately, if something is individualized, probably by allowing people to work at things at their own rate and more importantly, decide what to work on because they care about different things, it will work better.

First, please let me apologize. I missed your first comment because you had a second smaller comment. Your second comment doesn't stand well on it's own, but I assume it wasn't intended to.

"I disagree with the concept of institutions entirely. This is a view that I have come to from reading what I've read and my experiences with institutions."

You might be clearer here. Do you mean U.S. government agencies? I assume you aren't referring to 'the institution of marriage' for example.

"Making it compulsory (except for a few cases) has done more harm than good, also."
...
"My support for how it is compulsory is the state of homeschooled children vs. public schooled children."

I do not understand what you are referring to. Please remember, I don't have your cultural background. Are you saying that home-schooled children are examples of how compulsory education can go wrong? Alternatively, are you saying that the test performance of home-schooled children is an example of how home-schooling can go right?

There are so many ways that home-schooling can (and IMHO often does) go wrong that I don't think it is a viable alternative to public education. That said, home-schooling exists because of compulsory education. If there were none, I suspect that the level of education in those disposed to home-schooling would drop dramatically.

"What I was predicting was ... that there will be better technologies to teach. Because teaching involves a human standing in front of 20-30 humans in a high school class, and 50+ in a college class. That is what many people find so great about the internet. For most subjects (and a lot more than school subjects) the information is out there for the individual to learn at his/her own pace..." (science fiction removed)

Part of the reason you have human teachers (at least in high-school) is supervision. That said, there are a few reasons that a classroom with a teacher is a good way to learn. I can learn things from 'the internet', but having a human teacher who can answer questions or correct mistakes is very important for me, especially when being introduced to a subject.

"I disagree. If a student is motivated to learn, then he/she will learn."

That's nice. We need all of our citizens to have a basic level of knowledge, not just those that are 'motivated' by your definition.

"If they are doing things that ultimately don't matter and they know it, their progress will not be as much as if they did stuff according to their own interest."

I'm not prepared to trust every individual child's concept of what does or does not 'matter'. Civics might not 'matter' to most high school students. Mathematics might not 'matter'. Hell, some children decide 'I don't need any of this fancy high school garbage; I'm going to work on my daddy's farm," not realizing that (eventually) owning a farm requires much more education than they think.

"Also, there are ways that a teacher can annoy their students, which are probably greater than their power to help students, but ultimately the material is there for the student to learn."

Really? "annoy their students"? I've had a poor teacher or two, but 'annoy'? I'm not sure what you are trying to convey. That said, being able to cope with people in authority that you have trouble getting along with is an important life skill.

Also, remember that the Internet is not the only source of information. Public libraries have been around for many many years, and are a great source of information. Even with this great tool, relying on information being available to educate children is clearly a mistake; otherwise there would be no education problem today, despite limited access to the Internet.

"The student can just zone out if s/he doesn't care. If you look at any classroom, you will see that either most of the students are quiet and probably tuning out, or they are socializing with their friends."

If you look at the classrooms of my classes, this mostly wasn't the case. I'm sorry if you had bad teachers / school, but most teachers I know don't permit socializing / disruptions while they are teaching.

"Also, in most classes teachers are just reading a teacher's guide. If the students were given the teacher's guide, they could do something competent with it and become as competent as they would have become after taking the class in less time."

Again, if you didn't have good teachers, I am sorry, but that doesn't mean that there aren't any good teachers, nor that public education isn't critical.