Quote:I know it's radical but just take a step back and think about it. What initiative does the education system have today to make sure they're providing the best service? Sure some within the education system don't need a reason, it's a noble cause and work a thankless job to provide a better future, but you'd agree that's not across the board. If a school is failing do they have to worry about closing down? losing students to better schools? I'd argue schools would be 100% more efficient if ran by private institutions. 

 

Are you kidding?  You'd have schools pop up that spend more on marketing than they do on teachers, or anything else.  And those would be the majority of the schools, because they would be the most profitable.  Profit makes for a poor incentive for providing a good education, because they don't have to provide a quality education in order to make a profit.  All they have to do is get enrollment numbers high, and keep costs low.   This includes teacher salaries, who would be even less motivated to take the jobs let alone do well in them. 


Here's a hint:  Businesses don't care about providing quality products and services.  They only care about profit and keeping costs low.  So long as they can make money, that's all that matters.  They'll provide the lowest quality possible that allows them to still make a profit. And when you can use marketing to make your services look better than they are -- you're able to reduce quality of service even more.

And vouchers don't really work.  They sound like a good idea.  "School choice."  The problem is that parents choose schools more based on beliefs, than they do on anything else.  

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/03/29/vouch...milwaukee/


 

Quote:The Milwaukee voucher schools have never outperformed the public schools on state tests: See here and here. The only dispute about test scores is whether voucher students are doing the same or worse than their peers in public schools.

 

Accountability? Read here about some very low-performing schools in Milwaukee that have never been held accountable. One of them opened in 2001. Over the past 11 years, it has collected $46.8 million but its students perform worse than those in the public schools. Some choice.

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