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The Eleventh Doctor · 03-18-2015, 02:09 PM

Quote:I think this sums it up very well I lifted it from Voices of Liberty: http://www.voicesofliberty.com/article/l...edium=post

Policy: Removing Government from Education
The Benefits:

• Standards will increase massively

Schools and staff won’t have guaranteed funding and wages, so they’ll be forced to deliver results for their customers (students and parents). If they don’t, they will lose customers to the competition, and could, ultimately, go out of business.

• Content will be aligned with the marketplace

Instead of teaching children a syllabus dictated by the whims of government bureaucrats, they will be taught by private sector educators who are more in tune with the trends and demands of the marketplace – and more able to adapt and change the syllabus accordingly. This means children will be equipped with the skills and knowledge they need to get ahead in the real world.

• It will open the door to huge innovation.

Education is a market with a never-ending supply of customers, and one where technology can make the costs of educating these customers very cheap. Under a state system however, there is no incentive or possibility for entrepreneurs and tech innovators to enter the market. But in a free market they will jump at the opportunity to enter it and disrupt it – the way they are doing to so many other industries. The innovation arms race that ensues will lead to one clear winner: the customer, who will receive a state-of-the-art education that constantly gets better and better as time goes on.

• Prices will tumble

The pressure on schools to deliver results or go out of business, along with fierce competition and massive innovation, will push the costs of education right down. Most will be able to afford it, and for those who genuinely can’t, charities and non-profits can fill the void. But it’s not too hard to imagine a future where a child can get a world-class education for the price of a cable subscription.

And there are many more benefits of the libertarian approach to education.

But education is just one of many areas in our society that libertarianism can transform. The key is letting people know about them in the right way – or if you prefer – the most effective way.

Today, that most effective way is by focusing on the benefits. The average Joe wants to know “What’s In It For Me?” So let’s tell him. Let’s make him see just how superior our product is to the alternatives on the market. Let’s be damn good salespeople for the libertarian cause.

And you'll have almost nobody wanting to go into the teaching profession. The pay is poor as is. When the safety of your job is on the line based on if the parents like what you're doing or not, it handcuffs teachers to the parents. Why on earth would ANYONE want to be a teacher when job security is tied to the whims of parents? The benefits are only to parents who want to control the education system so that their kids learn only what they want them to learn.

This is not a good thing at all. Content should NOT be determined by the marketplace. Otherwise you'd still have schools that don't teach evolution. We'd be even further behind the rest of the world by politicizing the educational system. The marketplace shouldn't determine content of teaching. Ever.

So you want Robots to take the jobs of teachers? That sounds great for you to save money, not so much for the teachers who are working, and even less so for your children. Teachers aren't babysitters, and if you think they are then I think you're sending your kids to the wrong school. Robots can't do the same things that teachers can. They can't analyze how a student learns, or what motivates them. All a robot can do is spout information. A teacher doesn't simply regurgitate information.

And quality of teachers will go down, because nobody is going to want to be a teacher. I guess since you'll all have robots, that's all fine and good. The robots will be even worse, as explained above. A robot can't adapt to your child. Teaching isn't simply the regurgitation of information.

It all comes at the cost of the students. Cutting costs sound great for parents, but only for those parents who don't really care about the quality of education their kids get. Because they care more about costs than quality, and that's exactly why for-profit schools will continue to be profitable. Because parents would choose schools based on political beliefs and cost savings. All at the expense of their child.

I was wrong about Trent Baalke.