EDU: Public Schools (Was: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold)

[Kevin Freels]

>Others pay -- including
>those who don't have children and those whose children are either past
>school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well, so
>this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public schools.

Let's not forget that even those who have no children were once children
themselves and most likely benefited from the school system.

Also, it is important to realize the benefit of having an "educated"
populations (I use the word educated VERY loosely here). It is a shame that
more parents simply don't get even slightly involved in their children's
education. The resource is there, paid for by everyone, and yet many parents
just don't seem to give a damn! Most of them are like this because of how
their parents were. It's a vicious cycle of stupidity!

Sorry for the slight venting. This touches rather close to home. My children
go to a public school. They are from a previous marriage and she had
custody. They are 8 and 7 yr old girls. Their mother is a meth dealer and
could hardly pay attention. The girls were getting D's and F's in science
and math (N's for the yoiunger girl). They went to schools in crappy clothes
with holes in them even though I paid $207 per WEEK in child support!

She was finally busted for Meth in November with the kids in the house. I
finally received custody of the girls. They were such a mess! Now they have
never been happier. Their counselor called me the other day and informed me
that if they just keep doing what they have been doing since they moved
here, they will get A's in every subject! All they needed was a little
homework help, and some concern for their education. I think the real
difference is that I care. Nothing more. Mom didn't care, so why should
they? They prefer living here and Dad cares about their education, so they
do too!

(On a side note, can you believe that they have this whole screwed up idea
that Santa Clause and God are real? How can someone teach religion to
children and be such a stupid meth-head trashy mother at the same time? SO
now I have my chance to raise nice atheist educated girls and turn them
loose on the world. The two messages I have to teach them are "You can be an
atheist and be a good person too." and "Don't grow up to be one of the
stupid people" )

Anyways, I really don;t think our educational system is all that bad. Yes,
it could be better, but it can only be as good as the people that are in it.
I don't know the number, but I would assume that hundreds of thousands are
involved in the educational system from the administrative level down. The
odds are that a portion of these people are idiots.( There must be a lot of
idiots in the public school system.) This would be offset if parents simply
gave a shit about their kids.

Kevin Freels


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Technotranscendence" <neptune at superlink.net>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Monday, January 19, 2004 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Game theory of common cold


> On Monday, January 19, 2004 6:15 AM Anders Sandberg asa at nada.kth.se
> wrote:
> > How does homschooling really work? We
> > do not have it here in Sweden, so I have
> > no intuition of its effect on my model. In
> > particular, does parents stay at home
> > teaching (full time or partial time)? How
> > large are the economic savings?
>
> This depends.  Part of the reason both parents work in many instances in
> the US is to pay taxes.  Not that they consciously think this, but the
> decrease in funds due to high taxation -- okay, high historically by US
> standards -- puts pressure on both parents to work.  No doubt, part of
> the high taxation is due to funding public schooling, though I'm not so
> sure reducing this cost would lower taxes all that much.  (Even so,
> where I live, public schools spend roughly $11,000US per year per
> student.  The best private schools in my state are around $7,000US per
> year per student.  I think the median private school is around $2,000
> per year per student.  I bring this up because the choices in education
> in a free market would be myriad.)
>
> > My guess is that keeping children away
> > from schools would lower the infection
> > risk and hence have a significant effect
> > on health. But the utility of parents might
> > be lowered since the cost of doing
> > homeschooling could be greater than the
> > benefit from keeping healthier - and
> > others could play free riders by gaining the
> > benefit of lowered infections without doing
> > anything. Of course, this ignores that
> > homeschooling very well could have positive
> > utility too.
>
> This is to ignore the free rider problem inherent in public schooling --
> at least, in how it is funded in most places.  Others pay -- including
> those who don't have children and those whose children are either past
> school age or who do not use public schools -- for schools as well, so
> this lowers the costs of parenting when the parents use public schools.
> Parents who on free market would have had to pay the costs of schooling
> children are able to redistribute those costs.  Hence, they are free
> riders to a large extent.
>
> Some might say this is not so, but anyone who works in the average
> company in the US hears the parents grumble when there's a school
> holiday but the parents have to work.  That usually means they have to
> find and even pay a babysitter.  The public school baby sitter is
> already paid for, in their eyes -- and, as we've seen, it's paid for by
> others to some extent.
>
> Cheers!
>
> Dan
>   See "The Hills of Rendome" at:
> http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/Rendome.html
>
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