And you are still missing the point, I was talking in Haas. Point being that you can not even generalize a public institution.
And indeed in the class I took there were examples of successful companies that decided advertisement was not needed and remained successful… until a new product appeared and showed them the folly of that approach. IIRC even if successful, market share slipped during the no advertisement period.
And I still think you ignore that some business don’t advertise at large because their products do fit a niche, so their advertisement is targeted so much so that you are confusing that with no advertisement. (“Stop casting porosity” anyone? )
Here’s my view. As a rule, private enterprise tends to produce a few companies/products/services that are very good, many that are middle of the road, and a great many that are awful or just scams. What the government offers is mediocrity; not much excellence, but seldom outright fraud or disaster.
For example, the public education system may not be perfect, but it reaches just about everybody; including those who would be unable to get a private education. A state funded fire department serves everyone; a private one wouldn’t. Social Security is perhaps not as good as the best private investment, but it’s better than the nothing many would get without it.
In other words, if you’re looking for brilliant successes, look to the private sector. If you’re looking to avoid failure, go to the government. It’s a matter of what’s more approprate for the problem at hand.
Sounds to me like Neal Boortz just loves to make huge straw men.
I can count with my fingers the extremists I know that maybe would like that kind of system, almost needless to say, all liberals I know don’t approve of a system like that.
And on the link he has a nice graphic saying that to support education we should end government schools. Nice trolling from Boortz.
So is everyone who disagrees with you an extremist?
Boortz’s point was that, in theory, privatization puts a premium on efficiency via competition: the market rewards efficiency, and punishes inefficiency. Ditto for competency and excellence. In theory, privatization truly treats the people as customers, whereas government views people as captive sources of income. See for example, the saga of Sandy Springs, Georgia. Unfortunately, it is easy to derail the process by corrupting it. Take the Atlanta Water Debacle, for example.
Why is “how we got the system” so important? Sure we should be aware of its genesis, but that hardly means that in the world we live in today it is the best model for delivering education to all children. Times change. The school year we have was structured upon children having to work on the farm during the growing months. It used to be that one school served a geogrphically large community. Now, with the densities in cities, another education model, via school choice, becomes available. It’s certainly worth considering the world we in today rather than slavishly paying homage to an idea that was a good one in another time.
Of course time changes, but it is important to keep in mind how we got the current system, because it is a reality that a good number of the public schools originated as a way to keep children separate from “undesirable cultures” and races, that plan fell apart when suddenly they were forced to accept all in schools. Vouchers are just a way to attempt to turn back the clock for guys like Boortz.
If you read my first post here you will see what you mention here makes no sence. Take a look at the fine graphic in Boortz site of a licence plate regarding public education and tell me if Boortz is not an example of an extremist.
That is theory all right, before coming to Arizona Californians found the hard way that private charter schools were not all what they claimed to be:
Sort of depends on your experience. If you take a look at experiences outside the US, you see that having government-run airlines, car manufacturers, coal mines, IT companies, etc. etc. etc. has a pretty poor record. Imagine GM, run by the same people who run the DMV, as a monopoly provider of cars to the US market. Not such a good thing.
On the other hand, things like water provision are to some extent natural monopolies, which make it hard to prevent private owners running them for their own benefit. Ditto for law enforcement and regulation. Edumacation, experiences are mixed.
Have a google around the subject and you’ll see plenty of examples where it has worked well, and plenty of disasters (Britain is a good case study)- just don’t assume that what you see in the US (a weird mixture of free-market fundamentalism and hard-core socialism) is the natural state of things - it’s one set of solutions to a universal problem, not necessarily the best or the worst.
You link to a site that advocates public education in the San Francisco area? I’m supposed to trust a group that a priori believes that anything but the public model is anathema can objectively evaluate charters? Find me an objective source, and maybe I’ll believe you. I’ll also ask you to understand that there is a continuum of charter models out there, and that individual failures of the charter systems do not invalidate the entire process. Lord knows that multiple and widespread failures of the public school model haven’t broken the faithful who believe in the public model.
There are also non-charter schools that serve as competition to the public system: private schools that operate parallel to the public systems.
The failure of the competitive model can at times be laid at the feet of government interference.
The private model seems to work quite well for the private colleges and universities.
The only real pro I see with privitization is innovation. Competition would lead to innovation in order to maintain a certain share of market value. A cheaper laptop with better broadband and more durability is going to outsell a clunky one with crappy dialup.
However even this isn’t true. The US Federal research budget in 2007 will be $137.2 billion.
And that is just federal research, not including state research. Considering that in the US we spend about 3% of GDP on research we are spending about $300 billion annually. So public funds are already outpacing private funds at R&D, public funds only make up about 30% of the economy but they make up over half of research funds (including state funds).
The problem with Boortz argument is that alot of government funds end up subcontracted to private companies, or to purchase goods from private companies. Those private companies need to compete for government contracts.
Another is that most people don’t like taxation. So there will always be calls to cut funding and budgets, leading to government organizations trying to improve themselves to maintain their budgets.
One reason I choose that quote was that in the end the parents are not dismissing private charters. In any case, it was all over the news at the time I was leaving California, the site just conveniently mentions the cases.
It goes back to what my overall point is: sometimes privatization is good, sometimes is not, and many times I see the interference of government is needed to prevent abuse, there is no denying that there is abuse too in public institutions, but there are ways to deal with those. IMHO, regarding schools, private institutions are useful in finding what works, but I also think it goes the other way too.
You could transform it into something like Underwriters Laboratories. Let consumers know that the only way to know whether a drug has been proven safe or effective is to look for the FDA logo, but if they’re willing to take a risk, they can buy an unapproved drug (though their insurer won’t want to pay for it).
How are vouchers turning the clock back? On what? To what? They simply give parents a choice. In many bad areas, where they have the worst schools, charter schools (which operate outside the rules of public schools, much the way voucher schools do) have been a Godsend. Why would you want to keep a kid in a failing monopoly? Why NOT have schools compete for our tax dollars. The ones that do a better job educating the students get the money. What the hell is wrong with that? Other than the teachers’ unions no longer being able to keep the system hostage.
You seem to be overly concerned with some fantasy agenda that someone on the other side of the debate may have. Who cares why he advocates it. Even if you’re right about his motivation, which I do not grant you, the idea deserves to be assessed on its merits. It could very well be that one could advocate the same things that Boorst, or anyone else, advocates, but for completely different reasons.
Efficiency and excellence at what, that’s the question. You can succeed by producing a better product - or by being a better manipulator and liar.
Now here’s where I disagree. The government views people as voters at best, numbers in a file at worst. I doubt many outside the IRS really think of us as “captive sources of income”, if even them.
As far as being a customer goes, remember that customer = prey. It’s not the job of a business to make you happy or perform a service or make a product; it’s purpose is to extract as much money from it’s customers as possible while providing as little service as possible. That, after all, is why corporate monopolies are so bad, and why natural monopolies should either be run by or heavily controlled by the government. At least you have the leverage of voting over the government; you have none at all over a corporate monopoly. They are the ones with “captive sources of income”.
No they don’t. A private school will take the students it likes, and leave the rest behind. Vouchers would help the private schools drain off the best students, and leave the public schools with the poorest, most emotionally unstable, stupid, or outright criminal. They are paid per student, so they’ll be expected to do more with less as well. Like others, I think the whole point of vouchers is to destroy the public schools, along with the lower-income and/or minority students.
Not with such a grotesquely unlevel playing field. It’s not a fair race if you’re on foot and I have a motercycle.
Intentions matter. If I’m given a fair looking offer by someone who is the enemy of me or my agenda, it’s foolish to believe it’s actually fair; it’s more likely I haven’t figured out the trap.
)