Gosh, everyone there is poor, how wonderful for them.
We have that right now. Those kids grow up and pay taxes proportionate to their earning power which is partly a function of their education.
There was literacy during the dark ages. What’s your point? That SOME people would still learn to read even if we didn’t have public education?
My point was that without public education you still get literacy. In fact you get considerably more people that can read than “nobody.”
SOME > NOBODY
ie the very definition of excluded middle
Whether it’s publicly funded or not, the quality of said educational system is necessarily going to be a function of the wealth of the population. People in the US are considerably wealthier than the people of the Congo. So if you removed public financing for education the bulk majority would still be able to pay for their kids to get a decent education, which would be a hell of a lot better than public education in the Congo. Obviously the lower income bracket will get hurt the most, but that basumes there will be zero assistance/scholarships. And frankly, even with public education the poor still end up with crappy schools.
Same goes for any publicly funded systems, it’s success is a function of the tax base it draws from. Both Tanzania and India have publicly funded roads, but without enough revenue they’re half as wide and look like shit. Ditto for UHC.
If you consider education has paid for from property taxes as they are in many jurisdictions, very little would change. Those that can afford $400k+ houses are paying $3000+ in taxes. Switch that to private education and they’ll pay $1000 for tuition and $2000 for taxes.
It’s already well established that the key determinant for a child’s success if is the parents give a shit. If they do, it means they’ll buy a smaller tv and fewer consumer electronics to be able to afford their child’s education. And if they don’t care the child is fucked either way.
Public education just happens to smooth things out a bit, and gives more lower income children a chance to break out of poverty if they so choose.
Just remember that the next time someone bitches out the Gini coefficient in the US.
I’m sure you’re equipped to handle hyperbole and address the actual point rather than nitpicking the language. So please do so.
What was the actual point?
I thought I reinjected the middle with my post (where I use the word abysmal rather than non-existent).
You make it sound like half dozen of one and six of another. Are you seriously trying to take the position that there wouldn’t be much of a difference if there wasn’t public education?
Yeah, yeah yeah. Id rather be unequally rich than equally poor…
But there is no reason we can’t be more equally rich.
The society requires educated members and the members are the beneficiaries of their education. The solution is simple:
100% compulsory education funded by the government.
The cost of each childs education accumulates as an indenture.
When the child is 18 the government sells the indenture to the military, a corporation or an individual, and the person works to repay it. Income from the sale of indentures funds future education.
Crane
Are you really unable to decipher it? Replace “none” with "lower levels of ". You don’t need an enigma machine to crack the code; it’s basic colloquial conversational speech.
Or are you just being snarky for the sake of it? I’m having trouble deciding whether you’re incapable or unwilling, but then neither points towards a pretty picture.
It’s not for me to go through your posts and replace words. If you had a point make it.
If, in fact, what you meant was “lower levels of” you’ll now have to defend that statement. How much lower? What proof do you have?
Unless I’m wrong and this was posted in IMHO.
First, no one is advocating against public education, that’s just another straw man. The zombie was brought back to life by someone questioning how education is funded. Of the hundreds of countries with public education, they each have a different funding structure. Even within the US there are variations.
Second, it was Candyman74 that suggested any alternative would mean, “[a] country where nobody could read or write.” At least now you guys recognize it wouldn’t be that bad.
Third, something about Opal.
Lastly, the results will simply be a function of the wealth in a society, much as they are now.
Parent’s that give a shit will still fund their children’s education. Parent’s that don’t will still end up with illiterate degenerates. I’m pretty sure the stats show that if you removed those deadbeats everyone else’s education improves. Money is a very powerful motivator, and will quickly split the good parents from the bad.
Transferring the tax burden from the childless to parents will probably result in fewer children born, since it’s pretty hard to fund the education of 10 kids at once. This gets into Polycarp’s scenario.
And subsequently, nothing prohibits the childless from then willingly contributing. I don’t have kids but have every intention of helping out with my nephews. Lowering my tax burden makes that easier. Their education will improve as a result. I recently donated to the Canadian Harambee Education Society.
Obviously public education is a good thing. All any idiot has to do is point to Costa Rica. Babbling on about random African countries isn’t going to cut it here. But with that said, there is still a lot of wiggle room to figure out how actually to best pay for the system you want. Do it wrong and you end up with a lot of kids that think Jesus made dinosaur bones to tease us.
“No” reason?
This is where I disagree.
While wealth has a significant impact on this sort of thing, a public education in this country has been the great equalizer for a long long time. Maybe I’m just buying into mythology combined with anecdotal data but my parents were so poor that we couldn’t buy a bag of rice sometimes and my father had to look for change to buy a token to go to work. I’m a lawyer and my siblings are all doctors, lawyers or corporate executives. I know literally dozens of families where the dad worked at a job at around the level of taxicab driver and the kids are all doctors, lawyers, engineers, bankers, etc. Without free public education, NONE of that would have been possible. My parents couldn’t have paid for private education short of selling their organs.
I can point to successful children of neglectful parents. They’re swimming against the stream but at least we have removed the dams and barriers.
Whatever payment system you devise, it should be based on the notion that public education should be available to all regardless of ability to pay and the cost should not be borne by the public (its what makes them public school. Allocating costs to the people with kids makes its funding about the same as a private school system.
Well I guess there is the fact that many of those who are unequally rich want to keep it that way.
OK, Spock. Whatever. Most of us are able to parse conversational turns of phrase. I can’t help you there; sorry.
(And yes, obviously it was an opinion. If you disagree with it, post why. Don’t pounce on a turn of phrase like some rabid dog of the pendantry wars. The turn of phrase is not important. You’ve effectively derailaed what could have been an actual discussion over nitpicking over a choice of words that anyone without Aspergers syndrome can parse without effort. Especially given a reply which clarified that it was such. I’d have loved to debate it with you; now, I’m not interested).
And one could argue that he is receiving a larger benefit in reduced costs because of the transportation infrastructure. That society as a whole benefits from reduced costs because of this and we all could support infrastructure.
That’s all true, but it gets into a different argument regarding what aspects of education should be included in state-run education. If it’s not being paid for by taxes in the first place, then it’s really not relevant to the OP’s argument.
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Sure it is. If the tax rate is raised on a smaller tax base, more items are likely to fall into the supply lists, or fundraising drives, or, dropped entirely as not able to be funded.
[QUOTE=Fireclown]
If the child does not get an education, he may become the guy that mows my lawn. Sure its not as good as being a lawyer, but I am still benefiting by getting my grass cut.
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What if he doesn’t even get that good an education?
He may become the guy who kills you and takes your wallet. Sure, it’s not as good as being a lawyer, but you still get the benefit of having your head blown off… wait… what benefit is that to you again? He gets your wallet; not as good as being a lawyer, but still making a living. What is your standard of living like at this point? Better, or worse than it is now?
As mentioned before, education is taken to be a benefit to society, and not just to the educated.
Imagine you go into a bike shop. You ask why the bikes cost what they do. The owner tells you he’s supporting his 3 kids and fostering another. You ask for a discount because you don’t want to support his causes. He tells you to find another shop. If you want his bike you pay part of the cost of his causes. Now, replace “bike” with “society” and “owner” with “government.”
It’s not just school taxes. People without children end up paying MORE taxes than people with children. It starts off the same but then the people with children get all sorts of tax credits/breaks for having children. People with no children are paying taxes so the people with children can get subsidized child care, sports programs and tax rebates??? Why don’t we just start paying people to have kids… Why not??? there are no food or job shortages in this country… lets populate it until there is.
Well did they go to school!! You pay today because some one else paid for you when you were a kid. Also do they have family with kids will they ever have kids don’t they want the schools to still be there when they do. And before you say private are you sure no one in your family past present or future will need public schools.
or their welfare
What about zombies? Should I really have to pay taxes for zombies to go to school? All they do is drool and say “braaaaaains.” Which oddly enough was the correct answer on two of the questions on today’s quiz. So after the bell curve they all got solid B’s.
If you have more people, you will have more demand for jobs and more people to produce food. More people does not cause unemployment, as evidenced by the fact that the unemployment rate is not 99% even though the population of the United States is a hundred times higher than it once was.