I actually very much enjoy this sort of conversation; I've had this particular one numerous times before. Unfortunately it's not presently feasible for me to keep up with this one. I do want to address several things said, though. If there are further replies I may well follow up on them, but it's likely to take longer than I'd like.Jared: When I talk about privatization, I try to avoid talking about specific policies. One of the great virtues of free enterprise, in my opinion, is that people try lots of different things; some ideas float, some sink, and even in a mature system you inevitably have multiple approaches co-existing, and providing choice.That having been said: grouping kids strictly by age seems one of the weirder, and more unfortunate, ideas in our educational system. I think throwing out that practice would allow you to do a lot of interesting things with your students.Twilly: I think that partial deregulation of a given industry is frequently perilous... that's a point I too seldom hear made. I do think you take it much too far, however, in saying that getting the government (or a particular state's government) out of education would require taking government funding completely out of our lives. Careful consideration, and a readiness to make further changes as new information becomes available, is not too bold an approach.Ankle Picker: The United States Postal Service has been an independent agency, run mostly like a corporation, for many years now. Discussing the relative virtues of the USPS would make for a lengthy topic, and almost entirely a digression. A short version of my view would be: the Postal Service used to be absolutely awful, and to the extent that it is now otherwise, it is due to competition from the likes of FedEx and UPS.Note that I don't expect to convince you of much; it would be unreasonable to think you'd change your opinion without my expanding greatly on this. Since I don't have time, I'll just respectfully disagree with you.This, however, I think is simply wrong: "I heard a lot of complaining from Ray here but I don't hear any ideas on how to fix it." I gave one big idea as to how to fix it: privatize it. How I'd like to see schools run is another topic entirely.Matt K: I think perhaps you underestimate the extent of the changes which would be possible under a privatized system. "If everyone was in private school then it seems to me it would essentially be a public school" seems to assume that for each public school there would be a single private replacement. I would expect a multitude of schools, large and small, pursuing different educational philosophies and catering to different sorts of students.A particular school might not want kids who caused problems, but why would we think that none of them would? They're still customers; indeed, serving their needs might be a task better suited to specialized schools.I also don't find the point about discrimination compelling; here the restaurant analogy is useful. At one point, "Colored Dining Room in Rear" was a policy a restaurant could legally adopt. Now it's not. We've simply decided that certain constraints on business are acceptable. This doesn't require throwing out free enterprise entirely, or even modifying it all that drastically.In any case, though, we indeed agree that something needs to change. I'd be quite happy to see a single state try putting education directly into the hands of the people, so that we could judge the results (and possibly find that my idea is awful). That we have such uniformity amongst the states as to make this a far-fetched scenario is, to my mind, the result of a very similar problem on a different level.
