Regarding education, I've discussed before my concerns with the state being in charge of education. However I also couldn't think of a private model that wouldn't unfairly favour the rich. What about a system where schools were funded by their alumni paying back a certain percentage of their income to the institutes they graduated from? There would be positive feedback in that the most successful students would generate the most income, meaning that schools that did well would get more income, thereby allowing them to fund continued improvements. This is probably the most pure capitalist suggestion I've ever made on here, and I'm sure there are all sorts of problems with it, but it's an interesting starting point. Anyone care to comment?
Sunday, August 16, 2009
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4 comments:
Can you link to a post where you have expressed concern over the education system before?
Who is going to be in charge of the curriculum? Does each school design their own?
Robert - Looks like I can't, I think I commented on Mozglubov regarding some posts he made on the subject.
Mozglubov - Yeah I'd think so. This makes more sense if you think of it as a vocational school, with industry supplying some guidelines of what they want taught. For the more esoteric subjects I don't know if the model would work, but I'm not sure you should have to pay to learn art or philosophy.
When you say a system of schools in which the alumni pay back a certain percentage of their income to the institutes they graduated from, are you speaking of primary and secondary education, elementary, middle, and high school? Regardless, I am not sure how this system solves the problems you accurately foresee in a private model. The issue partly boils down to this, Doesn't every child, regardless of ability, or socioeconomic status, have a right to a good education. I think the system that you suggest would create a set of excellent schools, and a set of bad schools.
As for your comment about vocational schools, if you are specifically referring to post-secondary education, I think that is fine. But in terms of primary and secondary education, we need to be teaching students some basic facts about the world around them, and teaching them critical and independent thinking. In America, with No Child Left Behind, are schools are turning into vocational schools, teaching students how to be good corporate suits, essentially. By teaching to a multiple choice test, the ability to think for oneself, and express ones owns opinions based on facts, and the ability to take in new facts and adjust your opinions accordingly are things that being eliminated from the public school system. For me, this is the most important aim of education. It is not to directly equip a student to get a job after high school, but instead to prepare the student to express his or her agency and rationally to the fullest later in life. If that makes any sense.
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