Privatize, privatize, privatize

[mrnoodle]

Education

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Education

So the wealthy who can afford the best education get better educated and maintain an advantage over the lower classes, ad infinitum. Yeah, that'll ensure that power/wealth stay in the family. Sounds like an educational feudal system.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

So the wealthy who can afford the best education get better educated and maintain an advantage over the lower classes, ad infinitum. Yeah, that'll ensure that power/wealth stay in the family. Sounds like an educational feudal system.

The wealthy will always have access to the finest education. But, as Clodfobble illustrates, educating the wealthy in no way crowds out the unwealthy from receiving the finest instruction available.

Not only are Yale classes online but MIT has open-sourced its courses as has Cal Berkeley and many other top-tier institutions of higher learning.

My best childhood friend and I grew up in the lower-middle class deep south and graduated from a pitiful excuse of a public school. He, without any connections whatsoever, was granted a full scholarship to Harvard based solely on his academic achievement.

In America, the people that work the hardest get the rewards. It almost never fails that those who object to this are the ones who failed to capitalize (pun intended) on the opportunity that was as available to them as it was to those who passed them by.

There will always be a privileged class. But no nation in the world has made it easier to join that class than America. The job of government and law isn't to punish ambition and reward the lack of it, its to ensure that those who are willing to do what it takes are not held back in any way, shape or form.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by Beestie

The wealthy will always have access to the finest education. But, as Clodfobble illustrates, educating the wealthy in no way crowds out the unwealthy from receiving the finest instruction available.

My take on Clodfobbles post was that you really don't necessarily get "the finest education" and I agree with that. What happens is that you pay a huge sum of money to have the name of a prestigious institution on your diploma, and while you are at the school, you get to make connections with others who control wealth. After graduation, it's the good-ole-boy network, where someone hiring (they are in that position already because they or a relative control wealth) hire those with whom they have a connection (made in college). And so the money stays in the same hands, it rarely goes to someone who shows extraordinary talent or results.

Originally Posted by Beestie

My best childhood friend and I grew up in the lower-middle class deep south and graduated from a pitiful excuse of a public school. He, without any connections whatsoever, was granted a full scholarship to Harvard based solely on his academic achievement....

Thank goodness for college quotas, eh? This rarely happens.

[mrnoodle]

That's what happens now, except the government tries to demand that we all lower our standards to its level. It just doesn't have the power to enforce it universally. Yay privatization.

[Spexxvet]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

That's what happens now, except the government tries to demand that we all lower our standards to its level. It just doesn't have the power to enforce it universally. Yay privatization.

Do you have kids in school?

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

That's what happens now, except the government tries to demand that we all lower our standards to its level. It just doesn't have the power to enforce it universally. Yay privatization.

Well, it IS what happens now, but the government doesn't demand that we lower our standards. Public schools in upper class suburbs are far superior to ones in the ghetto. Its a matter of local funding. I attended a private school in the 8th and 9th grade, and the education it provided was inferior to what was available in the public schools at the time.

And speaking of Yale, private colleges and universities have tuition rates that are through the roof. I went to both the University of Denver (private) and the University of Colorado (public). The big difference was the class size in the lower division courses. But I feel I got an excellent education in my junior and senior years at CU, when I was taking upper division courses in my major and some of my professors were nationally acclaimed. DU was frightfully expensive. I went there only because I got a scholarship. But there are only so many sholarships available. And the reason I transferred from DU was because back then it was the biggest party school in Colorado, and I got sick of it.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

So the wealthy who can afford the best education get better educated and maintain an advantage over the lower classes, ad infinitum. Yeah, that'll ensure that power/wealth stay in the family. Sounds like an educational feudal system.

It's not what you know, it's who you know. Do you really think there are that many strata of education quality? A "good" school has almost nothing to do with the subjects taught and almost everything to do with the other students attending.

Case in point: Yale is in the midst of putting its classes online, available to anyone. Is this because they have some sort of special genius to impart, the answers to the universe, that only those Yale students have been getting all these years? Of course not, their textbooks and lectures are around the same level of any decent state university, if presented a little more liberally. They know that. Will it cause attendance at Yale to plummet? No, because the students of Yale will still be getting what they always got for their money: a passable education, and great connections with like-minded people.

It already is an educational feudal system. Rich districts have better schools. What does it matter if they get to tell the government to butt the hell out about what warning labels they must put on their textbooks?

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Spexxvet

My take on Clodfobbles post was that you really don't necessarily get "the finest education" and I agree with that.

My point was both: there's no difference between a "good" education and a "great" education at that level, so there is room for anyone who wants to work for one to get educated. In addition, there will always be "good ol' boys clubs" no matter how level you make the playing field, so for the most part government efforts to do so are wasted.