I am about to challenge a long-held paradigm that most of you hold dear. Before you read the first few lines and toss the article into the great byte bucket in the sky, open your mind for a moment to a very new idea: ending government-operated schools.

It is time the United States move to privatize public education. With failing public schools; high school taxes; various public school controversies, such as vouchers, sex education, and the separation of church and state, the US can no longer maintain a system of socialized education.

Many public schools are failing to educate, and throwing more tax money at them will not improve most of them. The system is fatally flawed.

It is uncaring for parents to expect other taxpayers, many retired and on limited incomes, to subsidize their children's education. Since most schools are financed by property taxes, retirees get hit especially hard. Subsidized education also undermines the personal pride that parents have in being able to fully support their offspring.

Now, I am not saying eliminate mandatory education. In fact, I oppose any change to these laws. But if we eliminate school taxes, parents will have more money to choose the type of education their children will receive, whether that is by home schooling, private schools, charter schools, church schools, charity schools, or public schools (in the process of being privatized).

I also do not think we can achieve this change without much planning and a gradual process which would privatize public schools into public corporations, teacher-owned schools, or community-owned schools. The goal is to remove government's primary role in education. That goal might take 10-20 years.

I believe the government needs to maintain a safety net for the children of poor families who need financial assistance. This could be financed by state lotteries in the form of scholarships based on a sliding income scale for poor families. Private scholarships would fill in the gaps. Since poor people are more likely to enter state lotteries, this is a way to give that money back.

Also, since America's millionaires would be so benevolent, with their tax cut, I bet many would set up scholarship funds for poor children. Good PR on the cheap for them. Bill Gates, are you listening?

Educational standards would be set by independent accreditation agencies, as they are now. Children could attend non-accredited schools, however, as accreditation can be political.

Moving to a totally free market in education will not be easy since we have had a long history of socialized education, but with schools in competition with each other, bad schools will soon be out of business.

Now, which state will be the first to step up to this challenge?

prizepatrol

The problem as I see it with private education is that a better education goes to those who pay the higher price. Therefore those who need an good education the most (those from poorly educated households) get it the least.

It is not Public Education which is the problem, it is the type of education children are receiving there, who those children are, and type of society they are being raised in. Human beings and cultures are not interchangable units. Therein lies the problem. Japan and Iceland's public schools are great. They work perfectly. Many of America's public schools are perfectly fine, in places like Iowa and Maine. Anything that will decrease the social engineering of the Federal Government and its integration ant farm experiment will be beneficial. Cutting off massive Third World immigration and tearing down the tartuffery of "multiculturalism" will go a long way as well.

It seems silly to me to blame the problems with American education on multiculturalism. Basics are basics. White, black, whatever, the math is the same. That is what failing children are not getting a real basic education.

Turnea, I agree that multiculturalism isn't the problem with public schools. Drugs, crime, poverty, a tenured group of educators who are difficult to fire when they don't do the job, lack of parental presence in children's lives are all more the problem than multicultualism.

Don't know Fade's agenda, but it isn't mine. We live in a pluralistic society in America. I say viva la difference!

Turnea, you seem to be looking at private schools as the only option. I see lots of options. Go back and read my original post. My major point is with competition of schools in a free and open marketplace, the poor schools will die.

prizepatrol

Hm, I dont think that getting rid of public education is the answer, but I do feel that the problem needs to be addressed. I am sadly, unfamiliar with exactly how we fund our education and stats on how things really are. But if education is mandatory, then I feel that there should be a government run system. I think theres needs to be a general overhaul of what kids are being taught in school, as standards seem to be getting lower all the time. My boyfriend said best (he taught high school for a small period, and taught English to French students in France for a few years), "When they talk about raising test scores, they really mean lowering standards."

I read in the paper today, and it said that the majority of college graduates knew less than their grandparents did when they graduated from high school (ugh, is that a proper sentence? It looks like a run on..) Which is rather sad I think.

Im interested in hearing more about how a teacher run school or a community run school would operate though.

I believe the problem is that education is seen as a commodity, no matter how, what, who, where, or why a school system runs. It is all a paper chase and just a means to get credentials.

If education happens, it is by chance. You may be fortunate enough to have a bright, motivated instructor along the way, but most have become jaded and cynical because none of the systems really work. Education is the responsibility of the student; it has always been the responsibility of the student.

I fail to see how free-market education is going to change this situation because the problem's root is embedded in how we perceive education, how we carry out education, and how we acknowledge education. Perhaps this is a problem that is beyond mass-think intelligence. Witness how the states are now pushing one of the worst measures of education success: test scores. Witness how overly focused employers are on credentials, especially during hard economic times.

We are condemned to our mediocre education systems until we can think of something better, and free-market education isn't the answer. We will still have a broad spectrum of quality levels, just as we have for goods and services sold in the free markets today.

A good starting point: Nobody gives anybody education; people earn their own educations. Education is a part of living. Success follows interest. Motivate interest, and there you have it. The expression of success is in the application of knowledge, not in sheepskins. The goals of education should be to become a life-long student, a life-long teacher, and a life-long thinker.

We are still caught up in the factory-think mode where education starts in kindergarten and stops with a graduation ceremony. Then we go out to make a living or on to undergrad work, graduate work, and then off to make a living. This narrow vision of education must expand. Making a living and expanding our educations should be so tightly coupled that they are one and the same thing.

Over my career, I have witnessed great strides toward this expansion of education. Employers have paid for training and offered to pay for college courses. The idea of senior people teaching newer people has been tried. Still, much is yet to be done, and we do seem to be slipping back into old thought patterns. This situation seems to be tied to economics and a desire to control the masses. Maybe we became too smart?

I would be all for getting the government out of lower education.

I see one big factor in the failure of governmental education ... lack of parental involvement. Generally, parents who send their kids to public schools view it as their baby sitter. Whereas parents who send their kids to private schools, and esp home school, are involved in their kids education.

otseng,

Good point about parental involvement. The young parents I know are all intimately involved with their children's educations and have, or are in the process of, enrolling the kids in an open charter school. The teaching methods are radically different from the traditional classroom, and the emphasis is on learning rather than passing tests. This is superior to home-schooling, IMO, because the kids develop social skills and their teachers are dedicated professionals who still have that spark of idealism in their souls.

I think another danger of home-schooling (besides depending on amateurs to pull it off and the lack of social development) is that kids can be indoctrinated into their parents' ideas of truth--not that this isn't done anyway. It makes me shudder to imagine my folks teaching me. Hey, they knew a lot about a few things, but boy were they set in their minds about things like race, religion, politics, and economics. For all the bad stuff that happens in public school, I at least got some alternative viewpoints about the world.

Actually, the danger would have been a complete and irreversible rebellion on my part. As it was, my rebellion was milder, I do believe.

But what if a bunch of parents got together to be teachers? That could work. Maybe this is being tried somewhere. Kids tend to treat other adults a lot better than their own parents. Plus you'd get a broader mix of skills and talents in the teachers.

BTW, we don't mind paying taxes for other people's educations. The schools around here are pretty good, all considering, and furthering the education of all members of our society is a civic duty, in our opinions. Our tax dollars that go to war mongering, not that is a true irritation

>>>It seems silly to me to blame the problems with American education on multiculturalism.

Go to California's public education cesspool and experience the wonders of what trying to instruct children in 5,000 different languages will result in.

>>>Basics are basics. White, black, whatever, the math is the same.

LOL you have not heard about "Ethnomathematics" have you.

[]i>>>That is what failing children are not getting a real basic education.[/i]

Children are failing not because the amount of money being spent on education, but the type of society they are raised in, what is being taught to them which is mostly garbage and propaganda, and the type of children that are going to the schools. It is no coincidence that American SAT scores peaked in the year 1963 and have plummeted ever since then to the point where the SAT has been redesigned several times. As the makeup of the population changes, as it has in California over the past 20 years, the situation will simply continue to deteriorate. Private schools do better because they are more SEGREGATED, certainly not because they are better funded, but because they are a better environment to learn in. It is not a coincidence either that when you break America down state by state and look at the scores it is overwhelmingly states like Maine, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota that have superior schools over places like California with an education budget the size of the entire state budgets of many states that are such abyssmal failures. Internationally, America's schools are garbage for the exact same reason. The European public schools are different both in the type of students learning there and the environment they are immersed in. The Japanese and Koreans have a ball laughing at the multicultural sillyness found in the United States. It is a fallacy to believe human beings are in anyway whatsoever equal, that human beings are interchangable units. Given the current state of American schools, and the prevailing dogma regarding education, I see no reason why we should expect them to be anything than the shape they are in now.

That's how everything works.

Neil: Although that is true to a certain extent, the public school system dampens this effect at least slightly as governmental funds can (theorectically, we don't see it often) be directed to schools in need.

Fade: It seem to me this is the wrong thread to debate the affect of multiculturalism on education. Care to move this to a new thread? I'll post one soon.

I agree, turnea. I think a discussion on multiculturalism in education may be better suited for this already existing thread: Schools - Segregated or Not? (although it appears Fade is already there debating this very issue).

Please keep this discussion to alternative financing for schools.

turnea,

You know, I keep hearing this argument that throwing money at education is just a waste. The implication to this is that we've hit a saturation level as far as education funding goes, so why waste more money on it. This argument has actually swayed school bond issues around here, but it fell apart when the roofs of aging buildings started falling in. So the bond issue for building improvement and expansion went through, but not the one to hire more teachers. I guess when you have rooms full of kids and nobody to instruct them, then that bond will pass.

And here I thought that educated adults could see past their current crisis and practice avoidance of future crisis. This might point to why our school systems seem to be constantly in crisis mode: simple lack of foresight.

I have never used welfare or medicare or social security. Why am I paying for them? It's too bad retirees moving out to Florida or Arizona need to pay for kids they have never seen to get an education. What if they parents of the kids don't want to pay for the retiree getting social security? You can't take 3 bad public schools and make them into 3 good private schools. What if all the good schools are catholic and you are Muslim? People say pouring money into a school won't make it better. What if the school gets better teachers and funding for the school newspaper? Is it better then?

Alternative financing is not needed. They just need to spend the money they have, more wisely.

You hire more administrators at 200k/yr, then layoff 30 teachers claiming there isn't money to pay them.....hmmmmmm.....

The money is there, it's just not getting filtered down to the classroom. It's being held up in administrators hands.....

--cheers

Teacher-owned schools exist today. Teachers co-own and operate such schools. They are similar to private schools, except that the teachers who teach there have a financial stake in the school and are not just looking for a pay check.

A community-owned school would probably be a former public school that a group of citizens in a particular community would purchase (perhaps over 10-20 years with bonds or a mortgage). People who live in those communities would pay school fees like they pay fees to support security, swimming pools, golf, tennis, landscaping, etc. today. So when you move, you would want to consider these fees before buying a house in a particular community. If you had no kids, you might look for a community without such fees.

prizepatrol

I agree. Furthermore, I think parents who have to send their kids to bad schools are resigned to the fact their kids are going to fail. Let's offer them choices with a free-market. Bad schools will soon close their doors or be purchased and better run.

prizepatrol

...and you expect the government will do that? Really?

prizepatrol

I agree about the perception of education. We also perceive it must be a govt-run function. Says who? If we change the paradigm of thinking, and have really good schools competing in a free market, many of the mass perceptions will change.

How can you be so sure a free market will not work? We haven't tried it. Since education is largely state operated, we only need one state to step up to the challenge, and then the rest of the states can see how well or poorly such a system works. We don't have to have all 50 states moving to the same system. I'll not in favor of any such federal mandate.

prizepatrol

If you don't mind the taxes, when we end school taxes, you can give your savings to a scholarship fund for poor kids. How about senior citizens on limited incomes? Why should they pay?

Civic duty? Says who? How is it a civic duty for a taxpayer to subsidize the education of his neighbor's kids. If his neighbor has children, his neighbor should fully support his own children, not expecting welfare handouts from his neighbors.

This is classic socialism, with a redistribution of wealth seen as a public duty. Balderdash!!

prizepatrol

I agree with the Administrator that this is not the thread for this discussion. This is about alternative funding for schools.

prizepatrol

Retirees on Social Security have paid into the system throughout their working lives. All people will receive Social Security benefits if they live long enough. You are paying for your own retirement, not another person's.

I have stated before I am not an extreme libertarian. I believe in a social safety net for the jobless, homeless, etc.

Given the sorry state of public schools in America, why am I paying for them, children or not?

prizepatrol

The ultimate answer is school vouchers. School vouchers give parents the choice to remove their children from failing schools. It gives the poor a broader range of school choices. It allows many different experiments in education to proceed simultaneously.

If I'm not mistaken this is how it works already. Better schools are in better areas and better off (financially) people live in these areas. You just can't raise the taxes necessary in a slum to have as good of a school as you do in a wealthier area.



Why does government mandated mean that it needs to be government sponsored? I would go for this on the one condition that the government was doing a good job, but that system just isn't cutting it. Read some illiteracy stats... better yet, tumble around the net a bit and see just how few people can read, spell, comprehend and construct sentences. A nice example would be my posts, I can't construct sentences if my life depended on it.



If this were done, at this point in time, way too many students would fail. It is my understanding that the standards are constantly lowered because students can't effectively meet the prior standards.

What kind of overhaul? How to change what is taught? What is wrong with the current curriculum?



I agree with this entirely.



I agree with this too. When you take the time to invest something, be that time ( or involvement with schooling) or money (private or other schooling), it's bound to turn out better than handing the kid over to the state for seven hours, no questions asked.

Before some big overhaul, I'd rather see changes start at the bottom, with the individual students, parents and teachers. Better involvement being one of the top changes.



There are such things, they are called home schooling groups or associations. These groups even sometimes enlist the help of public schools around them for sports and other activities or classes.

I think if a parent is overbearing to the point of home schooling for the purpose of indoctrinating them, then it likely wouldn't matter how the children were schooled. The parents would still brainwash them.



I agree with this and have seen it happen. Kind of an "Oh well, what can you do?" attitude. An excuse to pull away and stay uninvolved because "What will it matter anyway?".



I agree with this, but, public schooling is not typically viewed as welfare handouts. I'm not sure it even should be viewed as such. It's not something the people choose to do, really. They have to pay taxes and so they send Jr to the public school.

The point I agree on is why should a taxpayer have to pay for Jr next door to go to school? I don't have a school aged child, but when I do our child will go to a motessori, private or parochial school. Even then I will be paying as if I had a child going to public school and I don't think it's fair. Especially when a person lives in an area where school taxes are outrageous.



I'd rather see this tried before the privatization of public schools. I understand this works well in countries that do this. If we absolutely have to pay, then give us a choice about what we're paying for.

This will work, imo, like privatization in weeding out the horrible schools. Who is going to choose to give money to the worst school in the district? Bye-bye crappy school!

The government has no right to mandate something its not willing to sponser. Its grossly unfair. And I agree that our current system isnt cutting it, but that is by no means a reason to get rid of it. Why not try and improve it? We used to have stellar education system, what changed exactly, and how can we get it to where it used to be? I dont have all the answers, I just dont think that privatizing schools is the right answer. I think everyone would/should benefit from an education, and if its privatized, that means only certain people could afford it.

Lets look at places where schools are private (although, true enough, none of these places have alternates to private education, which is the point of this thread). Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia...Many countries in Africa. Only the rich can afford schools for children in those nations, and I think that everyone deserves the chance to learn.

Most industrialized countries have a far superior public education system than we do. Name one country that doesnt.

I think a better solution is not dividing up schools funds based on taxes and districts (although I am not fully sure how taxes are divided up for certain schools). I think other factors such as class room sizes, needed school supplies, etc. should be considered for what school gets how much money. Its not only affluent neighborhoods that should be getting the best public education.



EVERYTHING. We tend to think because people happen to be young they can not grasp certain concepts and are very simple-minded, and we teach them very little. Most people can be taught and their age has little bearing on how well they grasp the concepts. Our current system dumbs things down for kids, and the result is kids not getting interested and staying stupid the rest of their life (our entire society perpetuates this. People dont like to think). I think that we can teach kids much harder subjects than they are currently being taught. Why is it that we dont teach grammar in high school (or at all...At least in my time in the public education system)? Or Latin (again this is based off my own experience)? Why arent kids encouraged to read and explore for themselves certian topics at a younger age? We coddle children too much, and that is what I think needs to be changed in our system. Certain fundamental things have been cut out of our schools, because we decided it was "too difficult" for some children.

Yep, and cats would be OK if they just barked. Get rid of education as we know it today. Let the private market work.

Privatizing schools, as suggested in many of the posts in this forum, is a bad idea altogether. The primary objection is that far too many children would be left behind based on their inabilty to pay. In NO other industrialized nation of the world does such a system exsist, because it doesn't have to. The current public school system can be revamped, as shown in countless examples throughout the world. In order to do this, you need the following elements:

1. Good teachers. Not only do they have to be knowledgable in subject matter, but they must also have a demonstrated ability of conveying that knowledge to others. There are many smart people that could never teach what they know to anyone.

2. Remove disruptive elements from classrooms, and stop denying children their right to learn. Place these "problem" children in a program that can address their needs and help them to recognize their need for an education, not so that they learn on a lower level, but so they can be placed back into the regular system.

3. Provide for "after school services", including tutoring, accellerated learning programs, study programs, college preparation, and various counselling services.

4. Drastically raise the bar on education. The rank of the U.S. in worldwide statistics on education is absolutely appalling. In todays world, it is realistic, and necessary for our high school seniors to be graduating with the equivalent of what is now an Associate's Degree.

5. Give schools the tools they need to teach our children on today's technology so that they'll be prepared in an increasingly competitive and technologically advanced working environment.

Imagine how many great scientists, leaders, and innovators that have already been victimized by an inadequate system, that failed to help them realize their full potential. Why replace an inadequate system with another inadequate system. Education should only be limited by one's own human potential, not by one's ability to pay for it.

Good points, but you first have to remove the monolithic NEA. It's stranglehold on public education, and it's lock step liberal mind set (and election policies) have and will continue to stymie real progress. I'm not against public school, but I'm now starting to weigh home school vs. private school for my daughters.

I feel so much emphasis on multiculturalism, diversity, tolerance and sensitivity have detracted from the primary purpose of schooling: Math, English, History (not revisionist) and Science.

School vouchers is the answer. The NEA and government bureaucracy make rapid reform impossible. Why let another generation of children suffer?

This is a fairly perplexing strand to me. The idea of removing public education and expecting a market to provide equitable answers that pave the way for our nation's future seems outlandishly unlikely to me.

It seems to me that the areas of our country that have developed most successfully (New England, New York, California) all have made substantial investments in quality education.

I think a key issue to explore is that of why our university system (which is heavily funded by state and federal government money whether private or public) is sought by students around the world but our public schools are being out-performed by countries like Yugoslavia. I do not think it is because of teacher pay or equipment in the classroom. I think it is because our education philosophy has decided that academic rigor is either unnecessary or unfair.

I think greater emphasis on instilling a deep foundation of knowledge with all of the requisite and dreary rote memorization and repetition would improve the education level of Americans. And if we want a bright future we better start providing a better education and place a higher priority on the art of learning.

You must dream the impossible dream. The facts are that public schools in K-12 are graduating people that may not find their home state on a map.

Public schools are not only a failure, they are robbing Peter to pay Paul. Why should Paul subsidize Peter's children to go to bad schools?

Public schools may work in other countries, but we are talking about the US. I hear lots of excuses for why they are failing, but no one has offered a way to fix them. Let's be bold and try reform in the form of a free market.

prizepatrol

I like the idea of applying free market principles to our public schools. There should always be public education. Public education is the means to provide equal opportunity to all citizens. Does anyone disagree with the ideal of equal opportunity? Do you have a better way to achieve it? Vouchers have been mentioned as a means to free market educational. This could be the tool to apply free market principles to public education. I suggest vouchers be used at any school district complying with public school standards. Vouchers used at any private school not following these standards would not support the ideal of equal opportunity. Public schools currently have the burden, due to increased costs per student, of students with special education, disabilities, and at risks children. Private schools do not have to provide education services to these categories which gives them a market advantage.

Our society also has a problem in regards to who gets paid what. We have a society where it is more likely your pay is determined by who you know than what you know. Students observe this and conclude education is not as important as socializing. Athletics are viewed with higher regard than academics. Until we have a society where highly skilled workers are paid much more than the average, the incentive to learn will not be there. Schools themselves are poor models to students. They observe the best teachers are paid the same as the weaker teachers. It is clear to them, working to become educated does not have an economic pay-off. We need to have a system in our public schools where better teachers are paid more. We have the means to identify these teachers but unions will resist such changes. This is another area where free market principle should be used in the public schools.

Another reform needed is equal funding of schools throughout a state. It is difficult for public schools to compete with each other when funding is not equal in a state. States should make it a goal to have all students within a state having access to the same dollars.

These are some ideas to get the free market into public education. There are probably more and better ones but these are the best I can think of. To abandon free public education would be a disaster to our ideal of equal opportunity.

I am not living the impossible dream. I see failure in the schools, but I see success in our universities. I also know capitalism in its pure free market form (which no longer exists) is based on the idea of individuals pursuing their self-interests. For free market capitalism greed is good.

Education can and should be handled by society. It is an investment in our future. The private high school system provides a very good education to the few. When I see the free market churning out Enron, Adelphia, WorldCom, Tyco, etc. I renew my faith in gov't programs. Reform. Tinker on a small scale in the real world. I have not yet seen a model of reform that is a real solution. The free market is not a program it is a vague faith in the emergence of the best solution under capitalist competition.

It sounds too Dickensian to me.

I urge you to reread my original posting. I never said government should bail out entirely. There is a need to underwrite the cost of educating children from poor families, although I think we can come up with much more innovative ways to do that than the oppressive property taxes that even seniors on a limited income have to pay too.

You almost misread me when you suggest big corporations take over private education. I loathe the thought. One of the problems with government-controlled education is its bigness. If you reread my original post, I proposed many alternatives to public schools.

prizepatrol

Prizepatrol,

I apologize for letting myself get lost on a Dennis Miller-esque rant and make it appear that my straw man debate was directly taking on your positions.
I am happy to hear about anyone trying to shape the debate to get our schools going.

Free the teachers from individual lesson plans. That would be a good start.

I am not sure what you are meaning?

It looks like the Midwest has made substantial investments in quality education also. Five Midwestern states rank in the top ten of the nation's best.

The 2000 Report Card on American Education published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) rank the nation’s best and worst public school systems

1. Minnesota
2. Montana
3. Iowa
4. Wisconsin
5. New Hampshire
6. Oregon
7. Washington
8. Kansas
9. Nebraska
10. Alaska
11. Connecticut
12. Massachusetts
13. Maine
14. Vermont
15. Missouri
16. Colorado
17. Arizona
18. Utah
19. Virginia
20. North Dakota
21. Oklahoma
22. Wyoming
23. Illinois
24. New York
25. New Jersey
26. Maryland
27. Nevada
28. Rhode Island
29. Idaho
30. Ohio
31. Texas
32. Michigan
33. North Carolina
34. California
35. South Dakota
36. West Virginia
37. Kentucky
38. Delaware
39. Arkansas
40. Florida
41. Indiana
42. Alabama
43. New Mexico
44. Tennessee
45. Pennsylvania
46. Georgia
47. Hawaii
48. South Carolina
49. Louisiana
50. District of Columbia
51. Mississippi

Prizepatrol

Most Seniors I know don't mind paying taxes for schools. All children deserve an education. It's the responsibility of all adult citizens to make sure they get one.

Madtown

Hmm...Georgia's 46th? Not bad, I heard we were 48th

I'm not having kids anytime soon!

I think Minnesota and Montana are the top two because it gets so frigging cold there the kids are forced to go to school. Notice the top ten actually are states that get pretty cold in the winter. I'm joking of course! Congrats to the top ten. Maybe we other states should learn from them.

That is ancedotal information. I am near senior at 55. I highly resent paying taxes to support schools that fail to educate. If parents choose to bring children into the world, why do they expect someone else to subsidize their parenting? Maybe they can help pay my healthcare costs then.

Public education amounts to welfare. One reason public education in America remains popular despite failing schools is few people have put the issue in that context. Most subscribe to the paradigm that it has always been that way, so why change?

prizepatrol

Grey Seal I apologize for my half-formed thought about individual lesson plans.

Many schools are beginning to individualize lesson plans for students. Ideally each student would get challenged in a personalized way and be evaluated based on his ability and effort for that plan.

Logistically this is a nightmare with overloaded teachers being required to make too many different lesson plans. It also distorts the actual progress of a student relative to his peers.

I fear this is not much clearer but I'll stop here.

I asked just 'cause I value your other half. No apology needed.

I think you have Individual Education Plans in mind.

Individual Education Plans, referred to as IEP in all our public schools systems, are required by the federal government for those students determined to have problems. This is the core of our special education programs. Not all students have IEPs, only those determined to have a problem by a team of experts in the schools. These assessments are done either at the request of teachers or the parents.

Special education is indeed a time consuming process. It is an example of a mandate from the federal government without the moneys provided to implement it. The goals of this federal program are worthy. Some parts of the program, such as difficulty in expelling students who have IEPs, are problematic. The lack of funds is a huge problem. Special education is a large expenditure. The highest paid people in a school district are involved with meetings to administer IEPs. These are teachers, social workers, school psychologists, principals, and others. The goal to help students with identified special needs can help students to succeed who would not otherwise in solely a regular classroom.

Expensive as it is, there is ample evidence that early intervention and such programs could be good social investments in our people. It would be better to invest in people when they are young to help them reach their potential as opposed to redistributing wealth or throwing them in jails when they are adults. This thinking is not a panacea but can effect a significant percentage. We have not gotten to the point where we are intervening early enough or with proper funding to determine if indeed this actually will be cost effective.

My ethics is to bend over backwards to provide equal opportunities for all children. Once they are adults, they are on their own. No free lunches. This is a bit of an exaggeration of my position but probably communicates it the best.

If we eliminate special ed, we are essentially throwing children in "the pit" when I think it is better to let adults, given equal opportunity via public education, compete and pursue happiness and hopefully stay out of "the pit".

Public education is our best means to maximize successful people. I prefer it over transfer of wealth programs.

I have been a senior for quite some time now. Unlike you, I do not resent paying taxes to support schools. In my state, which is a high tax state (my city is even worse) our schools are Not failing.

Most of my education took place in parochial school system. Even so, my parents supported the public schools system without complaint.

You could take HeatherR's health care suggestion and Pay As You Go.

Madtown

If you are a senior citizen remember that no SS funds are in the bank. Without an educated populace to pay taxes you are out of benefits. Also it is quite likely others contributed to your, your spouses and/or your children's education. Government subsidation of education is neccesary, it brings in more revenues than it costs. What we do need is vouchers to provide choice and competition in education.

I'm all for an educated populace, that's why I don't complain about paying taxes for education.

As I said, most of my education took place in the parochial school system. My husband also, attended parochial schools, but our parents did not object to being taxed for public education, nor do we.

Madtown