Glad you wingnuts decide the fate of education on a game chat room. Get up off of your armchair and move into the real world.

Hey Chew, you are a nut case. The reason no one argues with you is because you already have made up your mind about what you want to believe in. Fine, but rigid, semi-ignorant, half-truth argumentation just don't interest most intelligent people after a while. Good night!

Thanks for the video link Citrus.

I disagreed with his statement that creativity was as important as literacy.
He hit the nail on the head with the goal of education being to produce university professors.
His statement that degrees are becoming worthless is right on as well.
I would love to see math and science diminished as the overarching subjects in education.

"I advocate giving every single child the chance to choose their school as well with a voucher program. "

Vouchers are a terrible idea. They will be the end of what little educational freedom remains in non-government schools - if you think things are bad now, just wait until every *private* school has to comply with a never-ending torrent of government dictates in order to qualify for vouchers.

http://www.schoolandstate.org/Fritz/VouchersBadNews.htm

I say we should turn education into a business opportunity. We can help the economy AND increase competition to provide the best possible education. Public Schools do have a 'monopoly' I suppose, but wouldn't it be more effective to take the burden of teaching away from all those poor overtaxed states?

Tolstoy, you make a connection that doesn't exist.
The government can't mandate a private school accept a voucher.
Private schools would decide whether or not they wanted to accept the vouchers.
Private schools would accept them if there enrollment wasn't adequate, or the amount of the voucher covered expenses which is doubtful.

The article at school and state completely ignores this to the great discredit of the author and the editor of the website.

@Tettleton Chew
Let me start of by saying, I have experience (though in small quantities) in teaching. I've gone through a public education. What I am about to assert has both reason and experience to support it. That being said, here goes.

1) Parents truly have no way to identify a truly good teacher from a truly bad teacher. Simply said, parents have minimal direct interaction with teachers and therefore are unable to accurately judge the teacher. Their only source of information comes from their children. The child, if intelligent enough, could possibly tell the difference. However, even the opinion of the child is unreliable as the child is directly affected by and interacted with the teacher, and therefore a personal bias is introduced.

2) I believe the "law of diminishing returns" applies here. A good teacher, even if identified, has a limited class capacity. Apologies, but even the simplest of children surely realize this. A good teacher given a class of 1000 will simply not be as effective. In essence what I'm saying is: the good teachers can only teach so many students. There aren't enough good teachers for everyone.

3) Giving the parents the choice of school simply isn't ideal either. What you fail to see is that a class with above average and under average students mixed together is no different for the under average students, and almost detrimental to the above average student (with potential accounted for). In general, private schools are better than public schools. This is because of both students and teachers. The students at private schools are GENERALLY of higher caliber than those at public schools. (that being said, remember I am also partially a result of public education). This general separation is beneficial for both high and low caliber students. The lower do not feel the pressure to compete with the higher, and the higher are not limited by the lower.

Your "plan text" (in the words of a policy debator) is simply unreasonable and impractical. Even if it could happen, it would simply be for the worst. The system, as bad as it is, should not change the way you propose.

All that being said, I'm only nineteen (still a university sophomore). Feel free to use that against me (though if you do, keep in mind what may be inferred if that's the best argument you have against me).

@Tettleton's Chew, keep in mind. I'm not calling you an idiot. I'm merely refuting your statements all for the sake of a good discussion.

Why does someone think that saying they have "experience" makes their argument stronger?
A teacher or someone "experienced" and educated would realize that an appeal to so-called "expertise" weakens an argument.

An argument stands or falls on its own logic and merits regardless of the credentials of the author.

Claiming "expertise" by default insinuates that someone without "expertise" has a weaker argument regardless of the logic and reasoning involved, and that is preposterous on its face.

If you read through more clearly, I actually state that my experience exists, but not enough to be considered expertise. Experience does indeed make an argument stronger. Reason alone is unreliable. Experience alone is also unreliable. My point in adding that my experience is simply saying that I have both on my side (a stronger support than many others have, I daresay).

"An argument stands or falls on its own logic and merits regardless of the credentials of the author. " - I agree. I was merely reluctant to assume that everyone else knew that.

Wow, TC. Taking a jab at experience when you have so often bashed other people's lack of experience, using it to say that they have no idea what they're talking about.

"A Canadian teacher claims that parents don't know good teachers from bad teachers.

I rest my case. " -Tettleton's Chew

I rest my case.

"The government can't mandate a private school accept a voucher. "

They don't need to mandate it. What parent is going to send their child to a school that doesn't qualify them for free government money (a voucher), when there will be so many that do? Voucher-resisting schools would be driven out of business in a week.

Reason alone is unreliable?
So not one should have gone to the moon because they didn't have experience and reason alone is unreliable?
How do people post things like this?

Parents have truly no way to identify a truly good teacher from a truly bad teacher.

This kind of indefensible statement needs no comment from me.

"A good teacher given a class of 1000......"

What teacher has a class of 1000?

Why would someone make a statement about a class size that exists only in fantasy?

I guess because the argument feel apart when applied to real world classroom size of 40-50.

"Voucher-resisting schools would be driven out of business in a week."

This logic falls on its face. Why would anyone ever go to a private school when public school was "free."

Yet private schools have thrived next to "free" schools. Vouchers won't change anything.

If a parent and child who see a teacher regularly can't know a good from bad teacher then how can a government bureaucrat who has less contact with the teacher than a parent and student know a good from bad teacher?

If know one can tell then the parents should be free to guess, it's their child.

LOL!

Reason alone is completely unreliable. What would reason tell you about relativity? Unless you were Einstein, it would tell you what most people still think: time and space are constant. Experimentation says that's false. Reason has nothing to do with going to the moon. Going to the moon, like most "first ventures", was a result of a curiosity/want, not reason. And you seem to not understand how experience is used. Experience is not only applied in a situation that happens to be identical to a situation encountered in the past. It's used in a similar situation. Is going to the moon not simply a longer flight with a few more factors? It is both experience and reason that enabled the traveling to the moon.

Never, in my statements, did I claim that bureaucrats have good judgment of good teachers from bad. My argument was an absolute argument, not a relative one. Again, read carefully. The point is that even a parents insight is unreliable.

As for the class of 1000, if you think that's unrealistic, think about introductory courses at public universities. True, they're only around 500 or so. But nonetheless think about the effectiveness of those courses. You might learn, but a previously good teacher wouldn't be so good anymore, would he? Also, university attendance isn't mandated by the United States unlike secondary education. When you mandate the entire teenage population to obtain education, and then allow them to choose who teaches them, the best teachers will inevitably have classes of unreasonable proportions.

So you're conceding that parents aren't good judges of teacher quality?

"Why would someone make a statement about a class size that exists only in fantasy? "

Fantasy is reality. Reality is fantasy. All is glass.

Dreams are waking life. Waking life is dreaming.

I once had a dream I was a butterfly. Now I wonder: I am a man dreaming I am a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am a man?

All is blank. All is fleeting. All is clean and lubricated.

The Situation, It is impossible to convince someone that "Reason alone is completely unreliable" that reason, or rational thinking is not completely unreliable.

Who said that you said that bureaucrats have good judgment of teachers?

We are talking about secondary education so any discussion of public universities is irrelevant, but when you mention class sizes of 1000 you off in la la land even for public universities. 500 or so is la la land too.

The bottom line is no one is more qualified than the parents to judge their kids teachers, and the parents and child should have a voucher that enables them to choose their schools and teachers.

Nothing I've seen.

"500 or so is la la land"? And where did you get that number, TC? There are 500 people in the Introductory Microeconomics class at the University of Washington. Actually, there are currently 513.

You just listen to the poor kids hanging out on Wall Street right now and you feel like they were absolutely robbed of any kind of realistic or tangible education by our public schools and universities.
What a sad commentary for the American education system from K-12 through a BA that they did nothing to prepare their students to create their own jobs.
That is the kind of society you get from socialism, helpless followers with no individual ability to succeed.