[Novus]

Some of New Jersey schools spend $20k per student a year. That is more than most college tuitions but this is for some crapy public school. But New Jersey's biggest problem is there are too many school districts and each on of them has a massive bloat of over paid useless administrators. New Jersey superintendents make $200k a year and they do absolutely nothing yet even have support staff while the teachers get crapped on. New Jersey tax payers passively support this because of racism and the unspoken threat that suburban schools will flooded with gang bangers from Newark and other unsavory areas if there was ever a consolidation of the 300+ NJ school districts. Privatizing all the schools both suburban and urban would solve this dilemma because disruptive bad elements can simply be expelled from private schools.

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'A') private business isn't inherently evil. They're just motivated by profit. If you combine this profit motive with competition and consumer choice, then you wind up with innovation, efficiency, and a superior product...

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Novus', '.').. New Jersey superintendents make $200k a year and they do absolutely nothing yet even have support staff while the teachers get crapped on. New Jersey tax payers passively support this because of racism and the unspoken threat that suburban schools will flooded with gang bangers from Newark and other unsavory areas if there was ever a consolidation of the 300+ NJ school districts...

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oneaboveall', '
')In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell the board that I live in Newark and lived here most of my life.

[AdTheNad]

Amazing that no one has yet pointed out that America is not the only country in the world with schools. This is the perfect opportunity to look around the world, see what works and apply that method if you want to improve schools. If you want to just find a way to extract any surplus you don't already have under your control then sure, privatization is the way to go.

Article of world education rankings for maths science and reading

Top 5 countries in 2009 in order - South Korea, Finland, Canada, New Zealand and Japan. Which of those do you think comes from privatised schooling, and which from public schools?

Privatizing schooling will just help further draw the lines, between rich and poor, meaning people born into poverty stay there. I look forward to seeing the schooling system becoming just as efficient as your health care. In other words, a couple of education providers with monopoly power increasing the costs for their text books, resources and for a spot in the class well above the level of inflation. An absolutely great system for anyone rich while poor people get table scraps.

How do you increase efficiency in a school? Cheaper resources (sucks to be you poor kid) , less teachers - or maybe you can get some minimum wage teachers from Mexico who barely speak the language, they are nice and cheap (sucks to be you poor kid). Maybe you don't need to pay the teachers for the holidays when they are not working. I mean with 45 million on food stamps I'm sure there is still plenty of part time work available they could be doing then instead of sitting on their asses, well, preparing lesson plans and marking anyway.

[Cloud9]

Public education is a right. A private education is an opportunity. A close look at the populations in secondary schools will reveal a stark class divide. While gross generalizations can be made about the rich and poor, you will find that poor kids go to private schools. Parents with middle class values will sacrifice in an effort to get their kids the very best education they can afford. Underclass kids show up to take advantage of the free daycare and get the free stuff. Underclass values destroy a school system. No one in their right mind wants to teach underclass kids. It is not about the cloths they wear. It is about their paradigm.

In a world of diminishing resources, compulsory education will start to take some hits. The first hit may come in the form of firing the truancy officer.

[Pops]

This isn't new. "Privatized" schools are no more successful than public schools at educating kids according to test scores, at least not from what I've read.

But they are good for taking the heat off politicians and making taxpayers feel vindicated by sticking it to those evil unions.

But if for-profit colleges are an indication, don't expect any "greater good"

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')ewly-released internal training documents from several for-profit colleges illustrate a culture that encourages recruiters to increase enrollment by focusing on emotions such as "pain" and "fear" to attract low-income students who are struggling with adverse personal and financial circumstances.

[dinopello]

I have some friends involved in a school in rural Uganda. The kids there get up at 4AM to work in the fields and the lucky ones are let by their parents to go to the school. My friends said many of the kids will run several miles to be at school on time. It helps to have a motivated child.

[AgentR11]

re: Cloud9's rich/poor/underclass and private/public distinctions..

Firing the truancy officer itself might not be the greatest idea, but the underlying truth needs acknowledgement. We've so ingrained the notion that everyone should have a high school diploma, that people who have no business needing, or getting one, end up forced into school where they learn nothing, and then skip out, thus breaking the law in the process of doing what they should do. Many countries get along just fine with much lower mandatory attendance ages, and have no problem at all keeping low performing kids in the same grade year after year, until they finally get the material.

So, my friend Bob, with an 90 IQ yet great with his hands does eventually learn enough math to balance his checkbook and make sure the cashier isn't cheating him on the change; but he's not locked into years of useless book training, when what he needs is thousands of hours of time running a lathe or welder under supervision. Right now, our education system tests Bob, sticks "future felon" sticker in his folder and calls it done. THAT is what should be a crime. How we handle these folks is just plain evil, and those in charge with both intellect and education KNOW what they are doing to them. If we feel the need to keep "the free stuff" for them, how bout an apprenticeship program and a McD's gift card.

There's lots of ways Bob could support himself and contribute to a family without having to deal drugs or rob houses; if we chose to permit it.

[Fishman]

New Jersy is 66 billion dolars down in unpaid pensions and health benefits, has the highest taxes of any state, a stunning rebuke of the liberal tax and spend
Some of the posts here are just hillarious

"politicians get to beat their chest and show how hard they are on the evil unions."
And these marvelous unions have done what?

"Privatizing schooling will just help further draw the lines, between rich and poor, meaning people born into poverty stay there"
And public schools have done what?

"unspoken threat that suburban schools will flooded with unspoken threat that with gang bangers from Newark "
Yes, most parents want their kids to go to school with " gang bangers from Newark " (sarc)and that makes them racist from your point of view?

Sorry guys, the liberal ideas meet the real world of moral hazard. If you subsidize failure, you increase it. You've spent all the money, now the grownups have to clean up your mess.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'T')his isn't new. "Privatized" schools are no more successful than public schools at educating kids according to test scores, at least not from what I've read.

[AgentR11]

The mistake politicians make when they want to privatize a school system is that they fail to understand *why* the existing private schools succeed. Its simple, if the school fails for more than the briefest moment, the school ceases to exist. Thus, all private schools in operation either are new startups (rare), or schools that do not fail.

Contributing to that is that every kid in a particular private school is at that school because their parents wanted them to be there, at least with enough motivation to put up with the extra logistics of taking the kid to school and handling the monthly tuition.

A private school also has much greater latitude in removing disruptive students.

Its pretty clear, when I look at the student body as a whole at my kids school; they may have a reasonable amount of "diversity", but they are all uniform in that they want to be there, and the staff and parents what them to be there. Not to mention that at least for us, P.E. is *not* just an afterthought; every last one of them looks healthy and vibrant, from the little shrimps, to the big boned kids, they run, and they run them hard. (something a public school might not be able to get away with...) Definitely worth more than a few years with a fancy car; at least in my book.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'T')here's lots of ways Bob could support himself and contribute to a family without having to deal drugs or rob houses; if we chose to permit it.

[Fishman]

So Pop, do you think we should encourage drug sales, thievery (and if so send them your way, right?) or work farms, or whatever? Personaly, I've run out of money to coddle them.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Oneaboveall', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'A') private business isn't inherently evil. They're just motivated by profit. If you combine this profit motive with competition and consumer choice, then you wind up with innovation, efficiency, and a superior product...

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR11', 'T')he mistake politicians make when they want to privatize a school system is that they fail to understand *why* the existing private schools succeed.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'T')hey're just motivated by profit.

[AgentR11]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'T')he only way Bobs kids are going to find low skill jobs is if ditch digging comes back into demand because of cheap energy decline.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'A')nd you are the one always blabbing about the decline of the middle-class.

[AgentR11]

You may be mistaking me for an advocate for privatizing the public schools. I like school *choice*, even as far as statewide choice; and like voucher plans as well; but I also think schools should be able to enforce competitive entrance exams. I think districts should be much smaller, or should have a flatter pay scale, higher at entry, lower in admin.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'W')asn't there a study last year showing there is no difference overall?