Comment by loewenskind | Hacker News Reader

Comment by loewenskind | Hacker News Reader

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The market is not the solution to every problem. Many problems sure, maybe even most but not all.

It really seems like there are a lot of people talking about what the market will do who haven't done even cursory studies of what market theory actually is. Do you know what market elasticity is? Without it the market can't work. That's why, for example, the market can't save us with health care. Health care is fundamentally inelastic (you'd pay any price for a life saving operation because without it you, to quote a movie, lose everything you've ever had and ever will have).

I believe we have a similar situation with education. You can't just opt out if it costs too much.

EDIT:

>No matter how important teaching is, teaching 20 kids per year is worth about $30K.

How do you know this? We know that we pay $30K/year now. We know that our teaching quality is awful. Doesn't that actually demonstrate (or at the very least strongly suggest) that it is in fact worth more?

I know about the market and elasticity very well, thank you. Saying that the market doesn't solve every problem in no way implies that it can't solve a given problem. But one key ingredient is that you have to know what you're purchasing, which is one reason why health care is so messed up.

By opt-out I mean opt-out of your standard assigned school district, not out of education. You should be able to take your $X per-child that would go to the district and spend it on any educational program that meets defined standards.

Teaching 20 kids per year is worth $30K by definition, because that's what we pay people to do it. There is a high, positive return on additional money invested in better education, but we as a society are not opting for it.

> Saying that the market doesn't solve every problem in no way implies that it can't solve a given problem.

Nope, I never made such an illogical assertion.

>By opt-out I mean opt-out of your standard assigned school district, not out of education.

I was pointing out why education may be inelastic. Not assuming you didn't want your children educated.

>Teaching 20 kids per year is worth $30K by definition

Extremely bizarre logic. If we pay $30k for something and fail then it obviously something is wrong. If other systems pay more than this and don't fail (or at least not as badly) then that makes a rather strong case that the pay is too low.

>but we as a society are not opting for it.

That doesn't mean it's worth less, that means you're not paying enough and it shows. This furthers the argument that education may not be an elastic market. If people are simply incapable of acting in their own best interest (given the choice, always picking the crappy cheap education for their kids) then there must be intervention.

The only reason I'm not convinced that this is indeed the case are grandalf's posts.

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