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Comment by abdellah123 | Hacker News Reader

I meant the needs of the education should guide "political" decisions.

A simple example is that the education budget (percentage) should be in two digits!!

On the assumption that the modern education system teaches "confusion, class position, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, provisional self-esteem, and that one cannot hide" (John Taylor Gatto) how would increasing the education budget help educate?

You're misinformed here.

The biggest per-student spender on education in the developed world is the US:

> In 2019, the United States spent $15,500 per full-time-equivalent (FTE) student on elementary and secondary education, which was 38 percent higher than the average of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries of $11,300 (in constant 2021 U.S. dollars). At the postsecondary level, the United States spent $37,400 per FTE student, which was more than double the average of OECD countries ($18,400; in constant 2021 U.S. dollars).

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...

And everybody knows that US outcomes in primary and secondary education are not great. (Actually they're considerably better than many realize, but not as good as, say, Finland, which spends much less). So budgets aren't everything.

And yet, at both the top and in the broad middle, US universities have some of the best outcomes in the world. So big budgets can still be good.

Human brains are complicated. Big groups of them are more so. Transferring output of some brains to other brains in big groups is not at all straightforward.

It's no wonder people would rather swap platitudes about bigger budgets.

In the abstract, many people would agree that education budgets should be finite.

But concretely, it always 'sounds good' to ask for bigger education budgets. No matter the size of the existing budget.

Iirc , the stats show the more school budget the worse education.

If you put "free" money into something the parasites will gather. Systems exist to extend themselves, not yo provide the service for which they were created (systemantics).

And I am saying that there shouldn't be an education item in the government's budget in the first place.

(Just to be clear, I'm all for giving poor people money, so they can spend it as they see fit. Be that education or food or entertainment etc. By contrast, rich people don't need government hand-outs.)

Disassembling public education would have substantial societal externalities. If education is anything you want it to be, why not graduate from DraftKings Precocious Kids HIgh School?

Sorry, I don't understand the second sentence.

Yes, I agree that public education has substantial costs. Both direct costs to the victims and societal externalities. Disassembling the monster would hopefully stop some of them.

So if up to an individual, what do you think they would choose for their education if there were no mandates agreed upon by their government. DraftKings is a gambling titan that could offer a very profitable option.

I do not at all think that, if government wasn't in the business of setting those standards, the standards would turn out lower.

Reputation would follow the institutions, and graduating from an institution that set lows standards wouldn't have any signalling power to prospective employers, so students wouldn't want to enroll there.

What you actually see in countries that have both a private and public education system is that the private institutions compete on the grounds of who sets the highest standards, not on who offers the most riskless opportunity to students to get the degree, irrespective of how low an effort they put in or how incapable they are.

If you're talking of a huge number of small institutions in combination with high mobility, then maybe reputation at the level of the individual institution wouldn't do the trick, but you would probably see certification and quality assurance agencies pop up to establish brands and enforce standards around them.

Well put. I recognize your argument, but ultimately don't share your faith that private certification bodies will do a better job than a government body such as the Department of Education (as long as such an organization is not intentionally devolved with unmeriting stooges). I may switch opinion depending on if we are speaking about schools/universities vs. jobs/trades. But it isn't one or the other. An institution can have a reputation as well as have standards to meet determined by a government department, and I would likely advocate that a hybrid approach is better than one or the other.

Measuring up a student/candidate who was home schooled or self-taught works for some schools/vocations more than others. Having certification/accreditation of some sort streamlines the selection process. Whether such quality is best defined by the market-driven private certifiers or the government will depend on what type of education we're talking about, and even then will be muddied by one's belief in the efficacy of free markets vs democratic governance, which is a whole other can 'o worms.

There's not much wrong with the government still setting standard and curricula, as long as they don't force them on anyone, and as long as they don't waste too much taxpayer money on the whole endeavor.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/56fzWyOxhJg (super short argument)

Milton Friedman had some free market arguments for the school system.

People are already free not to learn anything in the schools they are forced to attend. Many take that option.

I know noting about DraftKings, but if they would choose to offer an education option that people like, who am I to judge?

What makes you think they would be able to offer an appealing education option?

(And: I sense some sarcasm here. So to pre-empt that: what makes you think people would eg rather study at DraftKing where you imply they don't learn anything, compared to not waste time and money on studying anything at all?

Ie how would DraftKing be better than literally nothing for people who don't want an education in the first place?)

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