Comment by tokenizer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tokenizer | Hacker News Reader

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Well considering the cost of the Dept. of Education is 71.9 a year (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_United_States_federal_budg...), that would work out to 20$ a year for a population of 360 Million. Adjusted for Youth, which is around 73.9 Million (http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2012...), we're looking at about 972$ per youth per year.

Thats what the governments pays now for the entire system. The teachers, the building costs, the supplies, etc. If we really wanted to have an alternative to public schooling, IMO (I'm an anarchist) it couldn't be done with a voucher system.

The best solution is to question school as an institution. It was primarily for very young children and for reading. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Education_in_the_Uni...

We need to rethink these institutions and consider the technological advantages. My solution would be to put half of that 70 billion into Libraries, and make the accomodable for children during the day. Make it completely optional.

Make it completely optional, ok. What about the kids whose parents won't ever take them to one of these spaces/libraries? You know there will be thousands of kids growing up illiterate, not knowing any math, learning nothing but TV/youtube/Xbox if they are lucky to have that. Public education is shit, I agree with you on that. The problem is that for a percentage of children (varies by country, but quite high in the third world), handing the responsibility of their education to their parents is even shittier.

> What about the kids whose parents won't ever take them to one of these spaces/libraries?

What about them? There are plenty of children growing up today that either don't go to school, get expelled, or refuse to learn anything. I don't see the difference. The percentage of children of going to these places? What about the last 5000 years of human progress? Surely they progressed without mandatory/forced state education. Would you agree with yourself if we were all in North Korea knowing what we know? That's the problem with hypotheticals, you can expound ad infinitum.

> The problem is that for a percentage of children (varies by country, but quite high in the third world), handing the responsibility of their education to their parents is even shittier.

Which doesn't matter. The question isn't what's more economically efficient or favourable to higher literacy rates. It's a matter of morality. If the state requires me to let them raise my children, and threatens me with force if I do not, then in your opinion, who's in the wrong?

Now of course, things need to be in context. But you can't simply make an assertion that the state will always be better of a parent to a child than even a poor or illiterate or even neglectful parent. The problem with the ability to exert pressure on persons to send their children to public schooling is that it violates a natural and historical bond, and replaces it with "the monopoly on violence" in the name of justice. Always in the name of justice.

Ask yourself this, if you're worried about children becoming illiterate, then surely you're worried about children joining armies to fight economic wars, children being locked in prison for nonviolent crimes, and children being used to scapegoat authoritarian measures right? What about the children -is not a defense between the DPRK threatening to take my child because I won't permit them to indoctrinate her.

> Would you agree with yourself if we were all in North Korea knowing what we know?

That's what I'm saying. I wouldn't agree if we were in North Korea, but I will if we're talking about a third world country where the alternative to no public education is simply no education. What I see where I live is that where there is no public education, kids end up joining drug trafficking gangs, or end up crack addicts. If we're talking about Northern Europe, sure, go ahead, abolish public education, I won't be worried, I'm all for personal freedom from the state where it isn't irresponsible. It's just that some places, if you take away the state's presence, there are other forces with high interests in taking over that space where the state used to be.

I can definitely sympathize with your perspective. But that also sounds like a lack of community cohesiveness and unwillingness to improve the area by the local populace.

Where I'm from, we have free schools (anarchist workshops where anyone can attend or present), volunteering workshops, apprenticeships, etc. If you're community has a mafia(s) abusing a local area, you don't send your kids to the biggest one for protection and call it moral. It's just more comfortable. The moral option would be to fight the coercion that your community is suffering from (which seems entrenched sadly).

Also, I don't think public schooling gives a free pass at the potentiality that these students won't join gangs. It's most likely a complex set of reasons that may include that gang being the dominant form of force in the area (a mafia/government w/o the monopoly on force).

Also, I don't believe there is such a thing a no education. Again, just because some people don't have book smarts doesn't mean they aren't smart.

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