Population demographics with a hatian-like demographic in the US likely lie with Haiti on that chart.

I was not arguing the benefit of education, I was arguing what was the compelling government interest.

Increasing GDP is not worth government investment?

Our kids are not in a charter school, but a full-blown private school. I assume there is a difference there, but I'm unsure.

Issues like this come down to a single question sooner or later: to what degree can the single one or the small minority expect the majority to design the majority's rules in favour of the minority or the single one? Where does natural, justified solidarity end and individual ego-centrism begin?

Must all public schools do lessons with a second teacher skilled in gesture for those few kids that are deaf-tumb, or is it more reasonmable to have all deaf-dumb children collected in a few exceptionnel school specialised on their needs?

Must all kids in a school change their own eating habits and behavior habits, that are quite natural for normal, healthy people, because of just one kid being allergic to certain agents in peanuts?

Years ago when i still worked in a store, one day there way a man in a wheel chair comi8ng to my cashdeks. He was in a bad mood and started to complain abaout us not being a faciulity totally derswiogfned to the needs of wheel chair drivers. He then complained that all the city and all the world is not designed to the needs of wheel chair drivers. I agreed that it isn't that way. He continued to reason that all world should be designed according to the needs of wheel chair drivers, and that the anti-discrimination laws of the EU demands it so. I said that this would mean that all the world would need turn according to the demand of a minority only, whereas I thinbk it would be more reaosnable if the small minority - the exceptions from the rules, if you want to put it that way - find themselves better places to live in according to their demands and needs, and that he maybe better finds one of those appartements designed for wheel-chair drivers, instead of all appartements now being changed no matter who live sinside of them. Which really blew him off. But he really pissed me, so I told him straight to the face that wheel chgair drivers are not the rule in our societies, but are the exception from the rule. And it is not as if they were not being taken care of at all. Their are taxis for their needs. Busses can lower to make it easier for them to enter. Appartements and houses are available where doors are wide and no stairs are being build in. After all, they are an exception from the rule,. not the rule of human design.

Shall all universe now start to revolve around the wheel-chaired sun?

If the kid at school is in danger to its life when visiting that school, then maybe it is a clever thing not to send it to that school. Like you also would not send a kid to school that is so vulnerable to germs and dust in the air that it must wear a breathing mask and on y rolling bed that is completely isolated from the environment.

One can understand parents of ill children that they want as much normality for their kids as possible. But fact is, kids with such diseases are noit that normal like the rest, the majority that defines the statistical norm of "normality".

But I think it is reaosmable to see that any attitude and attempt of the community around to meet these special demands and needs of the few, can only go so far, and not further.

And the many other childrens have rigfhts on their own, too. For example to eat peanut butter on their bread and maybe not cleanign their mouth every time they enter the classroom. It is quite normal for the overwhelming majority of children in our countries to do so. Must they all pass on this now - just because of the need of just one individual that by definition is ill?

I have a fruit allergy myself, harmless, but my nose goes watering like hell if I smell strawberries, and my mouth is terribly itching when eating certain fruits, amongst them apples and my second-favourite fruit of all - strawberries. :wah:

Shall I demand now that strawberries are banned from all public buffets, and no strawberry farms being run by farmers anymore, because their presence violates my right to walk along that one field without an itching nose, instead of just evading onto another path along another field...? And public markets! Ohg dear, I cannot walk a marketplace with all those vegetables and fruits without consuming two packs of cleenex per hour. Be social, guys, show your solidarity with me. Ban those damn markets!

I see the need for solidarity, absolkutely. I also knbow that biologists can show how apes act altruzistically and show soldierity, because in the end it not onyl serves the others, but themselves too. Crows and parrots and other birds also show this behaviour. But in our politically correct times, soldiartity has become a combat-term to battle through minority interests and to en force demanded ideolgic goals of said poltical correctness. Solidarity here, solidarity there.

Many people have missed the mark where solidarity was turned into harsh egoism and ideoplgoic warfare to kill opposing opinion by using rehtorical overkill - if you oppose this or that ideological drive, you now are "non-solidaric" - additional to being xyz-phobic, being intolerant, being right-winged, beign cold-hearted.

The majority of educational spending is at the state and local level, not federal.

Many states are almost bankrupt at the moment. For most states, education is the supermajority of state spending. This is true of states that have the very highest tax rates, too (NY, NJ, CA, etc). Instead of the graph posted, it would be interesting to look at gross state product as a function of time with education spending superimposed on the same time scale.

You could also likely chart GDP vs calories eaten, too. Maybe even fat calories. It's not necessarily causal. Does spending on edu cause GDP growth, or do countries with large GDPs spend more just because?

Fair enough. It would be an interesting graph.

Also a fair question.

But to change gears - take Takeda's scenario of what would happen in a purely libertarian educational environment with no government funding, which sounds very plausible. In such a system, only the rich could get a good education, thus ensuring little to no social mobility. You'd end up with a caste system - not to mention the crime and birthrate problems that are a result of lower educated populations. Sounds hellish.

Well, there would be a market for school to be sure. 2 income families already pony up quite a bit for daycare, then many do preschool, plus "after school programs" that eat the day up until work is over.

Remember that local and state taxes would then have to virtually evaporate (80% of spending on edu, so everyone should get an 80% tax cut).

It's an interesting idea, dunno how it would work out. Personally, I'm fine with a system designed to create a decent electorate—which we do not have. Note that tuition currently selects not just for affluent parents, but involved parents. I think that under a voucher system, private schools would be just as crappy as public. It's about the kids/parents, not the quality of teachers, IMHO.

In terms of "compelling interest," if GDP were the goal of public education, then we'd have to abandon anything that didn't meet a cost-benefit analysis with increasing GDP as the goal. Some special ed is clearly not cost-effective. GDP only measures stuff that is created (put in terms of money). If kids with bad disabilities don't end up actually productive, then any expense on them is not valuable using that metric (and their families buying care for them in fact increases GDP). Not saying that is ideal, just saying that any metric like that might have unintended consequences.

My goal would be that any HS grad should be able to have an intelligent conversation about the basic history and mechanisms of US government.

Actually, it strikes me that a pure libertarian system would have no FEDERAL involvement in education. What local areas decided among themselves would be fine.

I didn't say we had to completely stop funding education. I mean, I'd love it if we did (I think), but I also suggested partial privatization and vouchers. I'm willing to compromise. My only concern is that some kind of competition be introduced to public rather than one massive politically-governed entity.

Nor do I think private institutions are noble or sacred. Or any business for that matter. I expect them to do exactly what business does: act in it's own best interests, but do so in a fashion that is conducive to other's best interests, or at least to the extent they attach their best interests to currency.

Finally, I have to ask why you would think that a move towards privatization would result in an increase in tuition. That doesn't even make any sense. Are you suggesting that the existence of more schools, which are competing, would somehow lead to an increase in tuition? How? That's not true anywhere else.

And you think that the ignoble law of the jungle doesn't apply to the public system? Or that it applies less? Look around you, Tak. Look at our schools. Look at the state they are in. Do you really imagine that the law of the jungle is not at work? You're not fixing the law of the jungle by supporting the current system, you're just moving the jungle to a level where kids and parents can't reach.

I disagree. I think the end result will be a society where far, far, more people end up pursuing a specialized educational plan, and specialization is the heart of societal progress. Denmark uses a voucher system and it doesn't have a dearth of college students. Nor does any other nation with a voucher system I can think of. Find me one nation with a voucher system that compares poorly to the US in academic achievement and I'll cede the point.

We're agreed upoin the point that the quality of education would be higher, however.

Glad you're so eager to embrace the brave new world, since you're already living in it. Don't believe me? Look at your US public education system. Look at what it has done with the highest spending per student in the world.

I am not trying to suggest a system where the best rise to the top. We already have that. I'm trying to suggest a system where everyone gets what they want. If that means the best rise to the top, so be it. They'll have to drag my specialized ass along with them. If that means some fall behind, so be it. They already do it anyway and charity is a wonderful by-product of the law of the jungle.