Gerhard Fiedler wrote:
>> 2)  Governments always foul up education.
>
> I don't know... I think the education I got in Germany was pretty good
> (government).

Wasn't one of the reasons why they cut off the flow of people b/w GDR and 
FRG, was because the young graduates were leaving East Germany to seek 
employment in West Germany?

>I also think the fact that everybody (independently of the
> wealth of the parents) has access to the same good education is a pretty
> good thing. In a system more based on private enterprise (like in the US
> and Brazil), I probably wouldn't have had access to that.
>
> I'm not sure it makes sense, from a free market economy point of view, to
> give people so vastly differing starting conditions as a private school
> system provides.

You know, this is one thing that I have to agree with you on. Education is a 
positive externality from an economic point of view -- the whole society 
benefits from it, but nobody wants to pay for it. I would vote for an 
education voucher system any day.

Nonetheless, I find that a lot of immigrants without wealthy parents 
(including myself)  continue to graduate from college -- although it takes a 
lot of hard work and determination. In my opinion, college is within reach 
of most Americans. The current system is not perfect, but there are things 
like the Perkins loan, Financial Aid, private scholarships, and commercial 
loans.

My fear is that a free-for-all system, by taking the personal financial 
responsibility out of the equation, will produce exactly what Peter has 
described:

"it produces a mass flow of 'engineers' in sanitation, funeral
services, roofing, and certain operating systems that shall remain unnamed."

>> And businesses will quickly realize that a "rounded" graduate is more
>> valuable.
>
> That's doubtful. They sometimes have difficulty planning for longer than
> the next quarter, much less the next quarter century.

I like to believe that such businesses die out by process of natural 
selection. :)

>> 3) Teacher's unions exist because the government protects them.
>
> In some countries, that may be the case. But is the US among these? How is
> the US government protecting teacher's unions?

Easy: the public school system gets its money from the government. It's much 
easier for the TU to negotiate with one entity, than thousands. And any 
government is wasteful (it's not their money they're spending).

That's why the TU is so vehemently opposed to vouchers, which will give the 
parents the choice to decide where their kid goes to school.

Vitaliy 

-- 
http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive
View/change your membership options at
http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist