West Virginia moves in the Right Direction on Schools

[Abhorsen]

1) How do we get the children to schools? (Public Schools generally support busing)

Public Schools frequently don't support busing. Usually one must pay for that as well, unless one lives an arbitrary distance away. How to solve it? Paid for busing (as part of enrollment costs), just as usual, plus more schools allows for closer ones, and perhaps outsourcing school buses that pick up kids from multiple schools.

2) If we are going to have competition we need some sort of standards for objective comparison.

Not needed, but it would be useful. There are a whole host of things where there aren't objective comparisons in that compete with each other in a free market, including games, music, how reliable a contractor is, etc. Now there are solutions for this, including accreditation, testing, etc, but it won't be able to make an objective comparison, as one can make subjective comparisons using objective data.

3) Plans/requirements to avoid mid-term failure, and making sure that there are backup plans for any school that looks shaky.

Same with banks, we could have a way where a private school going bankrupt is temporarily nationalized until term ends, and all private schools pay a small insurance fee to cover the expense.

4) Special Needs, how do we handle them?

Charter/private schools specializing in special needs. I mean, that's the general approach of capitalism: Oh, you have a weird edge case? I'll make something that caters to your niche to differentiate my product.

 

[lordmcdeath]

Public Schools frequently don't support busing. Usually one must pay for that as well, unless one lives an arbitrary distance away. How to solve it? Paid for busing (as part of enrollment costs), just as usual, plus more schools allows for closer ones, and perhaps outsourcing school buses that pick up kids from multiple schools.

Really? Every state I've ever dealt with has had busing for both public and magnet schools. North Carolina was huge about that sort of thing especially. Is this really not a national thing?

Not needed, but it would be useful. There are a whole host of things where there aren't objective comparisons that compete with each other in a free market, including games, music, how reliable a contractor is, etc. Now there are solutions for this, including accreditation, testing, etc, but it won't be able to make an objective comparison, as one can make subjective comparisons using objective data.

Honestly, the best free-market comparisons are those in which you can have at least some objective numbers that are hard to cheat. God knows that most reputation-based solutions are pretty easy to game and if you thought it was a nightmare when that contractor fucks up your bathroom, just imagine how bad it would be if they screwed up your kid's 4th and 5th-grade education.

Same with banks, we could have a way where a private school going bankrupt is temporarily nationalized until term ends, and all private schools pay a small insurance fee to cover the expense.

That is a really good solution. I hadn't thought of that, but well done.

Charter/private schools specializing in special needs. I mean, that's the general approach of capitalism: Oh, you have a weird edge case? I'll make something that caters to your niche to differentiate my product.

Yes. But a special needs student often needs many times the resources of a normal student and frankly, I doubt any standard credit or the like is going to cover it. I just don't know how you make a remotely affordable school focusing on more than a single special need, like a school for the blind in a large enough area. And having lived with a brother with special needs that we ended up effectively home schooling, if we weren't relatively well off and have my mom basically homeschooling the entire time along with bringing in tutors and the like, he wouldn't have made it to university and that was with my mother being a homemaker. (It cost a fortune, and he still isn't properly socialized. It was basically both of their lives for 20 years just to get him through high school academically.)

 

[LordsFire]

Honestly, the best free-market comparisons are those in which you can have at least some objective numbers that are hard to cheat. God knows that most reputation-based solutions are pretty easy to game and if you thought it was a nightmare when that contractor fucks up your bathroom, just imagine how bad it would be if they screwed up your kid's 4th and 5th-grade education.

There are certainly ways to exploit any system, but where we are now is horrible, and has steadily been getting worse for at least ~60 years.

Criticism of a proposed system doesn't mean much, when the current system already has the same flaws but worse.

 

[Abhorsen]

Really? Every state I've ever dealt with has had busing for both public and magnet schools. North Carolina was huge about that sort of thing especially. Is this really not a national thing?

No, I mean there is busing, but you pay. Same for private schools.

Honestly, the best free-market comparisons are those in which you can have at least some objective numbers that are hard to cheat. God knows that most reputation-based solutions are pretty easy to game and if you thought it was a nightmare when that contractor fucks up your bathroom, just imagine how bad it would be if they screwed up your kid's 4th and 5th-grade education.

Not really. Reputation is why someone chooses Google and not Bing. Reputation itself is how colleges are chosen between as well, and it works pretty well there.

Yes. But a special needs student often needs many times the resources of a normal student and frankly, I doubt any standard credit or the like is going to cover it. I just don't know how you make a remotely affordable school focusing on more than a single special need, like a school for the blind in a large enough area. And having lived with a brother with special needs that we ended up effectively home schooling, if we weren't relatively well off and have my mom basically homeschooling the entire time along with bringing in tutors and the like, he wouldn't have made it to university and that was with my mother being a homemaker. (It cost a fortune, and he still isn't properly socialized. It was basically both of their lives for 20 years just to get him through high school academically.)

First, ability to home school is part of school choice. Second, it would be more expensive (that's the point of having a niche, you can raise the price slightly), but not as expensive as it looks. See, when one deals with a problem in bulk, they can save a lot of money, and this is capitalism at work. Those tutors are a lot cheaper, relatively speaking, when they have a full time job swapping one on one attention between a variety of kids. For example, Perkin's School for the Blind manages to make it work.

Third, I think you are underestimating how much money can be saved by not bowing down to teachers unions, as the current schools system is bloated. My mother is a teacher, and she's told me first hand stories about how hard it was, not to fire a teacher, but just not rehire. My grandfather (a former superintendent, principle, and math teacher), has similar stories.

Fourth and finally, chances are that a decent system will have grants/scholarships (both public and private) for those who need extra help, or could be propelled further with it.