Why is it so many for-profit programs that replace government run ones slide into nightmare such as for-profit prisons where more people get convicted for lessor things to fill the cells?

Advocates for choice-based solutions should take a look at what’s happened to schools in Sweden, where parents and educators would be thrilled to trade their country’s steep drop in PISA scores over the past 10 years for America’s middling but consistent results. What’s caused the recent crisis in Swedish education? Researchers and policy analysts are increasingly pointing the finger at many of the choice-oriented reforms that are being championed as the way forward for American schools. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that adding more accountability and discipline to American schools would be a bad thing, it does hint at the many headaches that can come from trying to do so by aggressively introducing marketlike competition to education.



  1. Educate Me says:

    Pointing the finger at “This page is no longer available.”

  2. dusanmal says:

    Sorry, but comparing totally different changes (similar only on the surface) in totally different educational system to make an ideological point is unacceptable.
    Fair way: see how children who were given similar options in school systems in the USA did and how did those systems perform in few cases where vouchers were reversed (… reversed gains too…). People know it too… just see how many in NYC attempt to get into “Charter Schools” (similar mechanism as vouchers just instead of separate payments and admissions, these admit by lottery out of many more applicants than available places ) and how RANDOMLY CHOSEN children who get in prosper vs. their randomly not chosen peers.

  3. ± says:

    You obviously can post anything you want, but if you posted this anywhere else it would have the headline:

                      TROLL

    • Kiwini says:

      “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.” – Socrates

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

      troll
      One who posts a deliberately provocative message to a newsgroup or message board with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument

      /////// I only wish that were true.

      Even with my evil shades on, I have never seen a troll OP here. Maybe in some of the misleading headlines…which like most headlines are motivated by a realization the actual issue is not that interesting….. just the opposite of trolling.

      ….. a label. No analysis at all.

  4. NewFormatSux says:

    Since these programs have been around for at least 20 years in the US, one would think you could look closer to home for comparisons.

    What we see is they encouraged rampant grade inflation in Sweden.

  5. What? The moth is always drawn to the flame? says:

    How about this for an idea: Parents have to pay for their child’s education; have no money, then home school. Both parents work, then don’t have kids or lower your expenses.

    We are on an expensive road to nowhere.

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

      An idea rejected by all the civilized societies in the world for the last century and most of the uncivilized ones too.

      ……….because the cost to society in having a mass of uneducated kiddies is much higher.

      Home schooled….. ?

  6. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

    Is it still true that the single biggest determinate of success in school is the number of hours of involvement of parents with kiddies?

    My parents spent about zero time with me. Dad paid an allowance conditioned on book reports being submitted. Books that weren’t part of the school. His statement: you are required to succeed in spite of your school.

    What a bastard…….. but I read and reported……..

    Mom typed my reports until on my own I thought learning to type in the 9th grade was a good idea. Lots of girls in that class.

    I was pretty dumb at 14. Well read….. but pretty dumb.

    • NewFormatSux says:

      So that’s why so many of your posts read like book reports. You and Mr ConFusion.

      “Well read….. but pretty dumb.”
      Now it’s only half true.

      • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and junior culture critic says:

        Yep…. I recognize that.

        We all are just grown up kiddies….. what our parents made us.

        …………………unless you think about it.

        Yea, verily!

  7. Kevin Roa says:

    I blame the Canadians.

  8. freddybobs68k says:

    There is more than one way to skin a cat. It’s like we have run out of ideas and want to double down on the only idea we have. As if somehow it will produce the best outcome in all scenarios. If we just do more of it and more diligently. We pretend there are no downsides, or at least they are all trumped by the advantages. It’s not up for discussion.

  9. NewFormatSux says:

    “The same can be said of opponents, whose insistence, in the face of all evidence, that school choice is harmful has led them to ignore its real achievements.”

    http://nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/does-school-choice-work

    http://mathematica-mpr.com/~/media/publications/PDFs/education/charter_long-term_wp.pdf

    • Greg Allen says:

      America has always had school choice. — public, private, perochial, homeschool, etc. It’s been that way for generations.

      But, the RWTP “school choice” is a code word for draining money from the public schools and giving it to private enterprise.

      • NewFormatSux says:

        I thought the point was to educate children, not to give money to public schools.

  10. Greg Allen says:

    The GOPs privitization obsession was never a fact-based policy.

    Like so many conservative positions, it was visceral and faith-based. i.e. “Government is bad. Private industry is always cheaper, faster and better.”

    Uh… no. Not always! In the real, fact-based world the government does some things better and public education would be one of those things.

    Private industry does a great job educating the upper class. Church-based private schools also have their niche. So does homeschooling.

    But to educate the masses to be good citizens and useful workers — the government is the only real game in town.

    Sorry conservatives.

    • bobbo, are we Men of Science, or Devo says:

      The mail is the best example. Guberment does it for 1/10th the cost and is everywhere. Private industry uses it for many areas it doesn’t have coverage while trying to kill it off so they can charg x20 times more.

      Alfie types….. so mindless.

  11. t0llyb0ng says:

    Condi licked balls in Chippewa Falls
    & rode a cock in Oconomowoc

    downhill is one word
    no hyphen in bipolar
    no hyphen in reeducated
    strawman is one word

    (Stuff they should o’ taught ye in school––but didn’t.)

    Are they still building office towers?  Who is going to commute to all the new office towers & sit there all day, doing what?

    The education system is an outdated, fascistic baby-sitting service.  Sweden might be realizing it & confronting it a few years earlier than we USians.  Maybe they “see the writing on the wall.”

    Are they still building suburbs?  Will the denizens of far-flung suburbs still commute to office towers in overpriced, oversized vee-hickles?  How long can it go on?

    Go ahead, have another baby.  You know you want to.

  12. t0llyb0ng says:

    Condi took a pokin’ in Pekin
    & got her pussy eaten in Wheaton

  13. JudgeHooker says:

    Vouchers were meant to allow people to choose generally superior parochial schools, not to create the useless charter school system. Ah but the “separation of church and state” Nazis got in the way of that too. Of course the real problem is that schools seem unable to weed out those who aren’t really interested in an education, bringing down the quality of instruction as well as life in general in our public schools. You only get out of it what you are willing to put in. We need to strengthen the public system by increasing the schools ability to enforce. Handing them a little more money wouldn’t hurt either.


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