>From: "Lee Daniel Crocker" <lcrocker@mercury.colossus.net (none)>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.com
>Subject: Re: Reforming Education
>Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 13:31:21 -0700 (PDT)
>
> > >So, how do we reform education?
> >
> > How about having all private schools? That would create great
>competition
> > for the best education. Or how about allowing parents to choose where
>to
> > send their children instead of dividing them up into districts? I like
>the
> > private school idea better.
>
>...And after the separation of school and state, the privatized education
>system then needs to separate instruction from credentialing. It is a
>clear conflict of interest that the same institution that teaches you
>things at great expense is also the one that verifies that you have
>learned them and issues you a valuable credential. If the credentialing
>authority were independent, it would be capable of judging the school as
>well as the student, and the credential would be more meaningful.
>
>--
>Lee Daniel Crocker <lee@piclab.com>
Actually, having spent quite a bit of time working with various private
schools in Orange County in the '80's, trying to bring them up to speed on
computers, I can assure you that the private schools for the most part offer
pretty much the same mindless idiocy as the public ones - just higher
quality. Most of the parents are themselves products of public education
and have no real basis to choose anything else. Good idea regarding
credentialing, though.