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Quality comments like this are what keep me coming back to HN.

I certainly agree. I’m not sure exactly how, but it’s clear there needs to be some sort of incentive for institutions to actually achieve their purpose, but as soon as a metric is measured, it gets exploited and over optimized.




The only incentive that works is letting such institutions crash and burn and be replaced. Even giant monopolies can end up losing money and going under.


In the context of Education or you have an entranched monopoly, this means voting for private school vouchers.


private school vouchers seems like a great idea, but I am afraid it will mirror college situation.

most state schools will have bare bones programs, except few select, while private schools will be many levels ahead and become "elite".

do we want "ivy league" situation with K-12 education system?


The solution is to do what Sweden does, which is to require all schools to accept the vouchers and charge no further tuition.


The bare bones the market would create would depend on if people really want K-12 to be a glorified daycare or a useful tool for imparting knowledge. But having a financial incentive to function or go bust would mean you'd at least get better daycare services.


I would say yes. Most states schools provide excellent value, and I would even extend that to community colleges which provides even better value for their students.


No, private schools can reject students. This means voting for charter schools.


Rejecting students is a feature not a bug. If you have a student that attacks other students or teachers institutions should be able to expel them.


Then where does the rejected student go with their voucher?

Segregating misbehaving students is a feature. Rejecting them is a bug.


to some sort of educator of last resort. This might be a private school that specialized in this, or a public school that can not refuse them and is therefore full of bad students.


And how will they get to this educator of last resort? The per child transportation and tuition costs for this educator of last resort will far exceed the amount of the voucher.


I dont see how transportation would be any different. If they can take a school bus or public trasport to school A, they could take it to school B (last resort).

I don't see why the cost of an educator should be that much different at school A than B either. It might be even cheaper.

California spends 23k per K-12 student now. You should be able to pay someone 100k to guard 5 jail cells with self study students.


> I dont see how transportation would be any different. If they can take a school bus or public trasport to school A, they could take it to school B (last resort).

Because the school of last resort will have to be further away in order to consist only of misbehaving kids. You don't have to take my word for it. You can see for yourself that there are far fewer schools for troubled kids.

> I don't see why the cost of an educator should be that much different at school A than B either.

Because these educators will be dealing solely with misbehaving kids. You don't have to take my word for it. There are private schools that take these kids, and they charge more.


That’s a good thing for all the other students.




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