Thread: Paying For Health Care

Originally Posted by ephekt

OK, so your argument is that bureaucracy ruins everything. I can agree with that, but it seems to be a necessary evil in most cases. I agree that parents should be able to choose within a district.

I'd argue it's necessary in very few cases. I linked to a very interesting speech awhile ago dealing with these ideas: http://www.casualdiscourse.com/forum...ghlight=speech

Originally Posted by ephekt

Unions are a double edged sword, really. On one hand, lower education has some of the most horrid wages in academia - 30k/yr is generally considered very good for lower education. On the other, you have unions that potentially act as thugs. I don't know what can be done here to actually make progress, rather than simply realigning ideology. Any input?

Allowing schools to compete (i.e. school vouchers) coupled with getting rid of the unions I think would ultimately make things better for everyone. Competition makes things better. Having teachers competing to get paid based on their performance rather than falling into a lull of mediocrity as is often the case with unions is great for everyone.

Originally Posted by ephekt

I'd say stuff like NCLB needs to go first, as does the over-reliance on standardized testing. From what I've seen (family full of teachers of all levels), kids are taught to pass these test and nothing more; they don't learn critical thinking or problem solving - just rote memorization.

Yeah we studied NCLB extensively in one of my public policy classes, and some of the actual things in it are just ridiculous. I'm not sure if saying that kids are just taught to pass the tests and nothing more is a worthwhile argument against it though. If the tests are designed properly, critical thinking and problem solving will be required to pass them, short of knowing all the answers and giving them to the students. Though the tests are likely not designed in the ideal way, and NCLB is certainly crap that's for sure.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

I'd argue it's necessary in very few cases.

I'll watch the speech later, but I think you're going to have a hard time showing that these ideas will work in practice, given that we don't have a real world libertopia to look to.

Competition makes things better.

Perhaps you haven't heard of the US insurance system.

Having teachers competing to get paid based on their performance rather than falling into a lull of mediocrity as is often the case with unions is great for everyone.

Teachers already have standards to meet for employment criteria, so I'm going to write this off as ideology until you expand. Let's say we remove unions, now what?

I'm not sure if saying that kids are just taught to pass the tests and nothing more is a worthwhile argument against it though.

Good thing that wasn't my point.

Originally Posted by ephekt

I'll watch the speech later, but I think you're going to have a hard time showing that these ideas will work in practice, given that we don't have a real world libertopia to look to.

Well it seems to have done pretty well in Hong Kong when it went closer to that type of system on the economic side of things.

Originally Posted by ephekt

Perhaps you haven't heard of the US insurance system.

Could you please explain what you mean here?

Originally Posted by ephekt

Teachers already have standards to meet for employment criteria, so I'm going to write this off as ideology until you expand. Let's say we remove unions, now what?

What do you mean? Are you asking how things can work without unions? Just like any other non-union job.

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

What do you mean? Are you asking how things can work without unions?

No, he was saying that it is ideological to claim that teachers unions remove any incentive for teachers to excel and lull them into mediocrity, and that it is possible to attain the desired level of teacher competence by having mandatory standards for them to meet, rather than by having them compete with each other (though I personally do support the idea of merit pay for teachers).

Originally Posted by UnreasonablyReasonable

Could you please explain what you mean here?

Tbh, I can't remember what point I was trying to make there. Perhaps it was an idiot moment.

What do you mean? Are you asking how things can work without unions? Just like any other non-union job.

Basically what Syme said. I'm open to merit-based pay, but I was looking for your explanation of why it's better, rather than simple off-hand dismissal of unions as evil. I shouldn't be expected to accept your assumptions.