leff@smu.UUCP (11/28/83)
#R:houxu:-24600:smu:16500007:000:2601 smu!leff Nov 27 08:03:00 1983 I agree that public schools should be forced to compete with private schools. The Libertarian party has urged that vouchers be used in a first step towards getting the government out of education. (By the way, I was but no longer am a Libertarian.) However, some of your other statements bother me. Why should open admissions be mandated. Of course we need to provide for education of underachievers of various kinds. However, there is no reason that private schools will not form that would handle underachievers, retarded people etc. An interesting question would be whether additional funds would be given to handicapped people or perhaps to gifted students corresponding to the special programs that exist for these people in some/ all school systems. The public school system should not be immediately dismantled. Under some competition it would shrink in size and would improve in response to competition. Maybe somebody should be allowed to buy it. I would wonder what CDC with their PLATO network would do with their schools. I also object to an open environment for discussions. I have found such classes extremely boring. In most cases, such open discussion classes and seminars are ways that lazy teachers can avoid having to prepare proper lectures. The faculty member knows more about the material than the students. (if she/he doesn't why is she/he there?) Therefore he should be transmitting information and ways of doing things (algorithms) to the students. The teacher should be teaching facts not opinions. Facts require more work to teach than dogma or opinions anyway. I am not arguing discouraging discent or marking wrong solutions that are correct but done differently from the method taught in class. (As an aside, do you prefer those articles in net.politics that bring up statistics and facts which you didn't know about or those that simply state an opinion?) You argue that the institution should be paid when a diploma is received. On one hand it would discourage institutions from accepting people who were unqualified letting them take two years of courses and then flunking them out in the last two years. It is a good way to increase revenues without losing the reputation of the school. On the other hand it will encourage grade inflation. A private school in India had standing orders to all faculty members not to fail anyone since the school would lose money! Possibly, one should eliminate the F grade but people shouldn't pass courses who don't know the material. Grinnell college has successfully had a C,B,A,NC grading scheme.