I somewhat disagree. A person often takes up a vocation that they feel most comfortable with... unless they are so hopelessly lazy that they end up stamping out widgets for minimum wage for the duration of their working years. If a person has an exceptional athletic or acting ability that is good enough to earn millions from, why not take advantage of that? What's wrong with earning several million dollars during their young, spry years as a professional athlete, and then retire from it while still young, having invested most of the earnings, and then perhaps turn to another career choice, if so desired. Look at Lynn Swann and Terry Bradshaw... they did that. OJ did that as well but screwed up royally. Then we have Arnold Swarzenegger starting out as pro body-building athlete turned famous actor, turned governor of California.Sad, but true. Sports or entertainment are the easy way out of hard work like science or math.
But even then, what percentage of the American* children are being home-schooled?
The public school system in North Carolina is broken...
I really don't have the answer but somehow think that a voucher system would allow more parents more choices within their ability to pay. I say that even though my daughter is a high school special education teacher.
Lefty
It just might give parents more choice and cut government meddling in children's education but getting private companies involved might be a bad idea.
How could that possibly be a bad idea? Right now private schools are private companies. What is so evil about a company that happens to be a school?
It is actually a very good thing. It generates competition. Competition drives results. If there are choices for parents, then the schools/companies must work hard in order to deliver the best product - this particular product being the education. Otherwise they won't have any students to teach and won't be around. There would also be competition for good teachers at the good schools - which would inherently increase the pay for the good ones.
Government has no competition and therefore has no drive to pursue excellence - it has no fear of going out of business.
There is no perfect solution for anything, but continuing to do the same thing decade after decade with results that are worse as time goes on is absolutely insane.
I'm not saying that the UK's state school system is perfect but schools are encouraged to compete with each other: better schools attract more students and the governors get bonuses.
I posted this not to long ago relating to our economic situation and sadly I also feel it has a very valid point related to our educational system too!
Sadly this is our own fault! Too many Americans have an "Its not my responsibility" attitude to wards almost everything! Its a dangerous and selfish attitude to have.
If you don't watch who and what go's on around you that eventually has a very bad end result that is not in your favor!
There was a time in this countries history when it was considered and Honorable and very necessary part of life to take a direct participation in how your society was ran. If a bad mayor was elected for your town he got the boot or worse! If a local business was corrupt and crooked it got ran out of town too! If a business was just poorly ran someone would start a competing business and run them out too!
Now we blindly elect whoever looks good on camera and never actually check to see if they are a good person or are actually qualified to do the job. We just say "That's not MY responsibility!"
If a business is corrupt and crooked we just say, We know your corrupt and crooked and something should be done about it but "That's not MY responsibility"!
If a business is poorly ran and cant stand on its own instead of encouraging competition and actually getting better products for less we just give them more money and say; We don't like your junk, we don't like how you do things and someone really should do something about it but "That's not MY responsibility!"
Our inaction and passing our responsibility onto others is what got us where we are at now!
You reap what you sew. You did not participate in who was being elected and how the government and big business were ran and now look what you are getting back from it! Exactly what you put into it, Nothing!
Now you hate what is happening and want something done about it, but hey, "Its not YOUR responsibility!"
Yes Iwas wrong abou t that but don't better schools get more funding the head teacher gets rewarded for good performance?Sorry, but that's completely wrong - governors are unpaid, they don't get paid a penny, and certainly no bonuses. They can claim a small amount of expenses, such as the cost of stamps and phonecalls for any work they might do from home. The majority of governors though don't even claim their expenses, my wife doesn't, nor do any of the other governors at the same school.
As for school league tables and 'competing' - this has been a serious disaster, and has damaged childrens education in the UK.
Schools don't teach the subject any more, they teach the kids how to pass a specific exam - and that's it.
As a response to this, many secondary school exams are now modular, which means you take more exams through out the year, at least one for each module - this means the kids have to be taught all aspects of the subject, rather than just what's most likely to appear in the summer exam.
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