State education is bad and is getting worse

From CroziervisionWiki

Author: Patrick Crozier

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Compared with what?

• What went before
• Private education here and now
• Private education in poorer countries
• Freer education in other countries
• What it used to be like.

This is (as ever) subject to the usual caveats

Contents 1 The case for: 1.1 There was plenty of education before the state intervened 1.2 Private education in the Third World seems to be doing very well 1.3 Chaos in the classroom 1.4 Dumbing down of exams 1.5 Private education here still seems to be pretty good 1.6 Declining standards 1.7 The increasing desperation shown by parents to get their children into the better state schools 2 Counter-arguments

The case for:

There was plenty of education before the state intervened

Private education in the Third World seems to be doing very well

• See Professor James Tooley, Should the Private Sector Profit From Education?: The Seven Virtues of Highly Effective Markets

Chaos in the classroom

Dumbing down of exams

Private education here still seems to be pretty good

• Private schools are good
• Kumon is good
• But doesn't that just show how important money is?

Declining standards

• In reading, for instance
• Brian Micklethwait, On the Harm Done By 'Look-and-Say': A Reaction to Bonnie Macmillan's "Why Schoolchildren Can't Read"

The increasing desperation shown by parents to get their children into the better state schools

Counter-arguments

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