ERD50
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
I also get pretty hot under the collar at having to pay to educate other folk's [-]brats[/-] [-]spawn[/-] [-]ankle biters[/-] [-]rug rats[/-] children. ...
Then I cool down and realize that without free public education, ...
Wait right there. It is not FREE (and I know you know that )! The costs are shifted, and that is a HUGE difference. We can't have a rational discussion if we refer to it as 'free'.
our society would very likely degenerate into a dystopia like Dickens' England with gangs of uneducated urchins roving the streets causing all sorts of trouble. Our society is already stratified enough. The last thing we need is for only the rich to be able to attend school.
I don't think that is the only alternative. How about you get a bill for each kid in school - if you can't pay it becomes a loan. Wages are garnished at some progressive rate (extremely low % for low wage earners, increasing as the wage increases).
Now, with three kids I have used the public education systems for K-12. Although, I'm not so sure it was a 'benefit'. If we had true competition in our school systems, maybe the bill would be so much lower that I would be better off paying for 3*12 (36) years directly, than paying a potentially much higher bill indirectly for 60 (age 25-85 roughly) or more years? With education rising faster than general inflation, the later years will likely be a bigger hit.
Free!?
-ERD50