responses

1.

No, I do not think that education would be better if it were privatized in the United States. Privatizing education will cause a lot more problems in the education system than there already are now. Private education will not be fair to everyone because it will discriminate against the poor. Naturally, schools with better teachers, better equipment, and more opportunities will cost more than schools without those advantages. No tax breaks, incentives, or regulations will be able to change that. Also, private schools are able to regulate themselves. They can choose how often they are in session and what they teach. There must be some type of regulation to ensure that everyone is receiving an equal opportunity to a good education. However, there are some benefits to education being privatized. Private schools would fund themselves, therefore the state and federal governments would save money. This would lower taxes and give families more money to spend. Also, parents would have more of a choice about where to send their kids to school. This is important because it allows them to send their kids to schools that they believe would be best for them, music/art schools, Catholic schools, trade schools, etc.. 

        On the other hand, there are some benefits and some drawbacks to public education as well. Public education is "fairer" to everyone in the sense that your economic class won't directly influence what school your kids could go to. Additionally, public schools are all regulated, have to follow the same rules, and have more or less the same curriculum. This is an attempt to ensure equality for everyone. Some of the drawbacks to public education include lack of choice. Parents are forced to send their kids to schools dependent on where they live. Another drawback is that funding public schools is expensive for state and federal governments, thus taxes have to be higher.  

        I would personally send my kids to a public school. I grew up in a town with a good public school system and got a good education. A lot of my friends went to a private high school, and I honestly believe I learned a lot more than them. Private schools may be able to offer more opportunities to their students, but that doesn't mean that they are better schools.

2.

With how the United States is structured, and how wealth is dispersed, I am in total opposition to privatizing education. Private schools are not funded by the government in the form of taxes, but rather through donations and a set tuition. These private schools are not entirely regulated by the government, and don’t have to teach the same topics as public schools and can set their own criteria for teachers and students. While not having any money put into their system by the government this allows wealthy contributors to donate large sums of money, and the schools as well can set their tuition on the amount of students. One main benefit of privatizing education is who the school actually accepts into their program opposed to public schools who take anybody into the school from their county, and having smaller scale classrooms has shown proof of higher grades. The drawbacks is that not all people can afford to pay a set tuition for school, and some people may not be able to enter the school based on their results of an entry exam.

Moving on we all can see that public school is the easiest way to access an education from k-12 grade in the United States. These schools are regulated by the federal or local government with what is taught and who can teach. In the argument that “taxation is theft” the funding of these schools is through stealing the peoples hard earned money, but I’d rather have more of my tax money go to funding schools than be surrounded by uneducated people. While the amount of people in the public schools is a disadvantage to how one may get a quality education I do see it as the best means for the majority to be educated.

I don’t believe one should be the standard, but we do need a balance of the two. I don’t necessarily think that privatizing schooling would help education in the United States, but I do believe if more of the tax payers money went into the public schools (rather than to prisons, and by making cuts to the military’s funding) we could improve education.