tokenadult on A Textbook Example of What’s Wrong with Education

Comment on A Textbook Example of What’s Wrong with Education parent

Give families the power to shop by funding learners rather than schools. This is already done in the Netherlands, by per-capita enrollment payments to schools and a system of general funding to all schools, even those with religious affiliation or affiliation with a particular educational philosophy (e.g., Montessori or Waldorf). The Dutch school system gets better results for less money than the United States school system.

In the United States, some cities have tried experiments with voucher plans, which again allow families to shop for schools, and generally deliver better results at the same cost or the same results at less cost compared to the current system of local oligopoly school systems.

If learners can shop, textbooks don't have captive markets, and better textbooks will gain market share. (My basis for knowledge for this last statement is that as a homeschooling parent, I can and do buy textbooks that are MUCH superior to anything on offer in my friendly local public school system.)

dhimes 17y

per-capita enrollment payments to schools and a system of general funding to all schools

Isn't that what's done here in the states? I know the charter system caused huge political fights here in Massachusetts because, after being given a few years to get established, they began taking money from the "regular" public schools on a per-student-enrolled basis.

Many of those charter schools were consistently posting state test results that surpassed the "regular" public schools' by a wide margin. We later learned that at least some of those charter schools were exercising their freedom to kick out students for whom they felt the experiment wasn't working by return to the mainstream schools the ones who weren't doing well on their exam preparation.

So, at least here, there is an ugly side too. It is unfortunate, because the ability to experiment and determine what works the best is something we're capable of doing in the US (it's so huge). Within a reasonably short time we could probably come up with a pretty good system. I am still a fan of the charter experiment, by the way, I just have to be careful judging the evidence that I see.

tokenadult 17y

No state in the United States has the pervasive freedom to form new schools and immediately obtain equal funding that one finds in the Netherlands.

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD...

dhimes 17y

Thanks for the link, but I'll note here that it's from 1989.

tokenadult 17y

The constitutional system of school finance in the Netherlands is more than a century old.

dhimes 17y

My point is that in the last 20 years things have changed here. For instance, states obtained the right to start charter schools with funding.

tokenadult 17y

All right. My point is that even with the most recent changes in the United States (I live in the state with the very first charter school law, and with the very first public school open enrollment law), there is still much more power to shop for schools in the Netherlands than in any part of the United States, and has been for a century.

dhimes 17y

I'm not disputing your point at all. Here we are in the early experimenting stage. Now that I've checked your profile, I recognize you from a group to which we both subscribe (I lurk mainly, because my interests are commercial, but occasionally I'll contact someone off-line if I think I can help).

gustavo_duarte 17y

Exactly.

Ultimately the problem here is extreme centralization. I don't think something as subtle, elusive, and personal as education can be done well via an enormous bureaucracy. The plague of blandness, lack of inspiration and least-common-denominator material extends well beyond textbooks. I think what you describe is the real solution, rather than a point fix for textbooks.

Chocobean 17y

Tokenadult, I've noticed your comments with regards to education and homeschooling for a while. I don't have any children yet, but they will certainly be home-schooled to the best of my abilities.

Could I possibly correspond with you and ask you for some much appreciated advice? chocobean AT gmail.com

dangoldin 17y

I think it would be enlightening if you could provide the textbooks you buy. How big is the selection for textbooks for a certain subject/level. Are there a lot of smaller, independent publishers?

tokenadult 17y

I think it would be enlightening if you could provide the textbooks you buy.

Interpreting that as a request to name the textbooks I find useful, I'll do that here.

Elementary mathematics:

Primary Mathematics

http://www.singaporemath.com/Primary_Math_s/21.htm

and

Miquon Math

http://www.keypress.com/x6252.xml

Secondary mathematics:

The Gelfand Correspondence Program series

http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-I-M-Gelfand/dp/0817636773