Public schools are bad and should not exist.

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I think that's okay - that people are able to voice their views about what should be taught leads to things being more balanced.
Everyone should get at least enough education to be employable; I wouldn't say it's a right, but it is best for the functioning of society for everyone to have basic education. But I think young people spend too many years in school. That's not to say that if a child wanted to pursue higher education, the resources shouldn't be available. In Ontario, you spend 8 years in elementary/junior, then 4 in high school. But ten years should be enough for someone not academically inclined.

I concur. Even if public schools were not tax funded, I would contribute toward literacy. The way I see it, a child raised without a trade or the ability to learn a trade is a thief in the making. As a matter of assuring my own safety, I would want to see basic literacy in the population.

Having said that, I do not believe tax funded schools are the best way to achieve the above mentioned end. The teachers have become unionized thugs and their own interests are well above the interests of educating the young.

Here is an historical note. Prior to the 1840s we did not have tax funded compulsory schools. The movement toward such schools was sparked by Horace Mann who enamored of the Prussians under Bismark. Prussia had tax funded compulsory schools. While they did produce universal literacy the underlying motive was to produce an obedient, non revolutionary citizenry. Little Hans und Frieda were taught to obey the authorities, not to make trouble and above all be loyal to the State.

Thanks to Mann and his friends we have a school system that is geared to mediocrity. Every kid gets pounded into a one size fits all hole. Gifted children are short changed as well as handicapped children.

ruveyn

It's like a factory assembly line. And there are so many kids in the classroom that teachers have to be more concerned with classroom management than with teaching the individual.
On a personal level, I found public school to be a horrendous experience. The teachers and other children felt like a constant threat. Maybe things are easier for children now that awareness of ASD is more pervasive.

Utter and complete nonsense.

Theft is a legal term with a definition that has been well established long before the creation of Common Law. At root, theft must necessarily be felonious. That which the legislature has declared to be legal cannot be felonious, unless the action of the legislature is found to be ultra vires the legislature by a court of competent jurisdiction.

You may like the rhetoric of calling taxation theft, but that does not make your claim accurate. Merely rhetorically pleasing.

The repetition of a lie does not make it true. And nowhere is that clearer than in the vacant, spurious claim that taxation is theft.

In my view, it's not. It's publicly funded education.

Public schooling, on the other hand, implies that some level of government is operating the school, as opposed to merely paying the tuition fees.

I think we are only disagreeing on a point of semantics, but it is an important distinction.

You also get a marginal benefit of not having everyone else be uneducated. Which if a childless person pays for no schooling but gains a benefit from it are they a free rider?

Yes but this steals from the people that do want to help with schools through transaction costs of having to get money and put it in school system and filling out paperwork and actually filling out paperwork to do this which takes time which economist value as the opportunity cost of which you could have been working. I have come across the sentiment of don't mind paying the taxes but hate filling out tax forms before from an econ professor. Also without a hard deadline will people end up procrastinating on funding the schools.

That could be argued either way depending on the premises. I start with the assumption that any value I did not contract for but receive is a windfall. I am not obliged to pay, although I might if the mood suits me. I believe anything I contracted for and paid for I should receive and any thing I receive which I solicited I should pay for. Even Steven. If I buy it, I pay for it. If I pay for it, I want the merchandise.

ruveyn

And what is theft? Taking someone else's property against their will. I suppose taxation can be more specifically defined as robbery with its added implication of violence.

I suppose this is one of those things that's okay for the government to do but if you little serfs get any ideas... Just like when Obama bombs a schoolhouse it's just collateral damage not terrorism or muder. Or maybe like when Madeline Albright starved 500,000 Iraqi children being 'worth the price' instead of a war crime and crimes against humanity.

Let us call these private schools private... like any private company they got to do whatever pleases the guy who pays them. The government pays them. Once government funds a school, can you really expect it not to be controlled by the government? Of course, I guess we could pretend like it was not being controlled by the government.

This is true that ultimately if the government funds it that they'll be able to exert control over it but voucher programs or whatever you want to call this are still preferable to the system we have now since it would allow competition(which brings innovation) and give parent's an option of how they want their child educated. The federal government has no business at all meddling education, it's not in the constitution and look at the results, are schools better now than they were in 1979 when Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education?

Yet more repetition of the lie.

If I successfully sue someone for damages, and then execute that judgement, I have taken their property against their will. Is that theft? Of course not. It is the court enforcing my legal right to damages. But your woefully stupid definition does not admit of such a distinction.



Well, yes. There are circumstances in which government is privileged to do things that private individuals are not. Government can inflict capital punishment. Government can authorize police officers and military personnel to use force. We authorize government to undertake actions in our national interest and, ideally, we hold government accountable for the actions that it has undertaken.

But you are quite correct that government can also overstep the mark. But it is juvenile in the extreme to place taxation and war crimes on the same level.



Certainly not the case in this jurisdiction. Every category 1 and category 2 independent school in British Columbia receives a grant calculated that is based upon enrolment and a portion of the per-FTE tuition cost of the local school district. In order to achieve those designations, the schools must hire teachers that meet the certification requirements for teachers in provincial schools. In order to grant a provincial graduation certificate at the end of Grade 12, students must achieve the learning objectives set out for those certificates. But beyond that, schools are free to develop their own curriculum, and teach it in the methods that they think best.

And if an independent school doesn't want to meet even those minimal standards, it can register as a category 3 independent school, forego direct government grants and ignore provincial qualification standards and learning outcomes altogether.

If one does damages to you then they have in a sense have stolen from you.

any benefit received but not actively sought or solicited is a windfall. Lucky. Lucky.

If I am walking down the street and I small the delicious odor of a pie cooling of on the window sill, do I owe the person who baked the pie any money for the treat of a good smell? I think not. We all get windfalls and others get benefits as a side effect from what we do. We have no grounds to charge them, since there was no contractual relationship that specified a fee or price.

Suppose I hire a security service to patrol my property on a regular basis to discourage night time break-ins. And suppose further that the entire neighborhood has a reduction in break-ins as a result. Can I charge my neighbors for the side effect?

Windfalls are lucky breaks. Enjoy them when they happen and have no guilt about it.

The "free rider" concept is generally abused and used as a justification for sticking people with charges of services they never bought or asked for. I find the vigilantes against Free Rides mostly on the left.

ruveyn

It just occurred to me that the government could provide (at taxpayer expense) schools for orphans who do not have a family or parents to rely on. That is one case where taking care of public charges makes some sense.

ruveyn

So go somewhere where there is no income tax.

No one is gonna try holding you back.