@Linkat,
Linkat wrote:
My only point is - it can be done.
Sure, it can be done if you turn public schools into private schools -- which is something that Rahm Emmanuel is actively trying to do in Chicago. Ultimately, though, there will be some students who the private schools will reject, at which point public schools must take on the responsibility to educate them. And because they're the ones that private schools can't make a profit on, they tend to be the most expensive students to educate. Then, when the public schools are filled only with those students, it will give yet another opportunity for people like you to say that " government involvement almost always causes higher costs."
This is reminiscent of no-kill animal shelters that castigate local animal pounds for euthanizing animals, while, at the same time, refusing to accept those animals that are sick or old or otherwise unadoptable -- and those animals are then carted off to the government-operated pound, which, by necessity, has to put them down. Private schools can always fob off their problems on the public schools, because the public schools have no choice but to take every child, and then the private schools turn around and proclaim that they're doing a better job than the public schools because "look at all the problems that they have in the public schools!"
Give public schools the same option as private schools of picking and choosing their students and you'll see immediate cost savings. You may not like the results, but you'll see cost savings.
