Excellent dialog between the bad cat and blox. I disagree and agree with both in equal parts. I do think that it is important to be open to fairly wholesale change in education as the bad cat is advocating - but I do also think free-market is not a panacea.
I am all for radical change - whether in education or medicine - which is what brings many of us to this newsletter - but in the case of both I think it is important to recognize that there are humanity issues - that our healthcare and educational systems are communities and caregivers and not simply delivering products. This aspect of the US pubic education system shouldn't be discounted.
i must disagree with your take there quite strenuously. it is precisely because we insist on treating healthcare and education as though they were somehow special that they remain so problematic. medicine especially is fundamentally a technology product yet it SOARS in price every year when it should be declining.
interestingly, cash pay medicine (like elective surgery) DOES drop in price (in real terms) every year precisely because it IS treated "just like other products." all of healthcare could be that way of we stopped breaking it by trying to treat it as some special case.
It is an interesting question as to how much medicine and education should be thought of in economics terms. I am just saying there are some significant intangibles that these imperfect systems provide - in public eduction the community commons/shared experience etc - that are hard to put a price on. But I do agree that nothing should be off the table for education reform.
Excellent dialog between the bad cat and blox. I disagree and agree with both in equal parts. I do think that it is important to be open to fairly wholesale change in education as the bad cat is advocating - but I do also think free-market is not a panacea.
I am all for radical change - whether in education or medicine - which is what brings many of us to this newsletter - but in the case of both I think it is important to recognize that there are humanity issues - that our healthcare and educational systems are communities and caregivers and not simply delivering products. This aspect of the US pubic education system shouldn't be discounted.
i must disagree with your take there quite strenuously. it is precisely because we insist on treating healthcare and education as though they were somehow special that they remain so problematic. medicine especially is fundamentally a technology product yet it SOARS in price every year when it should be declining.
interestingly, cash pay medicine (like elective surgery) DOES drop in price (in real terms) every year precisely because it IS treated "just like other products." all of healthcare could be that way of we stopped breaking it by trying to treat it as some special case.
It is an interesting question as to how much medicine and education should be thought of in economics terms. I am just saying there are some significant intangibles that these imperfect systems provide - in public eduction the community commons/shared experience etc - that are hard to put a price on. But I do agree that nothing should be off the table for education reform.