It's obvious you don't have children if you believe that you'd put them into a crappy school on purpose. I don't think you've put a lot of thought into what parenting is like.
Secondly, it's not as bad as you say because births aren't random at all, each child is a product of their parents and their traits are hugely correlated to that of their progenetors. If your parents are conscientious enough to become rich (aka figure out how to successful and productive) their kids will be as well, in aggregate.
Standardized testing comes into play as well. Smart students in bad schools can get good grades and ace the SAT and leapfrog their current predicament. There are public and charter schools like this as well ( but not enough, imo).
Ultimately if you look at our education results, rather than your version of fairness, it's hard to make the case that the US in particular needs to tear down and re build the whole enterprise. We have the best education on earth, bar none and foreigners are dying to attend our colleges and work in advanced fields here.
I don't understand the problem of why a person should not be allowed to purchase education for their own child. Did I misunderstand your argument?
I can buy people's labor to build a house. I can buy people's labor to teach me things. Why can't I pay people to teach my children? It's a gift I would love to give them.
So I don't think there is any intrinsic 'problem' with a person purchasing education for their children - in a lot of instances that's a great thing to do, of course!
The argument I was raising in the article is that, in a situation where we have finite educational resources (such as the amount of slots available at a prestigious school), those resources should, all else being equal, be allocated to the most intelligent, capable students, for they're the ones who will make the best use of it.
So if one's a parent that can pay for their child to be enrolled in a prestigious school, and yet their child is just not intelligent and/or dedicated enough to make great use of the education they'd receive, the parent would do better by taking a promising child, whose parents are poor, and enrolling them at the prestigious school (instead of enrolling one's own children just because they're *one's own* children).
Not all educational resources are finite (e.g. online courses on EdX or coursera are not finite). But slots at (in-person) schools and universities are finite - you can't just enroll an infinite number of students at Harvard or Eton College, for instance. Given that, we should try to fill those prestigious slots with the best, most capable students, so as to maximize the acquired educational value.
Let's say we happen to find a supernaturally good violin, made by a mystical luthier centuries ago. Its sound in unearthly beautiful and there is no violin on earth that can stand a light to this one, and there is good reason to think no other violin produced ever will. Who should we give the violin to? Presumably to the best violinist, the best person in terms of violin-playing: the one who will make the best use of it.
If Elon Musk stepped up and bought the violin to his child just because he's the richest dude around and can pay the highest amount for it - even though his child cannot play the violin at all, this would be a tragedy.
1) But you can make more harvards and etons. (assuming they are giving education and not prestige) so its not finite. if there's a demand you can make more. i think the word prestigious is the give away that what's being bought is not education, but prestige. which makes it not the best sounding violin- but the most famous violin. in which case- who cares.
2) to the violin example: I'm not sure this would be a tragedy. the rightful owner of the violin gets to choose who to sell the violin to. why should we force them to give it to the best violinist? I can only imagine that this would make sense if in return the seller of the violin would get shares in the production of this violinist. but if not- by what right do we steal from them? wouldn't theft be a greater tragedy than consensual transactions that we miss out on?
1) Yes, we can and should make more harvards and etons, but we can only do so to some extent. After all, a great school is reliant on a great staff - especially great teaching staff, and those are unfortunately finite. We only have a (very) limited amount of great scholars and teachers in the world, not least because the necessary cognitive (and otherwise) abilities required to be such are only shared by quite a small percentage of the population.
More importantly, though, the issue I address in this piece is a more pragmatic one: *given* that the currently existing exceptional educational institutions have limited slots, which students should occupy those?
Yes, we should strive to maximize the amount of great educational institutions that exist, but that's not my point here. I'm trying to figure out how to occupy the slots of already existing institutions.
Concerning prestige, I don't care in principle how prestigious an institution is, I just care about the educational quality it offers. I only used the word 'prestigious', which might indeed have been a poor choice of words, because in the real world being prestigious correlates with offering great education (e.g. Oxbridge, MIT, Ivy League, etc.)
It's obvious you don't have children if you believe that you'd put them into a crappy school on purpose. I don't think you've put a lot of thought into what parenting is like.
Secondly, it's not as bad as you say because births aren't random at all, each child is a product of their parents and their traits are hugely correlated to that of their progenetors. If your parents are conscientious enough to become rich (aka figure out how to successful and productive) their kids will be as well, in aggregate.
Standardized testing comes into play as well. Smart students in bad schools can get good grades and ace the SAT and leapfrog their current predicament. There are public and charter schools like this as well ( but not enough, imo).
Ultimately if you look at our education results, rather than your version of fairness, it's hard to make the case that the US in particular needs to tear down and re build the whole enterprise. We have the best education on earth, bar none and foreigners are dying to attend our colleges and work in advanced fields here.
I don't understand the problem of why a person should not be allowed to purchase education for their own child. Did I misunderstand your argument?
I can buy people's labor to build a house. I can buy people's labor to teach me things. Why can't I pay people to teach my children? It's a gift I would love to give them.
So I don't think there is any intrinsic 'problem' with a person purchasing education for their children - in a lot of instances that's a great thing to do, of course!
The argument I was raising in the article is that, in a situation where we have finite educational resources (such as the amount of slots available at a prestigious school), those resources should, all else being equal, be allocated to the most intelligent, capable students, for they're the ones who will make the best use of it.
So if one's a parent that can pay for their child to be enrolled in a prestigious school, and yet their child is just not intelligent and/or dedicated enough to make great use of the education they'd receive, the parent would do better by taking a promising child, whose parents are poor, and enrolling them at the prestigious school (instead of enrolling one's own children just because they're *one's own* children).
Why do you think educational resources are finite? (any more than fancy clothing, or healthcare)
Not all educational resources are finite (e.g. online courses on EdX or coursera are not finite). But slots at (in-person) schools and universities are finite - you can't just enroll an infinite number of students at Harvard or Eton College, for instance. Given that, we should try to fill those prestigious slots with the best, most capable students, so as to maximize the acquired educational value.
Let's say we happen to find a supernaturally good violin, made by a mystical luthier centuries ago. Its sound in unearthly beautiful and there is no violin on earth that can stand a light to this one, and there is good reason to think no other violin produced ever will. Who should we give the violin to? Presumably to the best violinist, the best person in terms of violin-playing: the one who will make the best use of it.
If Elon Musk stepped up and bought the violin to his child just because he's the richest dude around and can pay the highest amount for it - even though his child cannot play the violin at all, this would be a tragedy.
1) But you can make more harvards and etons. (assuming they are giving education and not prestige) so its not finite. if there's a demand you can make more. i think the word prestigious is the give away that what's being bought is not education, but prestige. which makes it not the best sounding violin- but the most famous violin. in which case- who cares.
2) to the violin example: I'm not sure this would be a tragedy. the rightful owner of the violin gets to choose who to sell the violin to. why should we force them to give it to the best violinist? I can only imagine that this would make sense if in return the seller of the violin would get shares in the production of this violinist. but if not- by what right do we steal from them? wouldn't theft be a greater tragedy than consensual transactions that we miss out on?
You raised some great points.
1) Yes, we can and should make more harvards and etons, but we can only do so to some extent. After all, a great school is reliant on a great staff - especially great teaching staff, and those are unfortunately finite. We only have a (very) limited amount of great scholars and teachers in the world, not least because the necessary cognitive (and otherwise) abilities required to be such are only shared by quite a small percentage of the population.
More importantly, though, the issue I address in this piece is a more pragmatic one: *given* that the currently existing exceptional educational institutions have limited slots, which students should occupy those?
Yes, we should strive to maximize the amount of great educational institutions that exist, but that's not my point here. I'm trying to figure out how to occupy the slots of already existing institutions.
Concerning prestige, I don't care in principle how prestigious an institution is, I just care about the educational quality it offers. I only used the word 'prestigious', which might indeed have been a poor choice of words, because in the real world being prestigious correlates with offering great education (e.g. Oxbridge, MIT, Ivy League, etc.)
But ultimately I think you're right: prestige doesn't matter
Excelentes reflexões