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21 Oct 2018

Who would go to college in a completely private (market) college system? How does government intervention change this FOR WHOM outcome? Since public colleges and universities are funded with tax dollars, should the government be able to require college attendance like elementary - high school attendance is required?

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Bunny Greenfelder
Bunny GreenfelderLv2
22 Oct 2018

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Related questions

Think about all the money it costs to educate a person. Start with pre-school, the elementary and secondary years, and then consider right up through college and, for some, grad school. Now that you have a cost in mind, let us discuss the costs and the benefits. In this week's Discussion area, examine the following: Public education is a good that has helped millions and millions of Americans become successful, productive members of society. Would the average person be able to go to school if the Government did not provide for this good? Would only the very rich be well educated and successful? Look into the criticisms and the success stories about public education. What, if anything, can be done to make our schools more successful at educating our children? What benefits do you get from the tax dollars you pay into this effort? Is the cost worth the benefit?

. Vouchers to Pay Private School
Tuition
Two conditions that justify government intervention in a market are the presence of external benefits and equity concerns. Both of these issues are present in the case of primary and secondary education in the United States. Think about what education without government education would look like. In the absence of government intervention, all primary and secondary education in the US would be private. Public school districts would not exist. Parents would need to pay private firms (schools) to educate their children.

External benefits

If all education were private, it’s likely that people would buy too little education, from society’s point of view. External benefits are one reason. When a child is educated, he or she benefits and we expect his or her parents to take those benefits into account when they purchase education. But there are additional benefits to society which parents may ignore. As people become more educated, they are less likely to be unemployed or be criminals and are more likely to volunteer and vote. The presence of these external benefits is an example in support for the government getting involved in education.

Equity

Many families in the United States have low incomes. Among all children in first through twelfth grades in 2001, 46% were from families with incomes below $40,000. Since the cost of private education would be an important share of these families’ incomes, most Americans would be concerned about the fairness of relying on markets to decide how much education children receive. Current spending by these families on private education provides some support for this concern. Of all children in private school in 2001, only 25% were from families with incomes below $40,000. Therefore, equity concerns are another example in support for government getting involved in education.

Providing vs. producing education

Most economists think external benefits and equity concerns justify government intervention in education. But it is important to distinguish between government production of education and other forms of government intervention. At the level of elementary and secondary education, K- 12 education, government intervention today mostly means production of education by local school districts. To benefit, children must attend public schools. But this is not the only form intervention could take.
There are other markets where government intervention takes the form of subsidizing people’s access to products—think of financial aid to college students, for example. Many people in the US think that government should move from producing education to subsidizing access.

One form that subsidy could take is government providing vouchers to parents. Parents would use the voucher to help pay for their child’s education in a private school. After it receives the voucher, the school would turn it in and be paid by a local or state government.

Today there is a lively debate between people who think K-12 education should be delivered publicly and people who think quality and efficiency would be higher if government provided vouchers and the education was delivered by private schools. Some of these quality and efficiency arguments can be based on material we covered this week. Price competition between private schools will pressure each one to produce efficiently. Competition for students will lead private schools to offer programs of interest to parents and their children.

Answer the questions below and make use of the sources supplied. Be sure to cite you sources in your answers.

1. Explain whether a potential exit by students with vouchers will lead to the improvement of public schools. 2. Discuss whether the implementation of vouchers will lead the best students to leave public school, which could lead to a decline in education for the students left behind in the public schools. 3. Consider what might happen to the students who use vouchers to leave public schools in order to attend private schools. How might their academic performance change as a result of switching? 4. Finally, think about the impact of a voucher system on the students in an urban setting. Describe whether all families would have an equal opportunity to access education.

Your final product will be a paper that: ? Addresses each of the four questions above in total. ? Is APA formatted. ? The body is to be 2 pages minimum.

The requirements for your assignment are: 1. Answer each question fully 2. Define the overall subject of each question. 3. Cite at least three (3) resources from this week’s materials.

Grade inflation Gone Wild - sTUarTrojsTaCzer

A bout six years ago, I was sitting in the student union of a small liberal arts college when I saw a graph on the cover of the student newspaper that showed the history of grades given at that institution in the past 30 years.

Grades were up. Way up.

I am a scientist by training and I love numbers. So when I looked at that graph, I wondered, How many colleges and universities have
data like this that I can find? The answer is that a lot of schools have data like this hidden somewhere. Back then, I found more than 80 colleges and universities with data on grades, mostly by poking around the Web. Then I created a website (gradeinflation.com) so that others could find this data. I learned that grades started to shoot up nationwide in the 1960s, levelled off in the 1970s, and then started rising again in the 1980s. Private schools had much higher grades than public schools, but virtually everyone was experiencing grade inflation.

What about today?

Grades continue to go up regardless of the quality of education. At a time when many are raising questions about the quality of U.S. higher education, the average GPA at public schools is 3.0, with many flagship state schools having average GPAs higher than 3.2. At a private college, the average is now 3.3. At some schools, it tops 3.5 and even 3.6. A is average at those schools! At elite Brown University, two-thirds of all letter grades given are now A's.

These changes in grading have had a profound influence on college life and learning. When students walk into a classroom knowing that they can go through the motions and get a B+ or better, that's what they tend to do, give minimal effort. Our college classrooms are filled with students who do not prepare for class. Many studies less than 10 hours a week that's less than half the hours they spent studying 40 years ago. Paradoxically, students are spending more and more money on an education that seems to deliver less and less content.
With so few hours filled with learning, boredom sets in and students have to find something to pass the time. Instead of learning, they drink. A recent survey of more than 30,000 first-year students across the country showed that nearly half were spending more hours drinking than they were studying. If we continue along this path, well end up with a generation of poorly educated college graduates who have used their four years principally to develop an addiction to alcohol.

Many say that grade inflation is a complicated issue with no easy fix. But there are solutions. At about the same time that I started to collect data on rising grades, Princeton University began to do something about its grade-inflation problem. Its guidelines have the effect of now limiting A's on average to 35 per cent of students in a class. Those guidelines have worked. Grades are going back down at Princeton and academic rigour is making a comeback. A similar successful effort has taken place at Wellesley College in Massachusetts. And through a concerted effort on the part of faculty and leadership, grades at Reed College in Oregon have stayed essentially constant for 20 years.

Princeton, Wellesley, and Reed provide evidence that the effort to keep grade inflation in check is not impossible. This effort takes two major steps. First, school officials must admit that there is a problem. Then they must implement policies or guidelines that truly restore excellence.

I asked Dean Nancy Malkiel at Princeton why so few schools seem to be following Princeton's lead. Because its hard work, she answered. Because you have to persuade the faculty that its important to do the work.

Making a switch will take hard work, but the effort is worthwhile. The alternative is a student body that barely studies and drinks out of boredom. That's not acceptable. Colleges and universities must roll up their sleeves, bring down inflated grades, and encourage real learning. It's not an impossible task. There are successful examples that can be followed. I am looking forward to the day when we can return to being proud of the education that our nation's colleges and universities provide.

Analyze Stuart Rojstaczer's argument in Grade Inflation Gone Wild, addressing the following questions:
What evidence does Rojstaczer use to indicate that there is a problem?
How would you characterize this evidence (for example, scientific, anecdotal), and to what extent are you persuaded by the evidence he provides to suggest that grade inflation has a profound effect on life and learning?
To what extent does he persuade you that a change in policy is
necessary or that such a change would make a difference?

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