Many conservatives and libertarians are touting more privatization and less government control of key programs. Our schools, our emergency services, our social security, even our prisons; there are proposals out there to privatize just about everything. I could tell you about where our economy would be today if everybody's social security was in the stock market when it collapsed, or try to scare you with plausible scenarios about what could happen if these things are privatized. However, I don't need to scare you with what-ifs, because I am an example of what happens when privatization is allowed to run its course. I am one of a small minority of people who have attended a form of privatized school known as a non-public school.
A non-public school is very different from a private school. A non-public school is paid by the school district for taking a student off their hands. The more students they have, the more money they get. Due to falling under state rules for special education, they are not required to follow the curriculum or have the same standards as either public or private schools. Special education students do not have to pass the High School exit exams, and a non-public school is allowed to give credits to the students for the classes required to graduate without ever actually taking them, as long as they are in the same subject. For example, a second grade level math class can count for credits in Algebra or Geometry. This in turn allows a non-public school to use a minimum amount of funds on a student's actual education, and more for things like vans and weekly field trips to a park or bowling alley; which they can then write off on their taxes as a business expense and get even more money back.
In the non-public school I attended, some students had been in special education for almost their entire life, while others had been put in at various levels of education. One classmate of mine who was a grade ahead of me actually received a high school diploma despite being completely illiterate, unable to even read words like "cat" or "the". The school I went to also had near total control of how long a student would be in attendance at the school. As long as they can convince the parent that it's for the student's own good, they can keep the student their until the time they graduate. Though I was supposed to be at that place for only a semester, I wound up remaining there for my entire high school term. This worked out well for them because I count as another graduate to tote on their records without having to actually use their financial resources to educate me.
This is what a school with virtually no standards looks like. If the Department of Education was dismantled, and people were given vouchers to attend private schools, standards in most private schools would drop. With no obligation to give a decent education, and parents having no alternatives, they'd have no need to keep giving such high level education. Meanwhile, the rich would send their kids to high quality private schools that cost way to much for a voucher student to afford. You think the majority of kids receive low quality education now, just wait until we privatize them. A diploma won't be worth the price of the paper it's printed on.
