Let's Do It Like They Do in Botswana

Bill

Do you have any data to support the positon that education should be a function of the marketplace.?  Other than the usual right wing screeds arguing in favor of your propositon (again with no data), I can't find any. Here's the list of countries that currently do not offer free education of any kind to their citizens:

Angola

Benin

Botswana

Burkina Faso

Burundi

Cameroon

Cape Verde

Central African Republic

Chad

Congo/Brazzaville

Congo/Kinshasa

Côte D’Ivoire

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Ethiopia

Gabon

Gambia

Ghana

Guinea

Guinea Bissau

Kenya

Lesotho

Liberia

Madagascar

Malawi

Mali

Mauritania

Mozambique

Namibia

Niger

Nigeria

Rwanda

Senegal

Sierra Leone

Somalia

South Africa

Swaziland

Tanzania

Togo

Uganda

Zambia

Zimbabwe
Quite an impressive group. I'll wager that the GDP of the county in which you live is greater than the sum of those countries listed above.

Now it is true that there is poor correlation worldwide between the amount of money spent per pupil and any measure of educational success.

And from this list one might infer (correctly in my view as well as yours) that the US is not getting great value for the money that is spent  or the system it employs. And all those questions remain at the heart of the lively and ongoing debate about how best to educate our children. But none of these countries provide information useful to your hypothesis. For that, please refer to the list above  

Eli