Finland has no private schools – and its pupils perform better than British children
Finland has no private schools – and its pupils perform better than British children
Finland ranked seventh in the world in OECD's student assessment chart in 2018, well above the UK and the United States, where there is a mix of private and state education
You're viewing a single thread.
I think private schools should be banned. Too easy for the rich or even upper income class to gut public schools when you don't use them. Everyone getting the same education chance is what I call equal opportunity.
Same for health care. If the rich had no other option but to depend on the public system, they'd be more likely to ensure it's properly funded.
Finland does actually have a private sector for health care.
The difference tends to be in how fast you get appointments for non-critical health issues. If I have a cough I'm worried about, I can go to my employer provided healthcare and speak to a doctor via phone in literally 20 minutes.
The public system atm would diagnose me with an automated quiz and determine my case to be "non-urgent". I would eventually get a doctors appointment, if I'm persistent and find all the right numbers to call, online forms to fill in, etc.
If the matter is urgent however, the public system takes things very seriously. And private sector doctors will even forward you to a public hospital in some cases, if they don't have the staff or equipment needed to help you in a particular case. With concussions for example, I've just walked into the local ER and been taken care of right away. If you need an ambulance, you don't need to weigh your life against bankruptcy.
The public system is also efficient (except when it isn't). That means you won't always see staff spend their time on bedside manner. Their job is to keep you healthy, not happy (unless you're there for mental issues). In my experience the private sector has a higher standard for customer service, because you're not just a patient when you pay for your care. Your satisfaction matters more since they actually care about getting repeat customers.
Meanwhile, public healthcare wold prefer you never come back, which is sometimes a good thing, and sometimes bad.
I use both sides of the system, and as I already mentioned, the two sides inter-operate in many cases. While it's been a huge mess at times, Finland is investing in a patient-data-management system called APOTTI which lets you switch doctors and care-providers seamlessly taking your patient-history with you. I once got x-rayd by my employee healthcare, then got sent to a hand surgeon in the public sector so I could get the diagnosis from those x-rays the same day. I left the private hospital and walked into the public one like they were operated by the same company. It's amazing.
Poor Finland.
Imagine if the funding being used so your employer could get you to see a doctor in 20 minutes, was available for everyone, as a public service.
Instead you’ve split your healthcare in two, and as such you’re going to have people poached away from offering the best care to everyone.
The system isn't that split. In fact, it can work the other way around, in that a public doctor can send you to a private one when warranted, and the public system will then cover the cost.
In emergencies you can also walk into the ER of a private hospital and have the cost covered under the public system.
If you want to pay for a doctor to calm your hypochondria right now while small talking about something meaningless... Why not?
Also, my employer providing me with healthcare, isn't optional, it's legally mandated. If you have a job, you have the option of going to whatever private provider your employer has contracted. This is to make sure whatever sick leave you end up needing, is taken care of in a timely fashion so you can get back to work asap.
The only reason you can't just walk into a public hospital and see a doctor the way you can with a private one, is that the public sector will actually make sure you need the care then and there before spending its resources on you. It's triage, on a national scale.
The private and public sectors are integrated and inter-operable. This means the private sector hasn't become a price-gouging insurance mine-field. Instead it's more like an extension of the public system, serving as a more expensive but expedited channel, used where warranted.
I guess the rationale is that you give precedence to the people paying for the healthcare (middleclass workers) to get them back to contributing to workforce (and earning those tax euros) as soon as possible. Also the decision is done by the companies (trying to keep their employees in working condition, also a big perk when employees are comparing different employers) and not the government so you can't just decide to move the money like you just described.
Companies are by law required to offer health care. So when you're working, you can choose which to use. Often work place healthcare is for those more urgent, yet smaller things. If you get cancer, you go to the public system or pay for private care.
But everyone here can get free care, which is the key take. You can just get some things faster via the workplace, or you can also pay to get a team of specialists or whatnot.
I love my Canadian healthcare.
Well, there are edge cases for private schools that would not make sense being solved by public schools. I moved a lot in my life (still do), and having access to schools in one of my children 's main language is an important thing for them. Those schools are still following local regulations though
Amen and hallelujah! School choice is an excuse to defend public education.
Even if nationwide absolute mediocre student body was a goal banning private schools wouldn't achieve it.
Next you would have to ban tutoring companies, after that you would have to ban test prep, after that private tutors, after that you would need restrictions on funding for all schools (which wouldn't work since not all schools have the exact same funding needs), you would still have advantages. One kid is closer to the library, one kid has a parent who was a teacher, one kid has a stay at home parent with the resources to help them with homework, etc.
Nothing short of an absolute police state of fairness would be able to achieve this.
Next you would have to ban tutoring companies, after that you have to ban test prep
Lol no you don't have to. Nice slippery slope. You do what the government can do, which is fund schools. This is really easy, but you want to slippery slope that it must lead to all these other fearmongering things which it doesn't. Like lol at, sorry to say, your absurdity.
So back to schools. You fund them all the same. Where I live all public schools are funded the same in the whole province. This is really easy.
It isn't a slippery slope. It is me showing you what is needed to achieve the goal. A slippery slope is when someone argues that if A then B must follow and hasn't justified it, it is not at all the same as me saying if your goal is X you will need to do what you just said and more.
You fund them all the same.
I highly doubt your province is doing that because it doesn't freaken work. This school has more kids that have special needs, this other school has more kids whose parents speak a different language at home, this school needed a major boiler upgrade last year, this school has poor students so needs to provide more school supplies, this school is more remote so they had to pay extra to get X, this school is more urban so it needs to pay all teachers a bit more, this school had an unusually low number of 2nd graders this year.......
No government is so fucking stupid to try to do what you are saying. You can start with a baseline funding number and modify it as needed but you aren't saying that. You are saying the equivalent of lawful stupid alignment for accounting.
Dude it's a slippery slope, you literally went off how you "have to" ban all these other things. And the answer is simple, no you don't have to ban those other things.
Oh I see what you're doing, you're making a bad faith argument ad absurdem. That it must be 1000000% equal, no adjustments for anything, ever!!!! Wow and lol. If I really to spell it out, you fund based on number of students of each ____. Yes repairs and maintenance are funded as they are needed lol. Yes you have baseline funding for small schools.
In the small chance that any of what you say is good faith, you seem to be stuck in this it must be 10000000000% equal!!!!!!!!!!!! mentality. Ban everything!!!!!!!!! To make it 10000000% equal!!! mentality.
Dude, this is really simple. Fund public schools well. See above. Peace.
Nope. I told you what you need to accomplish your goals and I pointed out your lie about how funding is happening in your province.
Yeah let's pull exceptional students down to the baseline. Every child should be forced to go through the government approved curriculum, nothing can go wrong with that.
Private schools are based. Much better education than public schools. Obviously I don't want public schools to be gutted, so let's make laws preventing that rather than preventing children from getting a good education that public school will never be able to provide.
People here are way to authoritarian.
Look at the Netherlands for a good example then. Private schools aren't banned but public schools are so good even the princesses go to them. You're just so used to public schools being underfunded that you think they can't work. The reason you'd want to ban private schools is because it creates an incentive for the rich and powerful to fix your shitty public schools.
Why do we need to ban private schools if Netherlands was able to create good public schools without doing so? There is a limit of how good you can make public schools when you have no selection criteria. Private schools are based. I like that there is an option outside of government run institutions.
You have gifted programs in the public school. Your thinking shows the exact problem, that public schools can only "pull students down". You can only see public schools as bad instead of, you know, funding them to be good. How about funding them so they pull everyone up, huh?
Then you go on to conspiratorial thinking to vilify, gasp, public schools.
A genius being around average people will pull them down. It's a good thing to concentrate our smartest children in an environment that lets them learn with equally intelligent peers. There might not be enough hyper intelligent kids in a geographical region to warrant the resources required to fully support that minority of students. Nothing I said was conspiratorial.
There are over 160 selective secondary state/public schools in England. Being state run does not prevent the existence of selective schools.
And they were able to do so without banning private schools
I've not suggested otherwise, so I don't know why you felt compelled to point that out.
The thread you are replying to is about banning private schools
And yet my comment did not suggest any views in either direction and only addressed the specific point of selective schools.
Cool, but context is a thing.
Dude, gifted programs. Advanced classes. They are together. This is really easy. Any reasonably sized school will have enough to fill out an advanced class.
And this ensures all students can live up to their potential! How about that? Instead of only the ones that can afford stupid high tuition. Who have to pass screening, and wait times, and wait lists, and then long commutes. If you want more advanced people in society, the way you do that is opening the doors to more people, at all points in their life, right where they live.
And what the other guy said about selective public schools.
And yes you're on about government approved education dogwhistle and authoritarianism. Dude, you're right down conspiratorial thinking.
Almost every good private school has extensive financial aid programs. At the private school I went to, they had blind financial aid, meaning you got accepted first and if you couldn't afford it, you would get in for free, so there was no discrimination against poor people.
I'm not against gifted programs and more resources being allocated to public schools. But private schools play an important role in this imperfect system and getting rid of them "because it's unfair" just brings people down.
It's not a conspiracy to suggest that public schools abide by a government approved curriculum. You are way too sensitive. You can improve public schools without making private schools illegal, is my point.
You know what's even better than financial aid? Not needing it in the first place! Because you have excellent public schools. Which works for everyone, at all times, in all locations.
Had a bad year and couldn't get the grades to make it to private school that one year? Well now you can pay attention to the excellent teachers you have in public school.
Can't take the 1+ hr bus ride to a school far away? Well you can have an excellent school 10 minutes away.
And this all also starts in grade 1. Or Kindergarten if we get that sorted out. So you have good education before you ever have marks in any substantial way. This starts wayyyyy earlier than you're portraying. How do you think someone can develop at later stages when they don't have good schooling to begin with? Really I can't emphasize this enough. Smart people don't just pop up out of the blue and then we whisk them away to private school. How do you think people become smart or capable in the first place? We need good, public, accessible, education from the very start.
m “because it’s unfair” just brings people down.
Oh you're still stuck in your mentality that public schools "bring people down". I think you have this because that's all you've ever seen. You can't seem to conceive of good public schools, that have gifted programs, that don't "bring people down", that can in fact bring people up.
When rich and upper class don't use the public schools, there is zero incentive to make them work. As seen by the current state of the US. It's so bad that, like I said, you can't even seem to conceive of a public system that doesn't "bring people down". It's so bad that you've defined the public system as "bringing people down". That it must "bring people down". You've said it multiple times.
And yes saying "government approved education" is a thinly veiled dog whistle. If there was any doubt it was gone when you said authoritarianism. You just don't like that I called it out, so you have to say I'm "way too sensitive".
I'm not saying the public school system indiscriminately brings people down, but for the intellectual top 1% of kids it definitely can. stop thinking in absolutes. I think it's a good thing for smart kids to hang out with smart kids. Believe it or not, different degrees of intelligence require different needs to allow children to reach their full potential. I believe that private schools are great in making sure that potential is met. It's up to the schools themselves to allocate funding rather than a government bureaucracy, which is notoriously inefficient and frankly always will be, especially at scale. Advocate for improving funding to public schools so private schools would be unnecessary instead of making the choice on behalf of people.
for the intellectual top 1% of kids it definitely can.
Really? Do I have to add caveats to everything I say? It's already long enough. But this is also about wayyyy more than the top 1% of kids, this is about everyone. You want a more capable society? That means everyone.
I think it's a good thing for smart kids to hang out with smart kids.
Again, advanced classes. This is so simple.
Believe it or not, different degrees of intelligence require different needs
Again, advanced classes.
private schools are great in making sure that potential is met
Again, advanced classes.
And again, this means more students potential is reached. And that more students have the opportunity to become smart and educated from the very beginning. I notice you don't respond to any of that, you're back to acting like smart people just spring out of the blue to be whisked away to private schools. Think about how many people never intellectually developed in the first place because they never had good education to begin with. You want more smart people in society? The solution is public schools to develop those smart people.
government bureaucracy, which is notoriously inefficient and frankly always will be, especially at scale.
And now you define public schools as inefficient and all those connotations. Just like how you defined things before.
Seriously, it seems you can not even conceive of good public schools that yes serve and educate top students well (but again these students don't just pop up out if the blue, they are educated from the very start).
But this is also about wayyyy more than the top 1% of kids, this is about everyone. You want a more capable society? That means everyone.
Hmms seems like you are implying here that it does actually bring those 1% of kids down for the betterment of the rest. I thought it wouldn't bring kids down?
It's a simple difference of opinions. I believe that private schools are better empowered to allocate resources to produce the best result since it bypasses government bureaucracy. That's it. Acting like "advanced classes" is some sort of own that defeats the purpose of private schools is a cop out frankly.
You want more smart people in society? The solution is public schools to develop those smart people.
This can happen without making private schools illegal.
Hmms seems like you are implying here that it does actually bring those 1% of kids down for the betterment of the rest. I thought it wouldn't bring kids down?
Lol no I didn't imply that. See that "also"?Now you're making things up. I thought you were better than this.
Because this is also about all of society (see that also?) But I see your game now. You have to try to limit this to top 1%. It's a fake construct on my argument that you have to limit things to. I wonder if you're going to strawman this now.
It's a simple difference of opinions
I think the basis of this is that you can not even conceive of public schools that serve both top students and students well. (Insert all the words: also, in addition, etc),
Acting like "advanced classes" is some sort of own that defeats the purpose of private schools is a cop out frankly.
Lol that addresses your arguments where I said it. You want top students to hang out together? They do, in advanced classes.
You want their needs to be met? They are, in advanced classes.
Etc.
And all the other factors that you never respond to, like availability, travel time, wait lists, that smart people don't spring out of the blue to be whisked away to private schools and that they are developed and educated from the start.
This can happen without making private schools illegal.
Like I already said, when rich and upper class don't use the public system there is zero incentive to make it work well.
Really, you can't even conceive of a public system that works well for top and also (see that also?) students.
Yeah I see your other game too, you want me to excessively add caveats to everything I say now. The first time may have been legit, but now you read implications that aren't there just so I have to add more caveats. Nice games. But I think that shows you've graduated to bad faith and I'm just pointing out what I've already said because it addresses it all, so I think I'm done. Cheers.
The gifted program at my kids school is based on a single standardized test and practically speaking there is no way to appeal. It isn't some perfect system.
So..... marks. And I assume you can enter at most times.
So NOT ability to pay $$$, and ability to live in a certain area, and ability to have parents with pull, and ability to pass subjective screening (oh you went to what school before? Well this other student went to this other school we like more).
I don't know why you are assuming when I am right here and you can just ask. Well okay I know why you are assuming I am just going to pretend that I don't.
It is one standardized test given once a year. Kid is sick during it? No appeal. Kid had a bad teacher that year? No appeal. One single thing goes wrong on a single day of an entire year and your kid lags behind for at least another year. No teacher recommendations, no gpa, no retest, no other options. Maybe next time ask before you assume.
Oh and it isn't some great equalizer either. I see tutoring places bragging that they can get your kid a better score on the test. If you have the money and the time you can get your kid in the program.
Dude I'm assuming because that's how I've seen it work. Once a year, cool. Pretty much what I thought. I don't know why you're trying to turn this into something else. Boy and you run with that.
So your argument is more criteria. Ok cool.
And see my previous message about all the things that it's not about. It doesn't need to be 1000% equalizer for public schools to be a pretty good friggin thing.
Now
Once a year, cool. Pretty much what I thought
Before
And I assume you can enter at most times.
Keep your story straight instead of assuming.
Did you just assume what I meant the first time? Oh no. And now explicitly against what I said. Oh no.
Peace.
I went with he literal meaning of the words that is an inference not an assumption. You assumed something not state while I looked at what was stated.