A related story: I heard on the radio of a 98-year old man who was receiving his high school diploma this past May because he went off to fight in World War II and never finished high school. Many schools have been offering honorary degrees for soldiers, but apparently this guy had 1/2 credit left to finish his graduation requirements! Maybe he was the one who wanted to finish what he started, but if anyone would deny a high school diploma to a 98-year old man for a lousy 1/2 credit, they’re crazy. Hasn’t he learned enough? What does a credit even mean?

In this scenario, all but the last two years of school would still be mandatory, which is not that different from the way schools function now. Many students do decide to drop out during their junior or senior year.

I have often wondered what it would be like if education was private and health care was social. I think the difficulty in socializing these things is that socialization requires some uniformity. High schools are like an assembly line, where everyone must take the same classes and teachers have minimal influence over the complete learning experience of students because they have 120 strangers each year who they rarely see again. Educational research has shown that this type of approach is not conducive to student learning because everyone learns at different times and at different speeds. Not to mention the desire and intrinsic motivation required on the part of the student in order for learning to truly take place. Interesting, considering that no one has to be forced to get/want health care.

In our country, we certainly want everyone to have the opportunity to get an education and health care regardless of their economic resources. That being said, it seems we should have public schools and public health clinics. The key word is public. “Public” schools are nothing like “public” libraries. Perhaps schools should be more like libraries: no one tells you what to read, how fast to read it, or forces you to visit the library on any regular basis. People choose to come of their own volition, for a specific purpose, and the library is usually able to get you whatever you need.

So perhaps our schools (community learning centers?) should function the same way as libraries, perhaps after 10th grade. Clinics could work this way as well. There are still many problems with such a plan, but it could be a step in the right direction.

As I posted on my blog a while back - if I am wealthy, I want to be in the US for my healthcare. If I am not wealthy, I want to be in Canada.

“The United States has the only mostly private health delivery system in a developed country. It is below average by almost every health measure such as infant mortality, life expectancy, or cancer survival rates, while also being the most costly system in the world. In 2001 the United States spent $4,887 per person on health care. That is more than double the rate of any other G7 country, except Japan which spends $2,627 per capita annually.”

I don’t know. Wants and cans are two diffrent things. I want Universal Health Care, College for free for the able, a fair tax, ect… but I am afaid it would not work or not ever get changed.