I'm sure it would help the prices go down, and I know what you mean when you talk of the government paying through the nose for everything. It bothers me, too. >:(

As for your last paragraph, that's ridiculous! Obviously the school system in Florida (And I'm sure it's safe to say in most of the country, if not all) is very broken. I' thinking they should do away with the whole system and build another one from ground up.

As for longer school years, I support it. There are masy ways to lengthen the school year that I can imagine, four days on, three days off for the whole year, longer days and preserve summer break, etc. That way, we could learn so much more in a year and go so much deeper into our subjects.

Anyway, good luck with your system. :)

"I have seen too much money wasted in public schools (and private ones as well) to believe that money spent is a good indicator of quality."

Of course money doesn't ensure quality, but it sure helps. At the very least, it can provide schools up-to-date and accurate textbooks and the materials and access to resources that can improve the education system.

"Ever since I got out of college I have wanted to establish a non-profit K-12 school that would have a 45-week school year and a reformed curriculum that would let students graduate with the equivalent of an associate’s degree. But I seriously doubt that there would be a market for such a school because most parents do not care."

I don't think this is true, if the price was reasonable and the difference was made obvious, I think there would be a large market for this kind of school.

I cannot agree more. There is absolutely no reason that in one side of the country students learn one curriculum, and on the other side another, let alone different standards and curriculum for students across town from one another.

A national school system would help ensure that each student is given the same opportunity and that poorer schools can be given money needed to educate the students to the same level as schools in rich areas.

All schools should educate students to the same levels and there should be no way for a student to do less work, try less, and take easier classes while still receiving a diploma that carries as much weight as a hard-working, intelligent student.

If you want to split hairs, and I do, then you can't say that money buys happiness, although you can buy some very awesome things with money. These are the things that cause happiness. Without money, you can still have happiness, it's just much easier to do it with the money to buy things.

Since this is a public community, I would disagree because anyone could join and act serious until made an admin, at which point they would have the power to cause some major disruption. It's better to evaluate each user and only give him/her admin status once s/he has earned it.

"The Best of CreateDebate?"

Good idea, although I'm pretty sure if a debate is on both the main site and seriousbusiness, any member can post on it and the arguments will be shown here as well, and then this group really isn't filtering out the "extra" arguments, the silly, stupid, offensive, or spam-ish ones, so there should also be exclusive seriousbusiness debates that don't allow for the less-than-serious responses of some of the main site users.

"You can't spend your way out of a recession. And WWII ended the GD."

You're contradicting yourself here. WWII itself did not bring the US out of the depression, it was the massive spending and sheer number of jobs created because of our involvement in WWII that brought us out of the depression.

I think that's what iamdavidh was talking about.

But, one has to wonder why attempts at socialism have ended with dictatorships.

Total extremes of any type of government are bad. The most practical, and controversial, is a balance that is hard to find, and even harder to maintain. I believe that the only real way to find the balance is through trial and error.

Capitalism is closer to achieving Henry David Thoreau's view of an enlightened government, respecting the individual as a higher power. I as well believe this is the epitome of government. The government is not entitled to make decisions for the individual, respecting the individuality and freedom of the people of the country.

In capitalism, one is theoretically able to go from the lowest economic and societal level all the way to the top. The system isn't perfect,though, and this doesn't always happen. Even in Capitalism there must be some regulation to prevent a company from becoming more powerful than the government, which is when problems arise.

Imagine socialism in today's America. It would be so different that you couldn't even call it America.

Well, if that's what you mean by moving toward a world government, cooperation and working together in a managed way, then I'm all for it! As long as there are safeguards against it becoming an all-encompassing government that has unlimited power. :)