[Phil153]

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Since you seem to have so much useless information at your disposal, do other systems spend more per student? I would guess that they certainly do (but who knows). That could be one reason the other systems get better results.

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No, one of the big gripes about US education (both public and private) is that far more is spent per student than other countries, which get superior results. I don't have the data available but it's well known.

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And so, the more devastating the results of centralization will be when you're trying to service widely varying interests.

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I agree. But bear in mind that the US is largely decentralized - states and even local counties have more autonomy than other countries. And unless there is racial segregation, I don't see how your point is relevant to the superiority of private schools - they'll have to cater to diverse backgrounds as well. So it's either smaller class sizes or more personalized attention - which generally means higher costs.

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So it seems silly to dwell myopically on various data points, and entirely ignore the broader trend that should tell you government intervention can only screw things up.

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This is the crux of all the ACer arguments in this thread - a belief that government is the root of all evil and only makes things worse. It doesn't matter what data I present - this core belief means you will find any of it invalid unless there are massive amounts of evidence showing private system failure (and even then, it's always due to government intervention, according to Borodog...).