Friedman Education Quote

I hadn't thought about it this way, before, but you have a point. Hand-made is generally better, though usually costs more, as well.

Your comparison misses the point.

Your home made products don't meet FDA standards.

Home grown fruit and vegetables also fail public health standards.

Your home assembled computer is far less reliable than a brand product.

If the home made product were truly better than the consumer standard then the home made product would take over and become the standard.

FDA - approved meat still sometimes harbors e coli.

Storebought, approved fruit and vegetables do the same, or may still harbor worms or bugs; not to mention the pesticides that cause many people health problems.

The reliability of my home-assembled computer needs to be matched against the expertise of my assembler, vs. the crappy product that can come off an assembly line ready to short out or burst into flames
A standardized process means that you get a standardized product, when everything works correctly. However, things do not work correctly all the time, and you are making the assumption that a standardized product is, of course, the better product. It simply is not always so. Sometimes it is. But not always.

I think the most interesting thing about what Friedman said is that he immediately likened public schooling to a factory. Treating education like a factory assembly line does not work. It cannot work, except to produce a lowest common denominator education.

Did Friedman think that education is rightly thought of as a factory, and the problem we have is that it's a badly-run factory? Or was he trying to point out that our education system is bad because it tries to run like a factory? Since we have clear examples in which homemade products are better than factory products, by "better" does he simply mean "cheap and efficient"?

Humans are organically different from each other. You cannot put the same information into them at the same time, and expect the same results. We don't work that way. Study after study has demonstrated the benefits of tutoring. That's what homeschoolers are really doing: We tutor each child so that we can help each child to greatest effect. A classroom teacher with 25 kids simply can't do the same thing, just like Wonderbread is not nearly as good as my freshly-baked loaf.

This is exactly what I was getting at. I don't want my children to turn out "a standardized product"!

And Jack's assertions that my homemade products or homegrown fruits and vegetables don't meet FDA standards are incorrect. It's certainly not guaranteed that my homemade products meet FDA standards - but neither can anyone be certain that they don't meet FDA standards. In fact, my homemade and homegrown products are much MORE likely to meet FDA standards, since they contain only real ingredients - no chemicals or dyes - and we don't use chemical pesticides. The issue is whether the government can control the homemade products or not; American law as it currently stands makes it clear that they can NOT control the "products" of home education.

As to the reliability of my home-built computer, I beg to differ with Jack. He states, "Your home assembled computer is far less reliable than a brand product." I completely disagree. This is the first home-built computer we have owned in 20 years of marriage; it has also lasted significantly longer than any of our other computers. Our name-brand computers have pretty much lasted through the warranty period, and that's about it. This one has lasted well past the warranty and we are still very happy with it. Of course, there's again no guarantee that our home assembled computer will be more reliable, but because it is assembled by hand, with careful attention to each piece, it is more likely to be high-quality.

Sorry Jack - just because the government doesn't control something, just because results can't be guaranteed in every case, doesn't make my point any less valid. Mamalynx is right: standards are sometimes still violated even by factory-produced, government-controlled processes, and children far more than computers or bread or produce need individual attention and tutoring.