While large corporations do their best to create false impressions for their products, the emergence of sensationalist media neutralizes it well. Media is based around news - something new or unexpected. Because of this, it has a tendency to sensationalize what it's reporting in order to gain viewers or followers. This sensationalist approach to media means that all companies must tread carefully with their advertising campaigns, for a single misstep would cause large ramifications. The easiest example of this would be The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair. His book created huge changes in the meatpacking industry, and also caused an increase in regulation. However, this regulation was unnecessary because the consumers were already aware of potential infractions. The media makes it so that consumers are more aware of what they're purchasing and what they're eating. On a more general basis, corruption and fraud are also easily reportable, and serve to have very large effects on a company's reputation. Even if a media organization was "sleeping with Corporate America," the development of social media and "viral videos" means that no major news organization can ignore potential problems. Social media has made it so that a single misstep by a corporation that is detected will be broadcast to the world. The stakes for any and all companies have increased, and this increased risk will prevent unfair advertising. In the past, regulation was necessary because the companies and the consumers were not equals. Today, however, the development of social media and the growing sensationalism of regular news organizations mean that companies will be far more wary of attempting to take advantage of their customers.
Charter schools are preferable to public education because charter (private) schools allow for increased competition and efficiency. The basis behind increasing state and federal funding to charter schools is clear - it is merely the natural transition from a socialist-esque education system to one that is more capitalistic. Private schools are better for several reasons. First, without district boundaries, parents can choose which school to send their children to. This is the basis for competition. By putting the decision in the hands of the consumer (parents,) we allow for competition between schools to attract students. Secondly, private schools have fewer unionized teachers and can pay their teachers in an unregulated fashion. The current union system that many public school teachers participate in fails to adequately serve our students. Instead of paying teaches based on effective teaching, we pay them based on seniority. In addition, it is almost impossible to pay the best teachers the salaries they deserve, because we are overpaying the inadequate teachers. This means that fewer and fewer intelligent people are becoming educators. At a private charter school, teachers can be paid based on how well they teach. An easy metric for this would be test scores. Which teachers allow for the greatest increase in test scores? Now, the easy argument against this would be that this would create teachers who "teach to the test" and teachers to promote cheating. However, a student satisfaction survey would help to alleviate these fears. Most students are relatively smart. The difference between a good teacher and a bad one is light and day. By factoring student opinion into teacher pay, we can also prevent some of the cheating or "teaching to the test." Teachers who teach to the test are generally inadequate at answering questions. Anything not on their syllabus is generally an unknown. This would naturally decrease student satisfaction. Cheating is also a very risky proposition for teachers. Not only do some students have morals, the survey only requires a single student to report cheating to penalize a teacher. With class sizes ranging from thirty to forty kids, it is highly unlikely that a teacher would be able to pull off this feat. Charter schools are therefore an ultimate solution to these problems. The only problem that they face - affordability, can be ameliorated with government subsidies to families who need support. Just like college, the current public education fund can be diverted to a "High School Pell Grant" fund, or the like. Our tertiary education system is the best in the world. It is based on a purely capitalistic system, where the school gets little money from the government, but much from the students. By reforming our secondary education to more closely mirror the tertiary, we may also be able to replicate the success that we have there.
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