Professor James Tooley, interviewed in this segment, studied how the very poor get education in India, Africa and China. The majority of those families, who earn just a few dollars a week, choose low-cost private schools over free government-run schools. He reports that their kids get better education from the less-qualified and less-paid private teachers than from their government counterparts, for about a dollar a week.

In Why millions of the world's poor still choose to go private, economist Tim Harford also mentions Tooley and points to similar studies on private healthcare for the very poor. He explains this by the incentives and accountability provided by private ownership.

Throughout the show, Stossel pertinently questions the American public education system, on the basis of quality, price and principle, also pointing at the incentive problem. Other things being comparable (kids, neighborhood, etc.), charter schools perform better and cost less than government- and union-run schools.

Education is not different from other goods and services; there is no reason not to let the private sector provide it, on the contrary. As with any centrally planned service, the problem of economic calculation in the absence of private property re-surfaces resulting in political rather than rational allocation of resources. Were they private initiatives, money sinks like "No child left behind" and "Head start" would have been canceled already, making room for better programs.

The only rationale left for public school is universal coverage. But as we know from many examples, the free market better solves this problem by democratizing services to the masses and serving the remaining unfortunates with the help of charities. And it does so without incurring all the downsides of socialized education.

As a step towards complete separation of education and state, Stossel advocates a voucher system to regain some of the benefits of the private sector. Such vouchers have been shown to be successful, in randomized experiments, yet politicians still oppose them.

[cross-posted on posterous]

Watch the 5 minute screencast and try the application on livegeometry.com.

Also, check out the class diagram illustrating the design (dependency tracking and change propagation, similar to a spreadsheet software and reminiscent of reactive programming).

PS: I wish more screencasts were that condensed. Video on the web is too slow ;-)

Similarly, for a patient that lost her sense of balance (after the little hair cells in her ear were damaged) a similar device allows to substitute a natural sense with an artificial one. The surprising part is the residual effect: the patient keeps a feeling of stability when not using the device.


Episode 8 (electrodes in the brain)
One of the segments reveals how some Parkinson's disease symptoms can be improved. A former patient and one about to undergo the surgery show how their hands were shaking uncontrollably, due to an area of the brain firing random signals.
Although doctors don't exactly know why, they found that implanting pulsating electrodes (like a pacemaker) in that area of the brain limits the symptoms and improves motor control.

Aside from the before-after results, the awake surgery is fascinating: to find the right area of the brain, a probe is used, which listens to neurons and you can literally hear the area of the brain corresponding to the patients hand.


Episode 1 (robot-assisted surgery)
This episode demonstrates a robot-assisted heart surgery. The surgery is much less intrusive and yet gives the surgeon rich manipulation capabilities, as the robot tools have similar mobility and dexterity to human wrists. This allows for fine suturing in enclosed spaces. But the robot itself, aside from costing a fortune, is also still quite bulky.


Episode 2 (design and ingenuity for the poorest)
An interview with Cameron Sinclair about architecture for humanity (network for designers to share ideas and solutions) and the Design like you give a damn book, with many innovations for the poor.
He gives a few examples, such as houses made from long sandbags coiled into a dome shape. These shelters are very cheap (cheaper than a refugee tent), more durable and require very little goods to be transported.
New UN tent, which is light, uses a smaller surface areas, pops out and has a divider for privacy.

The Grip Clip, a clever piece of plastic which is very versatile for assembling tents from local materials. It fastens the membrane to the support structure. That said, in an episode of Man vs. Wild, Bear Grills was showing an equivalent solution using a round stone and a string.


Along the same lines, there are great examples of entrepreneurship which can improve the conditions of life for poor farmers over the world: windmill electricity and water pump (amazing story of a 14 year old kid, pictured here), affordable drip irrigation systems in India (targeted for a 1$/day families with small fields, yielding 2x or 3x income increase to 300.000 farmers and resilience to dry seasons), cheap and local bed nets factories, cheap private healthcare (maternal hospitals, ambulances).
Those last projects are done as a mix of charity and market solutions (philanthrocapitalism) to lift people out of poverty.