Are there any industrialized nations that don't have public schools?

What an interesting question! “Great question!” Sorry I have no answer for you. (Hence the “whisper.”) My suspicion is “fat chance.”

Lets start with this:
Look at how public schools, all across the world, are traditionally organized; like industrial assembly lines. With this in mind, I think the bottom line is that industrial thinking tends to produce industrial-styled education systems. The public school as we know it – not like it was originally envisioned in pre-Industrial Age Massachusetts, for example – is based on an Industrial Age paradigm.

Extension:
If what I have posited is correct, then public schools will spend the next few decades disentangling themselves from the industrial paradigm. The question for public schools is whether they will evolve fast enough to remain apace of post-industrial, non-assembly line forms of privately subsidized education.

“Of Haiti’s 8.7 million inhabitants, the literacy rate of 65.9% is the lowest in the region. Haiti counts 15,200 primary schools, of which 90% are non-public and managed by the communities, religious organizations or NGOs. The enrollment rate for primary school is 67%, and fewer than 30% reach 6th grade. Secondary schools enroll 20% of eligible-age children.”

From Wikipedia..

See my previous answer about the Gini coefficient

The Gini coefficient for Haiti is 59.2.

I bet 100$ bucks that you will not find a 1st world country that doesn’t use any public funds for education.

@johnpowell I would be willing to bet more than you. I am so tired of hearing people say that we should get rid of public education. Yesterday, when I had this conversation again with someone I thought to myself, I am willing to entertain the idea if it has been shown in history to work. So this is my shot at seeing if anyone is aware of such a circumstance. The next time a right wing republican tells me in the same conversation, “look throughout history socialism and communism don’t work,” and then launches into, “better to have just private schools,” I will launch into, that has never worked in history.

@davidk Are you saying that even if public schools worked in the past, that they will not work in the future? Or, are you just saying schools in general in the US are not keeping up with the needs of the future?

Haha, I can hardly believe there even is discussion of abolishing public schools over there…

@Vincentt this whole conversation about elitest among the republicans has morphed into public school teaching the liberal agenda; government can’t do anything right, including education; and the last one is we could solve the prayer in school issue if they were all private.

@jleslie Actually, I’m not implying either. I’m simply saying that what we think of a public school, currently, will be changing in the near future because we are a post-industrial society. Schools have never been able to “keep up with the needs of the future” because we aren’t very adept at predicting what the future will require. The only thing I’m sure of is that the assembly line model is insufficient for any education, public or private.
I’m a strong supporter of public school education.

@davidk thanks for clarifying.