6 ms·

Of course the US does poorly in this survey. The survey measures life skills. We've spent the last decades changing our schools from teaching life skills to pur

Of course the US does poorly in this survey. The survey measures life skills. We've spent the last decades changing our schools from teaching life skills to pure college prep. A terrible disservice to young people. Here's some sample questions http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Education%20and%20Skills_online%20sample%20items.ppt http://www.oecd.org/site/piaac/Education%20and%20Skills_onli... .

roymurdock 11y ago
One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? Relative to who you meet, and what brand you get to slap on your resume at the end of the day? Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? I think it's important to learn how to think. But you can always do that in your 4 years at college, once you get into an ivy league, right? Who needs life skills when you can get a cushy job straight out of school and just pay others to cook, clean, drive, etc. for you? Isn't it every parent's dream that their child's life be better than their own?
- conceit 11y ago
  before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?." BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?
  - mindcrime 11y ago
    Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right? Well, since the question part is quoted, I believe the '?' should go inside the quotation marks in this case. But I think most Americans would put the period outside of the quotes, or leave it off altogether in that case. It's one of those things where I doubt anybody (other than an English teacher) actually knows the formal rule for sure. If there even is a rule. :-)
    - dj-wonk 11y ago
      http://djwonk.tumblr.com/post/29687578295/silly-punctuation-rules-in-english http://djwonk.tumblr.com/post/29687578295/silly-punctuation-...
    - CalRobert 11y ago
      If memory serves, style guides suggest putting the punctuation inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation applies to the larger sentence. This, of course, is dumb if you think about it. print "What an absurd convention!;"
      - mindcrime 11y ago
        If memory serves, style guides suggest putting the punctuation inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation applies to the larger sentence. Yeah, I've definitely seen that, but I've always thought of that as one of those controversial points where there's no real agreement. I feel like I remember this coming up on HN before and leading to quite a lot of discussion, although I might be mis-remembering.
        CalRobert 11y ago
        I've ignored it my entire adult life and haven't been corrected on it. Similarly, my stepmother once insisted I was committing a grave error not using two spaces after a period, but ignoring her advice has been for the best.
  - bpyne 11y ago
    Not quite. You need to capitalize the S and remove the period. We don't typically use double punctuation. Frankly, the whole phrasing of that statement would be very bizarre from an American's standpoint. We would typically say something along the lines of "Is the question worth caring about?" It's more concise and doesn't emulate an inner dialog. More to your larger point, the placement of punctuation within quotes, while grammatically correct, has the feel of leaving a sentence incomplete.
    - timthorn 11y ago
      But to a British ear, the phrasing of your sentence is good. It creates the link between the two questions, not suggesting that the original question is not of value, but placing a qualifier on it.
  - kagamine 11y ago
    As a Brit: You should ask yourself, "should it?".
    - SixSigma 11y ago
      Or, as another Brit: You should ask yourself: "should it?"
      - kagamine 11y ago
        A colon?! A COLON?! Are you sure that should be there?
        roymurdock 11y ago
        Personally, I would go with the em dash. You should ask yourself -- "Am I sure that colon should be there?".
        gardano 11y ago
        Should I ask myself, "Do I love this rabbit hole?"? Edit: The answer is YES.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    Depending on the style guide (punctuation in English is unfortunately not universal), all you need to do is drop the period. Give a few of these pages a read if you'd like to really get into it: From Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS style), "Q: This may be impossible": http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Punctuation.html http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pu... From Modern Language Association (MLA style), https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/ From American Psychological Association (APA style), http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation-marks.html http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around...
- coryrc 11y ago
  I'm not sure if your post is sarcastic. Of course I remember what I learned in high school. Just had to waste time repeating orders that 90* is the proper offset so the slope is maximum on one sine wave when the slope is minimum on another. It'd be really great if they taught kids accounting, net present value calculations, how to clean themselves properly, avoid getting pregnant when desired, and so many other skills. Not everyone is lucky enough to have good parents.
  - grogenaut 11y ago
    My catholic highschool taught me all of the above and prepped me well for college. Even taught me to question religion and a lot of other things. Point was "think for yourself, come to your own conclusions. Love God for real." I didn't get the last one, got the other two. They were totally fine with the result.
    - emp_zealoth 11y ago
      My catholic highschool vehemetly denied condoms work, scared everyone about anything contraceptive, lied and manipulated about a lot of various other things too. Point was "Listen to your betters, sheeple" It was a truly traumatic experience, considering it only reinforced my hate for self-proclaimed-"authority" Imagine how fun it is right now to live, surrounded by lying sacks of shit right and left (obviously not all,but disheartening amount) PS. Yes,I am angry. Very much so
- notalaser 11y ago
  > One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? When I'd just finished high school, I thought it was irrelevant. Now, many years afterwards, I can see the incredible influence it had over me and I can wholeheartedly say that it does, to an incredible extent. Virtually every single element of the foundation of my profession, views about and understanding of art, science and the human spirit in general have been touched by the interaction I had with my teachers, more often than not mediated by what they taught. I do not agree with everything I learned in school. Many of the things that I do agree with (because there is no objective disagreeing with e.g. Calculus) I now view in an entirely different light than that in which they were taught to me. I passionately hated (and still hate) the idea of schools -- either state institutions, or for-profit private entities -- having a monopoly over intellectual and often ethical concepts, so I went through school challenging it intensely. As for this though: > Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? Calculus is the mathematical foundation of virtually every engineering profession so yes, not only do I remember everything I was taught in AP Calc, I apply a lot of it every single day. I didn't go to high school in the US so I didn't go through APUSH, but History is one of the most important subjects that was ever taught to me. It is not a tool with which one is able to predict the future, but it is a large set of lenses through which one can look at the present and understand it.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - krinchan 11y ago
    I don't use Calculus every day, but the whole "stop thinking about specific Y-values and start thinking about how functions behave together and influence each other" is just invaluable in a world ruled by numbers that are in constant flux. To be honest though, I always thought that Linear Algebra would've been a much better AP class than Calculus. Sure Calculus naturally follows Trigonometry, but Linear Algebra has the same sort of "teaches these critical thinking skills" effect and, more importantly to me, was much more visual and easier to get excited about. Especially when our class started futzing about with OpenGL and particle fountains towards the end of the class.
ljk 11y ago
US isn't doing that well in college prep either... - http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2043378,00.html http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2043378,00....
tallanvor 11y ago
I don't agree that this is the problem. I mean, it is a problem at times, but that's a separate issue. There's quite simply no easy fix here. The best schools (and yes, that includes many public schools) are teaching a variety of skills that help the students whether they're going on to college, a trade school, or straight into work. And I suspect that those schools would be competitive or even beat Japan and Finland. But just look at the conditions of some schools. --Detroit is making the news for schools that are falling apart and infested with rats and worse. When the government won't even provide funds to provide a clean, safe space for students to learn, just how much can you expect from the teachers and students? Most of us don't feel good about going through increasingly intrusive screening at airports. Imagine how students at some of the schools in New York feel having to stand in long lines and go through metal detectors every day before class. Do you really expect them to respect an environment when they're put through that? In Kansas they're trying to defund the state's Supreme Court because they ruled that the funding of public schools was inadequate and distributed unfairly to the point of being unconstitutional. Look at the Republican candidates all crowing about how they'll shut down the Department of Education if they're elected. Don't get me wrong, like all government agencies, some reform is needed, but there are plenty of examples to show why the department is necessary! There are other factors in play as well, of course - as much as people would like to pretend otherwise, there are a lot of people living in poverty in the US, and students living in poverty consistently do worse in school than middle and upper class students. So really, there are a LOT of reasons for the US scoring this way, and unfortunately our country is not doing a good job of addressing these reasons.
- briandear 11y ago
  The Department of Education issue isn't one of funding, but one of Federalism and returning control of schools to state and local governments. It's about decentralization, not getting rid or even reducing funding for education. If you think about how much money the DoE spends that doesn't actually get to a school, the proposal doesn't sound crazy as people make it out to be. The following numbers are just for illustration but if you think of the DoE with a billion dollars and some percentage of that pays for the DoE. Then that percentage is education money that is going to pay DC bureaucrats rather than being delivered directly to the states. Each state already has a Department of Education, thus the benefit of the federal DoE is often redundant. The DoE doesn't create curricula, the DoE doesn't hire teachers, the DoE doesn't do anything that State departments aren't already equipped to do. So yes, abolish the DoE and let the states do what they are already doing. If we want to improve education, that happens at the state and school board level. A school in urban Detroit has much different needs than a school in suburban Austin, yet a blanket DoE directive doesn't necessarily respond well to dramatic variations between states and localities. Highly centralized control is less efficient than more granular control given the huge variations among communities and states. The problem with American education is cultural. Comparing a Chinese parent with a south Chicago parent reveals huge discrepancies. I taught in both China and Korea and they provide a fraction of the per student funding than they do in DC Public Schools. They're using old desks, the students are required to clean the school, technology is very limited, teachers are paid less -- yet they kick American ass in things like math and science. After school in China is spent studying -- for hours. Parents have zero tolerance for failure. Schools paddle rogue students. Embarrassment is a very big deal. Yet what happens to the south Chicago kid that goes home after school and spends his time studying: he's ostracized, even being accused of 'acting white.' There's your problem. A culture that puts the Kardashians on a pedestal and parents who are disengaged and teacher unions that put seniority above results. You also have the issue that university schools of education are frequently the refuge of academic rejects. This is incendiary, I know, but have a look at the academic standards required for education majors compared to pretty much any other major. There are exceptions, but they prove the rule. Funding isn't a problem -- it's a scapegoat. If you want proof of that, compare per student funding and academic achievement per dollar spent: there's little correlation.
creshal 11y ago
Teaching less life skills and more college prep is a common complaint in all education systems and not just the US. I've heard the same complaint from my teachers when I went to school in Germany, and from recruiters in Austria. Grass, greener, etc.
brightball 11y ago
The only way to fix that is with true school choice options. That way when parents realize it's a problem they can send their kids to schools that make a point to include it rather than the ones that leave it out completely.
- briandear 11y ago
  Yes, but teacher unions and Democrats hate that. The idea of free market competition is contrary to every bone in their bodies. That could lead to actual accountability. Currently the US school system is the Lada, free markets could turn it into a Honda.
  - brightball 11y ago
    This is the thing that I will never understand. I know a lot of teachers, several of whom I was friends with in college. They complain about the work environment constantly and every single complaint is one that would be resolved by school choice. Every. Single. One. Yet they're all completely opposed to it. Usually the entire reason for that opposition is fears of religious schools...which doesn't make sense. If there is that much opposition to religious schools that would mean that there's plenty of parents who would choose the non-religious options so again...a system which works itself out. I have ONE friend who doesn't complain and that's because his teacher career has been at two of the best schools in the entire state.
  - crpatino 11y ago
    In free markets, client is always right, right? Like in... the client is 16 y.o., loaded with hormones, and more interested in the current gossip than in the skills that will change his/her life a decade from now. The client is also interested in not having his/her parents nagging about bad grades those old bookworms like to give because they hate youth and freedom... I am extremely sure that would work OK.
    - brightball 11y ago
      The client is the parent, not the child. Parents tend to fall all over themselves trying to get their kids into good schools which is why property prices in highly rated school districts are always higher. Your only option is to move there, which essentially is how people of lower incomes actually do get trapped where they are...they can't afford to just up and move because the school was terrible. Now, here's the thing: to end up with a highly rated school you need good teachers. Good teachers tend to gravitate towards the same factors that any other employee gravitates towards: pay rate and a good work environment. For a teacher, a good work environment usually means administrators who support them at all times - including dealing with parents. Now this is a hugely important scenario to take into account. If a teacher is pressured by parents and fired by a public school currently...where exactly are they supposed to go? In a school choice scenario, they'd have multiple different options instead of many schools from one central authority. When teachers have more options and can simply walk out the door of a bad work environment with an unsupportive admin, they'll end up getting RECRUITED by other school administrators who know better. Parents will continue beating down the door of those good schools to get in, but right now if a parent threatens a teacher, mouths off or pressures them for better grades they are doing so with no potential consequence. If you try that at a private school you know what happens? Parent gets a warning and if it happens again the child will have to find another school the next year. The admin isn't going to risk losing a great teacher to appease little Johnny's parents. This shifts the ENTIRE dynamic of the school system to one in which teachers are in control because teachers are effectively the product. Just think about what the job market looks like for programmers right now in areas with high demand. That's essentially what the market for teachers would become.

roymurdock 11y ago

One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? Relative to who you meet, and what brand you get to slap on your resume at the end of the day? Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? I think it's important to learn how to think. But you can always do that in your 4 years at college, once you get into an ivy league, right? Who needs life skills when you can get a cushy job straight out of school and just pay others to cook, clean, drive, etc. for you? Isn't it every parent's dream that their child's life be better than their own?

conceit 11y ago
before you care about that question, you should ask yourself, "should it?." BTW: Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right?
- mindcrime 11y ago
  Am I doing this little american grammatical quirk with the punctuation within quotes right? Well, since the question part is quoted, I believe the '?' should go inside the quotation marks in this case. But I think most Americans would put the period outside of the quotes, or leave it off altogether in that case. It's one of those things where I doubt anybody (other than an English teacher) actually knows the formal rule for sure. If there even is a rule. :-)
  - dj-wonk 11y ago
    http://djwonk.tumblr.com/post/29687578295/silly-punctuation-rules-in-english http://djwonk.tumblr.com/post/29687578295/silly-punctuation-...
  - CalRobert 11y ago
    If memory serves, style guides suggest putting the punctuation inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation applies to the larger sentence. This, of course, is dumb if you think about it. print "What an absurd convention!;"
    - mindcrime 11y ago
      If memory serves, style guides suggest putting the punctuation inside the quotation marks, even if the punctuation applies to the larger sentence. Yeah, I've definitely seen that, but I've always thought of that as one of those controversial points where there's no real agreement. I feel like I remember this coming up on HN before and leading to quite a lot of discussion, although I might be mis-remembering.
      - CalRobert 11y ago
        I've ignored it my entire adult life and haven't been corrected on it. Similarly, my stepmother once insisted I was committing a grave error not using two spaces after a period, but ignoring her advice has been for the best.
- bpyne 11y ago
  Not quite. You need to capitalize the S and remove the period. We don't typically use double punctuation. Frankly, the whole phrasing of that statement would be very bizarre from an American's standpoint. We would typically say something along the lines of "Is the question worth caring about?" It's more concise and doesn't emulate an inner dialog. More to your larger point, the placement of punctuation within quotes, while grammatically correct, has the feel of leaving a sentence incomplete.
  - timthorn 11y ago
    But to a British ear, the phrasing of your sentence is good. It creates the link between the two questions, not suggesting that the original question is not of value, but placing a qualifier on it.
- kagamine 11y ago
  As a Brit: You should ask yourself, "should it?".
  - SixSigma 11y ago
    Or, as another Brit: You should ask yourself: "should it?"
    - kagamine 11y ago
      A colon?! A COLON?! Are you sure that should be there?
      - roymurdock 11y ago
        Personally, I would go with the em dash. You should ask yourself -- "Am I sure that colon should be there?".
        gardano 11y ago
        Should I ask myself, "Do I love this rabbit hole?"? Edit: The answer is YES.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  Depending on the style guide (punctuation in English is unfortunately not universal), all you need to do is drop the period. Give a few of these pages a read if you'd like to really get into it: From Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS style), "Q: This may be impossible": http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Punctuation.html http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Pu... From Modern Language Association (MLA style), https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/ https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/03/ From American Psychological Association (APA style), http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around-quotation-marks.html http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2011/08/punctuating-around...
coryrc 11y ago
I'm not sure if your post is sarcastic. Of course I remember what I learned in high school. Just had to waste time repeating orders that 90* is the proper offset so the slope is maximum on one sine wave when the slope is minimum on another. It'd be really great if they taught kids accounting, net present value calculations, how to clean themselves properly, avoid getting pregnant when desired, and so many other skills. Not everyone is lucky enough to have good parents.
- grogenaut 11y ago
  My catholic highschool taught me all of the above and prepped me well for college. Even taught me to question religion and a lot of other things. Point was "think for yourself, come to your own conclusions. Love God for real." I didn't get the last one, got the other two. They were totally fine with the result.
  - emp_zealoth 11y ago
    My catholic highschool vehemetly denied condoms work, scared everyone about anything contraceptive, lied and manipulated about a lot of various other things too. Point was "Listen to your betters, sheeple" It was a truly traumatic experience, considering it only reinforced my hate for self-proclaimed-"authority" Imagine how fun it is right now to live, surrounded by lying sacks of shit right and left (obviously not all,but disheartening amount) PS. Yes,I am angry. Very much so
notalaser 11y ago
> One has to wonder...does it really matter what you learn in school? When I'd just finished high school, I thought it was irrelevant. Now, many years afterwards, I can see the incredible influence it had over me and I can wholeheartedly say that it does, to an incredible extent. Virtually every single element of the foundation of my profession, views about and understanding of art, science and the human spirit in general have been touched by the interaction I had with my teachers, more often than not mediated by what they taught. I do not agree with everything I learned in school. Many of the things that I do agree with (because there is no objective disagreeing with e.g. Calculus) I now view in an entirely different light than that in which they were taught to me. I passionately hated (and still hate) the idea of schools -- either state institutions, or for-profit private entities -- having a monopoly over intellectual and often ethical concepts, so I went through school challenging it intensely. As for this though: > Do you remember anything you learned in AP Calc or APUSH all those years ago? Calculus is the mathematical foundation of virtually every engineering profession so yes, not only do I remember everything I was taught in AP Calc, I apply a lot of it every single day. I didn't go to high school in the US so I didn't go through APUSH, but History is one of the most important subjects that was ever taught to me. It is not a tool with which one is able to predict the future, but it is a large set of lenses through which one can look at the present and understand it.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- krinchan 11y ago
  I don't use Calculus every day, but the whole "stop thinking about specific Y-values and start thinking about how functions behave together and influence each other" is just invaluable in a world ruled by numbers that are in constant flux. To be honest though, I always thought that Linear Algebra would've been a much better AP class than Calculus. Sure Calculus naturally follows Trigonometry, but Linear Algebra has the same sort of "teaches these critical thinking skills" effect and, more importantly to me, was much more visual and easier to get excited about. Especially when our class started futzing about with OpenGL and particle fountains towards the end of the class.

ljk 11y ago

US isn't doing that well in college prep either... - http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2043378,00.html http://content.time.com/time/interactive/0,31813,2043378,00....

tallanvor 11y ago

I don't agree that this is the problem. I mean, it is a problem at times, but that's a separate issue. There's quite simply no easy fix here. The best schools (and yes, that includes many public schools) are teaching a variety of skills that help the students whether they're going on to college, a trade school, or straight into work. And I suspect that those schools would be competitive or even beat Japan and Finland. But just look at the conditions of some schools. --Detroit is making the news for schools that are falling apart and infested with rats and worse. When the government won't even provide funds to provide a clean, safe space for students to learn, just how much can you expect from the teachers and students? Most of us don't feel good about going through increasingly intrusive screening at airports. Imagine how students at some of the schools in New York feel having to stand in long lines and go through metal detectors every day before class. Do you really expect them to respect an environment when they're put through that? In Kansas they're trying to defund the state's Supreme Court because they ruled that the funding of public schools was inadequate and distributed unfairly to the point of being unconstitutional. Look at the Republican candidates all crowing about how they'll shut down the Department of Education if they're elected. Don't get me wrong, like all government agencies, some reform is needed, but there are plenty of examples to show why the department is necessary! There are other factors in play as well, of course - as much as people would like to pretend otherwise, there are a lot of people living in poverty in the US, and students living in poverty consistently do worse in school than middle and upper class students. So really, there are a LOT of reasons for the US scoring this way, and unfortunately our country is not doing a good job of addressing these reasons.

briandear 11y ago
The Department of Education issue isn't one of funding, but one of Federalism and returning control of schools to state and local governments. It's about decentralization, not getting rid or even reducing funding for education. If you think about how much money the DoE spends that doesn't actually get to a school, the proposal doesn't sound crazy as people make it out to be. The following numbers are just for illustration but if you think of the DoE with a billion dollars and some percentage of that pays for the DoE. Then that percentage is education money that is going to pay DC bureaucrats rather than being delivered directly to the states. Each state already has a Department of Education, thus the benefit of the federal DoE is often redundant. The DoE doesn't create curricula, the DoE doesn't hire teachers, the DoE doesn't do anything that State departments aren't already equipped to do. So yes, abolish the DoE and let the states do what they are already doing. If we want to improve education, that happens at the state and school board level. A school in urban Detroit has much different needs than a school in suburban Austin, yet a blanket DoE directive doesn't necessarily respond well to dramatic variations between states and localities. Highly centralized control is less efficient than more granular control given the huge variations among communities and states. The problem with American education is cultural. Comparing a Chinese parent with a south Chicago parent reveals huge discrepancies. I taught in both China and Korea and they provide a fraction of the per student funding than they do in DC Public Schools. They're using old desks, the students are required to clean the school, technology is very limited, teachers are paid less -- yet they kick American ass in things like math and science. After school in China is spent studying -- for hours. Parents have zero tolerance for failure. Schools paddle rogue students. Embarrassment is a very big deal. Yet what happens to the south Chicago kid that goes home after school and spends his time studying: he's ostracized, even being accused of 'acting white.' There's your problem. A culture that puts the Kardashians on a pedestal and parents who are disengaged and teacher unions that put seniority above results. You also have the issue that university schools of education are frequently the refuge of academic rejects. This is incendiary, I know, but have a look at the academic standards required for education majors compared to pretty much any other major. There are exceptions, but they prove the rule. Funding isn't a problem -- it's a scapegoat. If you want proof of that, compare per student funding and academic achievement per dollar spent: there's little correlation.

creshal 11y ago

Teaching less life skills and more college prep is a common complaint in all education systems and not just the US. I've heard the same complaint from my teachers when I went to school in Germany, and from recruiters in Austria. Grass, greener, etc.

brightball 11y ago

The only way to fix that is with true school choice options. That way when parents realize it's a problem they can send their kids to schools that make a point to include it rather than the ones that leave it out completely.

briandear 11y ago
Yes, but teacher unions and Democrats hate that. The idea of free market competition is contrary to every bone in their bodies. That could lead to actual accountability. Currently the US school system is the Lada, free markets could turn it into a Honda.
- brightball 11y ago
  This is the thing that I will never understand. I know a lot of teachers, several of whom I was friends with in college. They complain about the work environment constantly and every single complaint is one that would be resolved by school choice. Every. Single. One. Yet they're all completely opposed to it. Usually the entire reason for that opposition is fears of religious schools...which doesn't make sense. If there is that much opposition to religious schools that would mean that there's plenty of parents who would choose the non-religious options so again...a system which works itself out. I have ONE friend who doesn't complain and that's because his teacher career has been at two of the best schools in the entire state.
- crpatino 11y ago
  In free markets, client is always right, right? Like in... the client is 16 y.o., loaded with hormones, and more interested in the current gossip than in the skills that will change his/her life a decade from now. The client is also interested in not having his/her parents nagging about bad grades those old bookworms like to give because they hate youth and freedom... I am extremely sure that would work OK.
  - brightball 11y ago
    The client is the parent, not the child. Parents tend to fall all over themselves trying to get their kids into good schools which is why property prices in highly rated school districts are always higher. Your only option is to move there, which essentially is how people of lower incomes actually do get trapped where they are...they can't afford to just up and move because the school was terrible. Now, here's the thing: to end up with a highly rated school you need good teachers. Good teachers tend to gravitate towards the same factors that any other employee gravitates towards: pay rate and a good work environment. For a teacher, a good work environment usually means administrators who support them at all times - including dealing with parents. Now this is a hugely important scenario to take into account. If a teacher is pressured by parents and fired by a public school currently...where exactly are they supposed to go? In a school choice scenario, they'd have multiple different options instead of many schools from one central authority. When teachers have more options and can simply walk out the door of a bad work environment with an unsupportive admin, they'll end up getting RECRUITED by other school administrators who know better. Parents will continue beating down the door of those good schools to get in, but right now if a parent threatens a teacher, mouths off or pressures them for better grades they are doing so with no potential consequence. If you try that at a private school you know what happens? Parent gets a warning and if it happens again the child will have to find another school the next year. The admin isn't going to risk losing a great teacher to appease little Johnny's parents. This shifts the ENTIRE dynamic of the school system to one in which teachers are in control because teachers are effectively the product. Just think about what the job market looks like for programmers right now in areas with high demand. That's essentially what the market for teachers would become.