21 ms·

The pressure that U.S. inequality exerts on parents

89 points by pzs 10y ago

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kough 10y ago
Broken link, the correct link is here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/american-financial-hell/481107/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/american...
- dang 10y ago
  Thanks, we've fixed that above. We also changed the title from "American parents spend almost beyond their means on education", which appears to have been editorializing, to the subtitle of the article (the main title being too baity).
dominotw 10y ago
>here are ways in which this is apropos—men, in particular, have seen their earning power diminish in recent decades, and Gabler isn’t the first to draw a connection between financial power and sexual power. But this is an unfortunately narrow framing of a financial crisis whose casualties are so often women. I am having hard time parsing this seemingly self contradicting sentence even after reading the linked article. can someone explain this to me.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Tycho 10y ago
  I think it's just saying 'financial impotence' is not gender-neutral enough as a term. But I agree it didn't make much sense the way it was phrased.
iamjdg 10y ago
ha, this article is basically preaching the ways of mr money mustache, but in a high brow way.
Pyxl101 10y ago
> almost beyond their means So, within their means?
- DanBC 10y ago
  Until they get a fine or a medical expense or have to bury someone or etc.
- tehabe 10y ago
  If you live from paycheck to paycheck, you live within your means but if anything happens, everything will fell apart. How this looks on a national scale was visible in the subprime mortage crisis a couple of years ago.
Tycho 10y ago
Spending on education/tuition is how middle-class Americans ensure the lower class ones stay down there. If spending on schooling was capped the way most things are capped then there would be much more competition for 'white-collar' jobs. eg. middle class families may spend a little more on food on average but they are not going to spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't. The same is largely true of the quality of education available - there's no reason why the outcome (actual learning) should get much better by spending excessively on it. But then you have to factor in the signalling and filtering aspects.
- chaostheory 10y ago
  The middle class is not spending money on education to keep others 'down'. They're doing it to keep from getting trampled themselves. EDIT: I'm also going to disagree with you on this as well: "spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't" Regardless as to whether or not organic and non-GMO food actually has better health benefits, people do not shop at Whole Foods just so they can show off the green bag to everyone else. Unlike say fashion, automobiles, or even gadgets, groceries are not ideal for 'signaling' Believe it or not, most people don't have the luxury (or even the inclination) of sitting in a nice chair with their mean looking cat dreaming up ways of hurting others. Most people are just trying to get by... though obviously this greatly varies from person to person.
  - MawNicker 10y ago
    You're making a distinction about their intent but not their effect.
    - chaostheory 10y ago
      Yes, you're right. I strongly feel that it's very important to have more empathy for people regardless of their background. Demonizing people who are different from you with an accusation without merit doesn't help anyone.
tehabe 10y ago
I remember Linus Torvalds talking about this, getting a home in a good school district is difficult and expensive but not getting one has consequences. And when you read this, you really understand the Finnish idea that all school should be equally good, a competition between them will lead to good, better, and bad schools.
- velodrome 10y ago
  One word: Gentrification. It affects other aspects of our society, not just education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification
- striking 10y ago
  Linus' post: https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/J1NCgKQi55X https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/J1NCgKQi55X
- pkaye 10y ago
  I live in a city in California where within the same school district, there is one school in the 99% percentile ranking while the others are in the mid range.
- awoeifjs 10y ago
  Another reason Finnish schools are so successful: Finland ethnic groups: Finn 93.4%, Swede 5.6%, Russian 0.5%, Estonian 0.3%, Roma (Gypsy) 0.1%, Sami 0.1% (2006)
  - pyrale 10y ago
    I would be interested in a study establishing that this correlation is in fact a cause.
- rayiner 10y ago
  There is no such thing as a "good school district." In D.C. there is a neighborhood called Capitol Hill. The local elementary school is Brent. 5-10 years ago, rich people would never have sent their kids to that school. It was 80% low-income, and the test scores were terrible. The area has dramatically gentrified over the last several years, and now it's one of the best schools in the city (and less than 15% low-income). Nothing changed about the school or the teachers--what changed is how much money the students parents' have. The problem in the U.S. isn't that we have "good schools" and "bad schools." It's that we have extreme segregation along racial and economic lines. Our policies create pockets of schools that are 90% low-income (and usually a similar percentage black or hispanic). It's a symptom of a society with extreme segregation and wealth inequality, not a cause.
bradleyjg 10y ago
If we decoupled housing from education as much as possible then at least people wouldn't be forced to buy all sorts of other amenities that they might or might not want along with the educations they do want. There'd be a lot of winners from such a change, but the big losers would be incumbent homeowners in neighborhoods with "good schools" that have had that circumstance capitalized into the prices of their homes. Unfortunately that's quite a powerful group of people.
- tinbucket 10y ago
  I don't disagree with you, but how would that work? How would you select pupils to fill the limited number of places in the desirable schools from a pool of candidates that would be much, much bigger?
  - burfog 10y ago
    Note that there would be 0 places in desirable schools. When you dilute the good kids, the AP classes get cancelled. When bad kids are roaming about and starting fights in the middle of lessons, teaching turns into babysitting. It's not a matter of money. DC spends more per student than nearly everybody else. It's a matter of student quality.
  - bradleyjg 10y ago
    Personally I like vouchers and school choice, with a variety of school philosophies and admissions processes. But even random assignment across larger geographical areas than are common today would be break the link between housing and quasi-public school tuition. Needless to say I reject burfog's claim that we currently have an efficient meritocracy and that the betas, deltas and gammas should just make peace with their stations in life.
  - rjdevereux 10y ago
    Yes, that's one way to do it. That's how it works for a lot of charter schools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg&feature=youtu.be&t=111 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg&feature=youtu.be...
- 10y ago
raarts 10y ago
Combine this with the other HN submission on that it 's not so much where you study but what, it's a bad call for parents to try to get their kids on an expensive school. They would be better off getting their kids to choose a STEM major even at a cheaper school.
- Throwaway23412 10y ago
  That submission is about colleges. This submission is about high schools. The differences in quality between high schools is drastically more varied than differences in quality between colleges.
naveen99 10y ago
One thing I don't like about us public k-12 schools is there stringent attendance policies. I wish there funding wasn't tied to holding our kids hostage during the school day. One of the reasons my children go to private school.
- otoburb 10y ago
  My experiences with private schools is that they have just as, if not more, stringent attendance policies. The consequence of non-attendance always seems to lead to expulsion.
  - naveen99 10y ago
    Private schools will allow advanced arrangements, like making up work, or homework in Leiu of attendance. Public schools are not interested in expulsion, they threaten calling child protective services. Not my district but see example attendance policy http://www.escobedoms.com/pdf/Parent_Attendance_Guide.pdf http://www.escobedoms.com/pdf/Parent_Attendance_Guide.pdf from a quick google search. Public schools literally consider too many absences a crime ("truancy"), partly because their funding is directly tied to number of days students are in class. Private schools will charge you the same tuition regardless of how much vacation you take just like college.
- tamana 10y ago
  How much vacations do your kids take?
  - naveen99 10y ago
    its harder for me to get time off when school is out, because many of my colleagues also have children, and not everyone can take off. So I take my kids out of school when i can take vacation... first world problems :( Some people will de-register and then re-register their children in public school as a way around it, but its not practical to do multiple times a year.
jgalt212 10y ago
You know why the children of the upper middle class try so hard? Because their parents almost made it.
cushychicken 10y ago
> he has two very well-educated and successful daughters. They are, in a sense, his retirement plan: Barring extenuating circumstances, they will be in a position to care for him and his wife in their later years. We should all be so lucky. I'm not quite sure how saddling my children with the cost of my care and feeding in my twilight years is a better choice than letting them go to public school and state universities. Seems like that's just passing the buck on who has to pay that particular bill.
- refurb 10y ago
  I have to agree. I understand wanting to give your children all the benifits you can, but it doesn't make much sense to do it at the expense of your own financial stability.
  - jschwartzi 10y ago
    Speaking as someone whose parents prioritized their financial security and their hobbies, and having the experiences I have now, I can tell you that it's not a decision I would make lightly. It mattered a great deal which public schools I went to because it mattered a great deal which college I got in to. I went to a middling public school, so I ended up in a middling college. The only reason I've ended up where I am is that I'm very lucky. I could easily have ended up working retail like nearly all of my friends from high school. Knowing that actually makes me afraid to have children, because it's really likely that they'll be worse off than I am.
known 10y ago
Everyday experiences of discrimination (such as being treated with less respect or receiving poorer service) are common and affect black people in the US more frequently than white people. http://qz.com/334366/why-black-americans-cant-sleep-at-night-racism/ http://qz.com/334366/why-black-americans-cant-sleep-at-night...

89 points by pzs 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

kough 10y ago

Broken link, the correct link is here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/american-financial-hell/481107/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/05/american...

dang 10y ago
Thanks, we've fixed that above. We also changed the title from "American parents spend almost beyond their means on education", which appears to have been editorializing, to the subtitle of the article (the main title being too baity).

dominotw 10y ago

>here are ways in which this is apropos—men, in particular, have seen their earning power diminish in recent decades, and Gabler isn’t the first to draw a connection between financial power and sexual power. But this is an unfortunately narrow framing of a financial crisis whose casualties are so often women. I am having hard time parsing this seemingly self contradicting sentence even after reading the linked article. can someone explain this to me.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Tycho 10y ago
I think it's just saying 'financial impotence' is not gender-neutral enough as a term. But I agree it didn't make much sense the way it was phrased.

iamjdg 10y ago

ha, this article is basically preaching the ways of mr money mustache, but in a high brow way.

Pyxl101 10y ago

> almost beyond their means So, within their means?

DanBC 10y ago
Until they get a fine or a medical expense or have to bury someone or etc.
tehabe 10y ago
If you live from paycheck to paycheck, you live within your means but if anything happens, everything will fell apart. How this looks on a national scale was visible in the subprime mortage crisis a couple of years ago.

Tycho 10y ago

Spending on education/tuition is how middle-class Americans ensure the lower class ones stay down there. If spending on schooling was capped the way most things are capped then there would be much more competition for 'white-collar' jobs. eg. middle class families may spend a little more on food on average but they are not going to spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't. The same is largely true of the quality of education available - there's no reason why the outcome (actual learning) should get much better by spending excessively on it. But then you have to factor in the signalling and filtering aspects.

chaostheory 10y ago
The middle class is not spending money on education to keep others 'down'. They're doing it to keep from getting trampled themselves. EDIT: I'm also going to disagree with you on this as well: "spend 'beyond their means' on lavish cuisine in the hope that it will ensure a health advantage, because it obviously won't" Regardless as to whether or not organic and non-GMO food actually has better health benefits, people do not shop at Whole Foods just so they can show off the green bag to everyone else. Unlike say fashion, automobiles, or even gadgets, groceries are not ideal for 'signaling' Believe it or not, most people don't have the luxury (or even the inclination) of sitting in a nice chair with their mean looking cat dreaming up ways of hurting others. Most people are just trying to get by... though obviously this greatly varies from person to person.
- MawNicker 10y ago
  You're making a distinction about their intent but not their effect.
  - chaostheory 10y ago
    Yes, you're right. I strongly feel that it's very important to have more empathy for people regardless of their background. Demonizing people who are different from you with an accusation without merit doesn't help anyone.

tehabe 10y ago

I remember Linus Torvalds talking about this, getting a home in a good school district is difficult and expensive but not getting one has consequences. And when you read this, you really understand the Finnish idea that all school should be equally good, a competition between them will lead to good, better, and bad schools.

velodrome 10y ago
One word: Gentrification. It affects other aspects of our society, not just education. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentrification
striking 10y ago
Linus' post: https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/J1NCgKQi55X https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/J1NCgKQi55X
pkaye 10y ago
I live in a city in California where within the same school district, there is one school in the 99% percentile ranking while the others are in the mid range.
awoeifjs 10y ago
Another reason Finnish schools are so successful: Finland ethnic groups: Finn 93.4%, Swede 5.6%, Russian 0.5%, Estonian 0.3%, Roma (Gypsy) 0.1%, Sami 0.1% (2006)
- pyrale 10y ago
  I would be interested in a study establishing that this correlation is in fact a cause.
rayiner 10y ago
There is no such thing as a "good school district." In D.C. there is a neighborhood called Capitol Hill. The local elementary school is Brent. 5-10 years ago, rich people would never have sent their kids to that school. It was 80% low-income, and the test scores were terrible. The area has dramatically gentrified over the last several years, and now it's one of the best schools in the city (and less than 15% low-income). Nothing changed about the school or the teachers--what changed is how much money the students parents' have. The problem in the U.S. isn't that we have "good schools" and "bad schools." It's that we have extreme segregation along racial and economic lines. Our policies create pockets of schools that are 90% low-income (and usually a similar percentage black or hispanic). It's a symptom of a society with extreme segregation and wealth inequality, not a cause.

bradleyjg 10y ago

If we decoupled housing from education as much as possible then at least people wouldn't be forced to buy all sorts of other amenities that they might or might not want along with the educations they do want. There'd be a lot of winners from such a change, but the big losers would be incumbent homeowners in neighborhoods with "good schools" that have had that circumstance capitalized into the prices of their homes. Unfortunately that's quite a powerful group of people.

tinbucket 10y ago
I don't disagree with you, but how would that work? How would you select pupils to fill the limited number of places in the desirable schools from a pool of candidates that would be much, much bigger?
- burfog 10y ago
  Note that there would be 0 places in desirable schools. When you dilute the good kids, the AP classes get cancelled. When bad kids are roaming about and starting fights in the middle of lessons, teaching turns into babysitting. It's not a matter of money. DC spends more per student than nearly everybody else. It's a matter of student quality.
- bradleyjg 10y ago
  Personally I like vouchers and school choice, with a variety of school philosophies and admissions processes. But even random assignment across larger geographical areas than are common today would be break the link between housing and quasi-public school tuition. Needless to say I reject burfog's claim that we currently have an efficient meritocracy and that the betas, deltas and gammas should just make peace with their stations in life.
- rjdevereux 10y ago
  Yes, that's one way to do it. That's how it works for a lot of charter schools. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg&feature=youtu.be&t=111 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKTfaro96dg&feature=youtu.be...
10y ago

raarts 10y ago

Combine this with the other HN submission on that it 's not so much where you study but what, it's a bad call for parents to try to get their kids on an expensive school. They would be better off getting their kids to choose a STEM major even at a cheaper school.

Throwaway23412 10y ago
That submission is about colleges. This submission is about high schools. The differences in quality between high schools is drastically more varied than differences in quality between colleges.

naveen99 10y ago

One thing I don't like about us public k-12 schools is there stringent attendance policies. I wish there funding wasn't tied to holding our kids hostage during the school day. One of the reasons my children go to private school.

otoburb 10y ago
My experiences with private schools is that they have just as, if not more, stringent attendance policies. The consequence of non-attendance always seems to lead to expulsion.
- naveen99 10y ago
  Private schools will allow advanced arrangements, like making up work, or homework in Leiu of attendance. Public schools are not interested in expulsion, they threaten calling child protective services. Not my district but see example attendance policy http://www.escobedoms.com/pdf/Parent_Attendance_Guide.pdf http://www.escobedoms.com/pdf/Parent_Attendance_Guide.pdf from a quick google search. Public schools literally consider too many absences a crime ("truancy"), partly because their funding is directly tied to number of days students are in class. Private schools will charge you the same tuition regardless of how much vacation you take just like college.
tamana 10y ago
How much vacations do your kids take?
- naveen99 10y ago
  its harder for me to get time off when school is out, because many of my colleagues also have children, and not everyone can take off. So I take my kids out of school when i can take vacation... first world problems :( Some people will de-register and then re-register their children in public school as a way around it, but its not practical to do multiple times a year.

jgalt212 10y ago

You know why the children of the upper middle class try so hard? Because their parents almost made it.

cushychicken 10y ago

> he has two very well-educated and successful daughters. They are, in a sense, his retirement plan: Barring extenuating circumstances, they will be in a position to care for him and his wife in their later years. We should all be so lucky. I'm not quite sure how saddling my children with the cost of my care and feeding in my twilight years is a better choice than letting them go to public school and state universities. Seems like that's just passing the buck on who has to pay that particular bill.

refurb 10y ago
I have to agree. I understand wanting to give your children all the benifits you can, but it doesn't make much sense to do it at the expense of your own financial stability.
- jschwartzi 10y ago
  Speaking as someone whose parents prioritized their financial security and their hobbies, and having the experiences I have now, I can tell you that it's not a decision I would make lightly. It mattered a great deal which public schools I went to because it mattered a great deal which college I got in to. I went to a middling public school, so I ended up in a middling college. The only reason I've ended up where I am is that I'm very lucky. I could easily have ended up working retail like nearly all of my friends from high school. Knowing that actually makes me afraid to have children, because it's really likely that they'll be worse off than I am.

known 10y ago

Everyday experiences of discrimination (such as being treated with less respect or receiving poorer service) are common and affect black people in the US more frequently than white people. http://qz.com/334366/why-black-americans-cant-sleep-at-night-racism/ http://qz.com/334366/why-black-americans-cant-sleep-at-night...