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1. It looks like public spending on K-12 education in Finland is already quite a bit less than in the United States (adjusted for PPP) [a]. Spending more doesn'

by evanpw 10y ago

1. It looks like public spending on K-12 education in Finland is already quite a bit less than in the United States (adjusted for PPP) [a]. Spending more doesn't necessarily get you better results. 2. Private school attendance in the US is: small, decreasing, and mostly Catholic [b]. 3. The criterion for "low-income" is this article is access to free or reduced lunches, which for a family of 4 means an income of less than $45k / year [c]. That's pretty close to the median household income, so it makes sense that about half of kids would be "low-income". a. http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/center-on-international-education-benchmarking/top-performing-countries/finland-overview/finland-system-and-school-organization/ http://www.ncee.org/programs-affiliates/center-on-internatio... b. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cgc.asp c. https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-03-23/pdf/2016-06463.pdf https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-03-23/pdf/2016-06463.p...

bufordsharkley 10y ago
I'm not sure I'd call 6% "small," but it is encouraging that it's shrinking. I'd like to see more of this broken down between urban and suburban areas. For instance, in most major cities, the percentages are far higher[0] and the percentage of students left behind are far more likely to be poor: in Chicago, for example, 87% of students are low-income families[1]. [0] http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/chicago_fed_letter/2006/cfloctober2006_231.pdf http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/chicag... [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/kristof-students-over-unions.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/kristof-students-o...
- rayiner 10y ago
  Fun fact: In Chicago, the second largest school system is the Archdiocese of Chicago catholic schools (which has 40k students to CPS's 400k). They spent about half what CPS does per pupil.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    Though consider also that: * They benefit from the enormous selection bias of "parents who take financial pains to send their kids to Catholic school". * They have carte blanche to dismiss problematic and challenging students back to the public school system. * They generally don't offer programs for learning disabled and behaviorally disabled students. * They aren't obliged to honor the CPS students per classroom maximum. * Catholic school teachers take a pay cut to serve in that system. * They generally have poorer facilities than the Chicago public schools. I'm a product of Chicago Catholic schools, and I was pretty amazed to see what the local public school system offered my own kids.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      That's all true. But that raises the question of whether we should be burdening public schools with providing all those social services in the first place. Maybe we should be figuring out how to provide those social services in a more systematic and formal way.

by evanpw 10y ago

bufordsharkley 10y ago

I'm not sure I'd call 6% "small," but it is encouraging that it's shrinking. I'd like to see more of this broken down between urban and suburban areas. For instance, in most major cities, the percentages are far higher[0] and the percentage of students left behind are far more likely to be poor: in Chicago, for example, 87% of students are low-income families[1]. [0] http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/chicago_fed_letter/2006/cfloctober2006_231.pdf http://www.chicagofed.org/digital_assets/publications/chicag... [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/kristof-students-over-unions.html?ref=opinion&_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/13/opinion/kristof-students-o...

rayiner 10y ago
Fun fact: In Chicago, the second largest school system is the Archdiocese of Chicago catholic schools (which has 40k students to CPS's 400k). They spent about half what CPS does per pupil.
- tptacek 10y ago
  Though consider also that: * They benefit from the enormous selection bias of "parents who take financial pains to send their kids to Catholic school". * They have carte blanche to dismiss problematic and challenging students back to the public school system. * They generally don't offer programs for learning disabled and behaviorally disabled students. * They aren't obliged to honor the CPS students per classroom maximum. * Catholic school teachers take a pay cut to serve in that system. * They generally have poorer facilities than the Chicago public schools. I'm a product of Chicago Catholic schools, and I was pretty amazed to see what the local public school system offered my own kids.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    That's all true. But that raises the question of whether we should be burdening public schools with providing all those social services in the first place. Maybe we should be figuring out how to provide those social services in a more systematic and formal way.