4 ms·

But you could argue that society (the "employer" here) will benefit a lot from having smart, well-trained workers who keep high-paying jobs in America and such.

But you could argue that society (the "employer" here) will benefit a lot from having smart, well-trained workers who keep high-paying jobs in America and such. It also might allow them to roll back some of the budget increases that were meant to increase performance but failed. So though they're not generating the revenue now, they might save some money now by being able to succeed in a cheaper-to-run school, and they'll generate lots of tax revenue later if America stays the economic powerhouse that it is instead of having a lot of those jobs move to Europe and China and India.

wdewind 17y ago
Straight A students != smart, educated workers. The majority of students coming out of 4 years of college, regardless of GPA, have little to no understanding of what actual productive work is without being told what to do (little executive function). Kids should not be bribed to do school work. If you have to bribe by definition we are doing something wrong. What's needed here is a refactoring of incentives. We should absolutely be paying kids, but they should be generating value. It's never too early to understand what generating value is, and everyone can create value (side note: profits are correlated to value now, but they are not causally related. We should work on that). Starting to work is a really important part of education, and shouldn't be thought of as what education is training you to do. Edit: And I don't think it should be like this, but generally speaking if you get good grades you'll have a relatively easier time in life and higher paying jobs so in that regard kids already are being bribed to get good grades they are just too stupid to see it.
- jackowayed 17y ago
  I agree that straight A students aren't necessarily smart, educated workers, but I do think that if you get the kids to learn more from school, you'll end up with more smart, educated workers than you would have. And yes, it is true that getting straight A's, going to a good college, etc all make life easier and better for kids (in general). But it's hard to get people, especially kids, to see that long-range. In second grade, was getting into a good college a factor in how hard you tried whatsoever?

wdewind 17y ago

Straight A students != smart, educated workers. The majority of students coming out of 4 years of college, regardless of GPA, have little to no understanding of what actual productive work is without being told what to do (little executive function). Kids should not be bribed to do school work. If you have to bribe by definition we are doing something wrong. What's needed here is a refactoring of incentives. We should absolutely be paying kids, but they should be generating value. It's never too early to understand what generating value is, and everyone can create value (side note: profits are correlated to value now, but they are not causally related. We should work on that). Starting to work is a really important part of education, and shouldn't be thought of as what education is training you to do. Edit: And I don't think it should be like this, but generally speaking if you get good grades you'll have a relatively easier time in life and higher paying jobs so in that regard kids already are being bribed to get good grades they are just too stupid to see it.

jackowayed 17y ago
I agree that straight A students aren't necessarily smart, educated workers, but I do think that if you get the kids to learn more from school, you'll end up with more smart, educated workers than you would have. And yes, it is true that getting straight A's, going to a good college, etc all make life easier and better for kids (in general). But it's hard to get people, especially kids, to see that long-range. In second grade, was getting into a good college a factor in how hard you tried whatsoever?