6 ms·

So shame them for being classist and racist. Public education is a public investment.

by duaneb 10y ago

Kalium 10y ago
You're welcome to shame people moving their kids to better schools as classist and racist. It might work! With that said, I have some doubts that such a policy would accomplish what you might hope for. Most people, even those who wish people wouldn't, understand and sympathize with parents trying to get the best possible education for their kids.
- rayiner 10y ago
  "Better schools?" They'd be the same schools, just with some additional lower income kids.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    I am operating in the context of a *parent comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12694649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12694649 I'm open to the possibility that the measured quality of a school does not change if you make significant changes to its constituent populations, but it seems like a large enough question to not be assumed in passing.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      Sure going from 1% low income to 10% low income will have the short term effect of changing the overall average test scores. But how will it change the quality of education for the existing students? It'll be the same teachers, same curriculum, same facilities, etc.
      - Kalium 10y ago
        The educational experience of students is not dictated wholly by teachers, curriculum, and facilities.
        tptacek 10y ago
        You are coming dangerously close to implying that children in poorly performing school districts are intrinsically unschoolable. That can't be what you mean to imply, so I think maybe step back and examine how you've ended up in an incoherent position.
        Kalium 10y ago
        I don't think anyone is unschoolable. I do think that changing populations can mean changing how resources are allocated, and this can affect more than just the part of the population that has changed. For example, I've seen schools cut special needs education programs because populations have shifted and resources haven't.
        harryh 10y ago
        "intrinsically unschoolable" might be going to far, but I think it's generally agreed upon that children in poorly performing school districts are (on average) more difficult to teach. It's also generally agreed upon that students have an impact on their peers. This is the whole rationalization for better integrated schools in the first place. We can certainly debate how many (as a % or raw number) challenging students a "good school" can import before overall quality begins to degrade. But I don't think that it's especially controversial to say that degradation will happen at some point.
        tptacek 10y ago
        Yes, but it's not agreed upon why that's the case, and that's Rayiner's point. If the problem is that students are forced to compete academically while being raised in broken neighborhoods, moving them out of those neighborhoods might be a better solution than pouring more money into the schools. I don't know that I agree with the intervention he's recommending, but the underlying point he's making makes sense.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        There is considerable evidence showing this is more or less true. "Intrinsically unschoolable" is a strong and incorrect statement, but "less schoolable" yields similar conclusions and is well supported by research. Consider Raj Chetty's work; he shows that the primary determinant of student performance is intrinsic student qualities, but that teachers also matter a fair bit. http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/value_added.pdf http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/value_added.pdf http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/w19423.pdf http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/w19423.pdf Why would you consider this factual claim to be an "incoherent position"?
- tptacek 10y ago
  First let me say that by moving my family with two young kids to Oak Park, I was almost definitionally participating in the phenomenon that turn suburban public schools into de facto private schools. People move to Oak Park because it's on the Green and Blue CTA lines; it's a suburb that feels like living in a particularly nice residential part of Chicago. You move to Oak Park because you want all the perks of Chicago without exposure to its school system. So with that having been said, and recognizing my own role: Why exactly should we sympathize with parents who react to problems in their school systems by using their economic leverage both to exempt their own kids from those problems and also, by altering the tax base for their original school system, making those problems worse? Why is that praiseworthy? It doesn't seem praiseworthy to me. It seems to me like just another of those little pragmatic immoralities we all undertake regularly. We have few problems seeing the problem when it takes the form of kids going to Choate and Bowdoin. But at the smaller scale we all deal with, we seem unable to recognize the same thing happening. We seem to believe can't possibly be a part of the problem. But, of course, we are. I don't mean to crucify anyone for doing it. After all, I did it too. But I think we can reasonably draw the line at rationalizing or valorizing the de facto privatization of good public education in our country.
  - Kalium 10y ago
    I don't know if I'd call it praiseworthy. I do think it's the sort of pragmatic immorality that a great many parents are happy to take on for the perceived benefits gained. As a result, it's easy to oppose for the large-scale effects but difficult to oppose as individual choices. I think we should be careful about the difference between rationalizing and understanding the decisions parents make. The two are readily confused on the best of days, and political discussions about school quality generally don't happen on the best of days.
    - tptacek 10y ago
      We all seem to have an enormous moral blind spot when it comes to our children competing with other children.
      - 10y ago

So shame them for being classist and racist. Public education is a public investment.

by duaneb 10y ago

So shame them for being classist and racist. Public education is a public investment.

You're welcome to shame people moving their kids to better schools as classist and racist. It might work! With that said, I have some doubts that such a policy would accomplish what you might hope for. Most people, even those who wish people wouldn't, understand and sympathize with parents trying to get the best possible education for their kids.

rayiner 10y ago
"Better schools?" They'd be the same schools, just with some additional lower income kids.
- Kalium 10y ago
  I am operating in the context of a *parent comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12694649 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12694649 I'm open to the possibility that the measured quality of a school does not change if you make significant changes to its constituent populations, but it seems like a large enough question to not be assumed in passing.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    Sure going from 1% low income to 10% low income will have the short term effect of changing the overall average test scores. But how will it change the quality of education for the existing students? It'll be the same teachers, same curriculum, same facilities, etc.
    - Kalium 10y ago
      The educational experience of students is not dictated wholly by teachers, curriculum, and facilities.
      - tptacek 10y ago
        You are coming dangerously close to implying that children in poorly performing school districts are intrinsically unschoolable. That can't be what you mean to imply, so I think maybe step back and examine how you've ended up in an incoherent position.
        Kalium 10y ago
        I don't think anyone is unschoolable. I do think that changing populations can mean changing how resources are allocated, and this can affect more than just the part of the population that has changed. For example, I've seen schools cut special needs education programs because populations have shifted and resources haven't.
        harryh 10y ago
        "intrinsically unschoolable" might be going to far, but I think it's generally agreed upon that children in poorly performing school districts are (on average) more difficult to teach. It's also generally agreed upon that students have an impact on their peers. This is the whole rationalization for better integrated schools in the first place. We can certainly debate how many (as a % or raw number) challenging students a "good school" can import before overall quality begins to degrade. But I don't think that it's especially controversial to say that degradation will happen at some point.
        tptacek 10y ago
        Yes, but it's not agreed upon why that's the case, and that's Rayiner's point. If the problem is that students are forced to compete academically while being raised in broken neighborhoods, moving them out of those neighborhoods might be a better solution than pouring more money into the schools. I don't know that I agree with the intervention he's recommending, but the underlying point he's making makes sense.
        yummyfajitas 10y ago
        There is considerable evidence showing this is more or less true. "Intrinsically unschoolable" is a strong and incorrect statement, but "less schoolable" yields similar conclusions and is well supported by research. Consider Raj Chetty's work; he shows that the primary determinant of student performance is intrinsic student qualities, but that teachers also matter a fair bit. http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/value_added.pdf http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/value_added.pdf http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/w19423.pdf http://www.rajchetty.com/chettyfiles/w19423.pdf Why would you consider this factual claim to be an "incoherent position"?
tptacek 10y ago
First let me say that by moving my family with two young kids to Oak Park, I was almost definitionally participating in the phenomenon that turn suburban public schools into de facto private schools. People move to Oak Park because it's on the Green and Blue CTA lines; it's a suburb that feels like living in a particularly nice residential part of Chicago. You move to Oak Park because you want all the perks of Chicago without exposure to its school system. So with that having been said, and recognizing my own role: Why exactly should we sympathize with parents who react to problems in their school systems by using their economic leverage both to exempt their own kids from those problems and also, by altering the tax base for their original school system, making those problems worse? Why is that praiseworthy? It doesn't seem praiseworthy to me. It seems to me like just another of those little pragmatic immoralities we all undertake regularly. We have few problems seeing the problem when it takes the form of kids going to Choate and Bowdoin. But at the smaller scale we all deal with, we seem unable to recognize the same thing happening. We seem to believe can't possibly be a part of the problem. But, of course, we are. I don't mean to crucify anyone for doing it. After all, I did it too. But I think we can reasonably draw the line at rationalizing or valorizing the de facto privatization of good public education in our country.
- Kalium 10y ago
  I don't know if I'd call it praiseworthy. I do think it's the sort of pragmatic immorality that a great many parents are happy to take on for the perceived benefits gained. As a result, it's easy to oppose for the large-scale effects but difficult to oppose as individual choices. I think we should be careful about the difference between rationalizing and understanding the decisions parents make. The two are readily confused on the best of days, and political discussions about school quality generally don't happen on the best of days.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    We all seem to have an enormous moral blind spot when it comes to our children competing with other children.
    - 10y ago