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I've also heard from a number of sources, including Finnish acquaintances, that there's more consensus in Finnish society about what kids should be doing in sch

I've also heard from a number of sources, including Finnish acquaintances, that there's more consensus in Finnish society about what kids should be doing in school. In the U.S., there's a decades-long consensus that schools should be better, along with heated, unresolved debates about all the details: discipline (including physical discipline), religious instruction and history, evolution, violence and bullying, homework, sex ed, sports, civil rights history, vocational training, school district borders and school assignment, arts and music, financial literacy, dress codes, cafeteria menus, disabilities and mental health issues, handwriting, testing, student transportation, animal dissection... The list goes on and on, and the battle lines are more complex than red versus blue. Since there's no agreement, but everyone thinks they know part of the solution, politicians (and voters) at every level of government attempt to impose their will on the schools, meaning more and more regulations for educators and students.

wolfgke 10y ago
Why not allow (mostly) autonomy to the schools in this kind of question so that there is a school for every taste (as long as their are enough parents with children to fill the classrooms of such a school)? Parents should (mostly) not care to what school children of other parents go as long there is a school that satisfies their desires for their children.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  Are you aware of the US' population density? I grew up in a town where the entire population, at the last census, was a bit over 11,000 people. It would've taken probably two hours or more each way to provide bus service to the local "big city" (a whopping 50,000 people!). How would you support multiple schools offering real choice in approach in a community that size and that spread out? And then how would you scale it to work in all the other places in the US which are like this?
  - Broken_Hippo 10y ago
    It isn't easily solvable for young students, but for high school age kids it is. You can increase course offerings through some sort of in-school distance learning. The last 2 years, when kids are generally 16-18 could sometimes go away to school. Of course, all of this requires some investment and planning. The political fix would be to buss the students to far-flung schools.
  - orf 10y ago
    I come from a town in England with 15,000 residents. It has 3 secondary schools (sort of like high schools) and 2-3 primary schools. Just... Build schools.
- robotresearcher 10y ago
  We need to protect children from the desires of their badly-educated parents. Large populations of people believe all kinds of crazy stuff that most of us prefer not to help propagate with our tax dollars.
  - ticviking 10y ago
    And those people would rather to pay taxes to have their children taught to disdain and look down on them.
    - robotresearcher 10y ago
      The same way we feel about segregationist grandparents. Yes.
specialist 10y ago
...there's more consensus in Finnish society about what kids should be doing in school. Discord in the USA's schools is caused by warring factions of profiteers whose sole innovation is ever more clever means of fleecing tax payers. The dashed hopes, dreams, and prospects of students, parents, teachers are just collateral damage in the pursuit of more pork. Whenever someone gins up a controversy, or pimps yet another new education meme, first ask who is getting paid, second how much.
- ticviking 10y ago
  Evidence please? Particularly given that these issues happen to pretty much fall along the major cultural and political divide in the US. I suspect that the same root causes of our political discord, are also the root causes of our lack of educational consensus.
  - specialist 10y ago
    What measure of evidence do you require?
    - Nomentatus 10y ago
      Start anywhere. For example, I know of sources detailing masses of money lost on educational innovations using private money, without result, but I don't think that helps your case. For example, on the other side, if one wanted to show evidence that schooling effects are just signalling anyway, one might start here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/10/04/links-1016-new-urleans/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/10/04/links-1016-new-urleans/ Your turn.
      - specialist 10y ago
        What portions of that link are relevant? All I see is a link dump. "Signaling"? As in virtue signaling? Is that your site? I approve of lesswrong, Brookings Institute, the Atlantic... And reviewing your comment history, I'm going to gamble on the hope that you're persuadable. You kinda "sound" like a libertarian, so you might enjoy this publication from criticalthinking.org: http://atom.curtin.edu.au/SAM_Ed%20Fadsopt.pdf http://atom.curtin.edu.au/SAM_Ed%20Fadsopt.pdf First hit when I google "fads in education". Result! The intro is better than I could have said it: "The history of education is also the history of educational panaceas, the comings and goings of quick fixes for deep-seated educational problems. This old problem is dramatically on the increase. The result is intensifying fragmentation of energy and effort in the schools, together with a significant waste of time and money. Many teachers become increasingly cynical and jaded. It is time to recognize that education will never be improved by educational fads, and that the manner in which educational trends are marketed guarantees that they will be transformed into fads. Fads by their nature are fated to self-destruction. Parents, educators, and citizen activists need to understand the problem of educational fads so that they can effectively distinguish substantive efforts at educational reform from superficial ones. Hence the motivation for this guide." It includes many fads I hadn't heard of. Its also about 10 years old, and it focuses on the classroom, so it doesn't include more recent nonsense like Common Core, Race to the Top, charter schools, most recent attempts of educational software, computers in the classroom, standardized testing, ranking teachers... Need I go on? --- What this paper, and many others, leave out is the role of procurement as the engine behind the fads. A lot of money is in play. The best public example I can think of is Dr Richard Feymann's anecdote about buying school books. I'm sure there's similar accounts for every failed fad, if I bothered to look. Especially all this standardized testing, which is the most efficient money extraction scheme cooked up to date. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-the-racket-with-standardized-test-scores/2013/04/01/1bbd61ea-9b01-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-the-... This is surprisingly well sourced: Standardized Testing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k --- Any way. I'm glad I did this. A trip down memory lane. My boss's boss was Dr John Goodlad. Here's his obit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/01/the-passing-of-a-giant-in-education/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/... Dr Goodlad was a great guy, he did great works. Practical, pragmatic, diplomatic, wicked smart, no bullshit. But education reform is like fighting a mob. Everyone's an expert; calm, rational people get shouted down or mowed over. Oh well. I have many friends who still work in education and reform. The fight goes on.

wolfgke 10y ago

Why not allow (mostly) autonomy to the schools in this kind of question so that there is a school for every taste (as long as their are enough parents with children to fill the classrooms of such a school)? Parents should (mostly) not care to what school children of other parents go as long there is a school that satisfies their desires for their children.

ubernostrum 10y ago
Are you aware of the US' population density? I grew up in a town where the entire population, at the last census, was a bit over 11,000 people. It would've taken probably two hours or more each way to provide bus service to the local "big city" (a whopping 50,000 people!). How would you support multiple schools offering real choice in approach in a community that size and that spread out? And then how would you scale it to work in all the other places in the US which are like this?
- Broken_Hippo 10y ago
  It isn't easily solvable for young students, but for high school age kids it is. You can increase course offerings through some sort of in-school distance learning. The last 2 years, when kids are generally 16-18 could sometimes go away to school. Of course, all of this requires some investment and planning. The political fix would be to buss the students to far-flung schools.
- orf 10y ago
  I come from a town in England with 15,000 residents. It has 3 secondary schools (sort of like high schools) and 2-3 primary schools. Just... Build schools.
robotresearcher 10y ago
We need to protect children from the desires of their badly-educated parents. Large populations of people believe all kinds of crazy stuff that most of us prefer not to help propagate with our tax dollars.
- ticviking 10y ago
  And those people would rather to pay taxes to have their children taught to disdain and look down on them.
  - robotresearcher 10y ago
    The same way we feel about segregationist grandparents. Yes.

specialist 10y ago

...there's more consensus in Finnish society about what kids should be doing in school. Discord in the USA's schools is caused by warring factions of profiteers whose sole innovation is ever more clever means of fleecing tax payers. The dashed hopes, dreams, and prospects of students, parents, teachers are just collateral damage in the pursuit of more pork. Whenever someone gins up a controversy, or pimps yet another new education meme, first ask who is getting paid, second how much.

ticviking 10y ago
Evidence please? Particularly given that these issues happen to pretty much fall along the major cultural and political divide in the US. I suspect that the same root causes of our political discord, are also the root causes of our lack of educational consensus.
- specialist 10y ago
  What measure of evidence do you require?
  - Nomentatus 10y ago
    Start anywhere. For example, I know of sources detailing masses of money lost on educational innovations using private money, without result, but I don't think that helps your case. For example, on the other side, if one wanted to show evidence that schooling effects are just signalling anyway, one might start here: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/10/04/links-1016-new-urleans/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/10/04/links-1016-new-urleans/ Your turn.
    - specialist 10y ago
      What portions of that link are relevant? All I see is a link dump. "Signaling"? As in virtue signaling? Is that your site? I approve of lesswrong, Brookings Institute, the Atlantic... And reviewing your comment history, I'm going to gamble on the hope that you're persuadable. You kinda "sound" like a libertarian, so you might enjoy this publication from criticalthinking.org: http://atom.curtin.edu.au/SAM_Ed%20Fadsopt.pdf http://atom.curtin.edu.au/SAM_Ed%20Fadsopt.pdf First hit when I google "fads in education". Result! The intro is better than I could have said it: "The history of education is also the history of educational panaceas, the comings and goings of quick fixes for deep-seated educational problems. This old problem is dramatically on the increase. The result is intensifying fragmentation of energy and effort in the schools, together with a significant waste of time and money. Many teachers become increasingly cynical and jaded. It is time to recognize that education will never be improved by educational fads, and that the manner in which educational trends are marketed guarantees that they will be transformed into fads. Fads by their nature are fated to self-destruction. Parents, educators, and citizen activists need to understand the problem of educational fads so that they can effectively distinguish substantive efforts at educational reform from superficial ones. Hence the motivation for this guide." It includes many fads I hadn't heard of. Its also about 10 years old, and it focuses on the classroom, so it doesn't include more recent nonsense like Common Core, Race to the Top, charter schools, most recent attempts of educational software, computers in the classroom, standardized testing, ranking teachers... Need I go on? --- What this paper, and many others, leave out is the role of procurement as the engine behind the fads. A lot of money is in play. The best public example I can think of is Dr Richard Feymann's anecdote about buying school books. I'm sure there's similar accounts for every failed fad, if I bothered to look. Especially all this standardized testing, which is the most efficient money extraction scheme cooked up to date. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-the-racket-with-standardized-test-scores/2013/04/01/1bbd61ea-9b01-11e2-a941-a19bce7af755_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-the-... This is surprisingly well sourced: Standardized Testing: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6lyURyVz7k --- Any way. I'm glad I did this. A trip down memory lane. My boss's boss was Dr John Goodlad. Here's his obit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/01/the-passing-of-a-giant-in-education/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2014/12/... Dr Goodlad was a great guy, he did great works. Practical, pragmatic, diplomatic, wicked smart, no bullshit. But education reform is like fighting a mob. Everyone's an expert; calm, rational people get shouted down or mowed over. Oh well. I have many friends who still work in education and reform. The fight goes on.