5 ms·

When the school is on the other side of town the parents get involved in the students life and education less. They drop them off and pick them up and that's a

When the school is on the other side of town the parents get involved in the students life and education less. They drop them off and pick them up and that's about as far as the interaction goes --they don't go to school functions, PTA activities, or other activities. There is more involvement from parents of kids who live close to the schools and they demand more from the system.

tabeth 10y ago
Sure. I don't disagree with any of that. I still think you'd just be trading one problem for another. In the case that you have to live close then you would have to be wealthy enough to live close to a school that has activities and after school functions, etc, worth going to. The only people who'd be OK with that are obviously the people who either (a) already live close, or (b) can easily afford to move close to the better schools (of course the rich can always just send their kids to private schools, as well). Poor people would prefer randomness since they're unlikely to get a top tier education for their kids anyway. Randomness gives them a chance. People wealthy enough to care but not wealthy enough to send their kids to private schools, on the other hand obviously won't like this: they'd prefer to guarantee their kids educational security via money.
- Decade 10y ago
  Poor people also prefer schools nearby, or some place you don’t need 90 minutes and 2 bus transfers to go to school. What has been improving San Francisco schools (e.g. Balboa High School) was Asians taking over. Which is not a preferable mechanism, in many ways. What would make San Francisco schools even better is to be able to afford to hire more teachers. The naive approach is to pump more money into the district, and we really should reform Proposition 13 of 1978, but a more practical approach would be to legalize housing construction, so teachers wouldn’t have to compete so much for non-luxury housing with firemen and nurses and service workers and homeless crackheads.
  - shostack 10y ago
    That's a pretty broad and charged statement (re: "Asians"). Mind citing some sources or at least walking us through the logic?
    - pizzetta 10y ago
      Not directly answering your question, but Lowell HS[1] is the only high performing public HS in SF. Its admission is performance-based and is mostly Asian (56+%). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_(San_Francisco) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_(San_Franci...
  - loafa 10y ago
    "More teachers" is a naive solution too. It's what teachers' unions are always pushing for, but it's not well correlated with improved outcomes. One thing that does work: segregating students by ability.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    >would be to legalize housing construction, so teachers wouldn’t have to compete so much for non-luxury housing with firemen and nurses and service workers and homeless crackheads. Serious question here: Why do teachers, firemen, and nurses need non-luxury housing? Why do they need housing at all in fact? If they can't afford to live in SanFran, wouldn't it make more sense for them to just stay out, and go live somewhere else? For getting people to do those jobs, then places in SF would then need to pay them a princely sum to endure a long commute from other nearby cities. Or if that's too much, SF can simply go without firemen, teachers, and nurses and many other service workers. Surely that would quickly fix the housing problem in SF.

tabeth 10y ago

Sure. I don't disagree with any of that. I still think you'd just be trading one problem for another. In the case that you have to live close then you would have to be wealthy enough to live close to a school that has activities and after school functions, etc, worth going to. The only people who'd be OK with that are obviously the people who either (a) already live close, or (b) can easily afford to move close to the better schools (of course the rich can always just send their kids to private schools, as well). Poor people would prefer randomness since they're unlikely to get a top tier education for their kids anyway. Randomness gives them a chance. People wealthy enough to care but not wealthy enough to send their kids to private schools, on the other hand obviously won't like this: they'd prefer to guarantee their kids educational security via money.

Decade 10y ago
Poor people also prefer schools nearby, or some place you don’t need 90 minutes and 2 bus transfers to go to school. What has been improving San Francisco schools (e.g. Balboa High School) was Asians taking over. Which is not a preferable mechanism, in many ways. What would make San Francisco schools even better is to be able to afford to hire more teachers. The naive approach is to pump more money into the district, and we really should reform Proposition 13 of 1978, but a more practical approach would be to legalize housing construction, so teachers wouldn’t have to compete so much for non-luxury housing with firemen and nurses and service workers and homeless crackheads.
- shostack 10y ago
  That's a pretty broad and charged statement (re: "Asians"). Mind citing some sources or at least walking us through the logic?
  - pizzetta 10y ago
    Not directly answering your question, but Lowell HS[1] is the only high performing public HS in SF. Its admission is performance-based and is mostly Asian (56+%). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_(San_Francisco) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_High_School_(San_Franci...
- loafa 10y ago
  "More teachers" is a naive solution too. It's what teachers' unions are always pushing for, but it's not well correlated with improved outcomes. One thing that does work: segregating students by ability.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  >would be to legalize housing construction, so teachers wouldn’t have to compete so much for non-luxury housing with firemen and nurses and service workers and homeless crackheads. Serious question here: Why do teachers, firemen, and nurses need non-luxury housing? Why do they need housing at all in fact? If they can't afford to live in SanFran, wouldn't it make more sense for them to just stay out, and go live somewhere else? For getting people to do those jobs, then places in SF would then need to pay them a princely sum to endure a long commute from other nearby cities. Or if that's too much, SF can simply go without firemen, teachers, and nurses and many other service workers. Surely that would quickly fix the housing problem in SF.