4 ms·

Yeah, I've always found that the emphasis on schools to be a bit of a cop out. You might as well ask how the schools in Syria can reduce the violence faced by k

Yeah, I've always found that the emphasis on schools to be a bit of a cop out. You might as well ask how the schools in Syria can reduce the violence faced by kids there: "See, the schools in area A [unaffected by war] have students are are much safer than the ones in area B [in the middle of a war zone]. We need to reform the schools in area B to make them more like A." I guess people like to focus on schools because it ties into the idea that we're a meritocracy ("anyone will succeed, as long as they go to a decent school"). It also lessens the burden for the rest of society - we only need to think about making schools decent enough. We don't need to think about putting more resources into supporting struggling families, or reforming societal structures at the root of massive inequality.

rayiner 9y ago
I've long believed the same thing. Our "liberals" today focus on schools because it allows them to buy into the idea of meritocracy and dismiss the other pesky social justice issues with a clean conscience. After a few years of living in downtown Baltimore and similar places, I've concluded that equality of opportunity achieved through schools is a crock. My wife and I lived in a high income Baltimore neighborhood (Bolton Hill) adjacent to a very low income one (Sandtown). Our daughter went to a private pre-K. You could put a retinue of Nobel laureates on the faculty of the elementary school in Sandtown and you wouldn't be able to convince the folks in our neighborhood to send our kids there. Trying to fix society with school is like trying to wag a dog by its tail. We're talking about neighborhoods here with massive dysfunction. Where gangs literally divide up the blocks and you'd better be in one or another lest you get beat up walking to school. There are no jobs--you see men milling around the neighborhood in the middle of the day. Teachers can't fix that.
- gavinpc 9y ago
  Thanks for paragraph two, but why the snarky dig at "liberals"? This tribal caricaturing is itself becoming part of the larger problem.
  - humanrebar 9y ago
    We were talking about Baltimore. All of our visits to the moon have come since there was a Republican mayor of Baltimore. In a less ideological point, I'd argue that a political monoculture is part of the issue. It's hard to hold local politicians accountable if there's no real chance for repercussions for being corrupt or just doing a poor job.
    - jdavis703 9y ago
      You hold the politicians accountable in primary elections then. Maybe more states will move to top-two style elections like California does for senators. In places with political party monocultures it gives alternative views within a party a shot at winning a general election.
      - dragonwriter 9y ago
        > Maybe more states will move to top-two style elections like California does for senators. California does that for most formerly-partisan offices (excluding Presidential electors), not just Senators. > In places with political party monocultures it gives alternative views within a party a shot at winning a general election. Specifically, in urban areas that tend to be supermajority Democrats (there's virtually nowhere with a Republican supermajority strong enough to make it likely that they'd get the top two spaces usually), it gives Republicans, particularly (which are usually the vast majority of non-Democrats) a say in which Democrat gets elected, skewing overall results further to the right.
      - Chathamization 9y ago
        I don't think the California system is great. It ends up benefiting whatever faction fields the least number of candidates. IE, if 40% of voters support the Purple Party and there are only 2 candidates, and 60% of voters support the Yellow Party but there are 10 candidates, there's a decent chance that in the general you'll have two Purple Party candidates even though fewer people support them. Anyway, in my experience the biggest issue with primary votes is that the vast majority of the population doesn't care, doesn't pay attention, and most don't even bother voting. Check out the turnout for most primaries (and California's "jungle primary" doesn't seem to have helped with turnout[1]), or ask the people around you about the positions between the two candidates in some of the recent local primaries. [1] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-meyerson-california-jungle-primary-20140622-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-meyerson-californ...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > Our "liberals" today focus on schools because it allows them to buy into the idea of meritocracy and dismiss the other pesky social justice issues with a clean conscience. Actually, liberals are far more likely to focus on the broader social justice issues with the schools as one component. It's conservatives who tend to focus on school performance in isolation (with the usual remedy being various forms of privatization.)
- acjohnson55 9y ago
  Most people would probably call my views "liberal", and I think that's a funny way of characterizing the liberal viewpoint. I, for one, am deeply distrustful of what we call meritocracy in this country. For one thing, we project the merit of parents (or lack thereof) onto their children. We do this in how we allow massive intergenerational transfers of wealth. But also, as you point out, the schools a child can attend are very dependent on who their parents are. In Chris Hayes' excellent book, Twilight of the Elites [1], he rejects meritocracy. Not only does he reject it in practice, for reasons like those I presented, but he also rejects it even in theory. He suggests that the idea of showering people with resources that show promise is an affront to the concept that every human being has fundamental value and that all should be invested in. Liberals, broadly speaking, do love schools. But I don't think that's for lack of concern about other issues of social justice! Perhaps you mean economic liberals (e.g. classical liberals and neoliberals)? [1] http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites-America-After-Meritocracy/dp/0307720462 http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites-America-After-Meritocr...
  - Oxitendwe 9y ago
    >In Chris Hayes' excellent book, Twilight of the Elites [1], he rejects meritocracy. Not only does he reject it in practice, for reasons like those I presented, but he also rejects it even in theory. He suggests that the idea of showering people with resources that show promise is an affront to the concept that every human being has fundamental value and that all should be invested in. That's insane, why shouldn't how many resources people get be dependent on their potential value to society? Why shouldn't we reward people who are faster, smarter, stronger, more than their lesser peers? We're not all equal, we do not all have "fundamental value" (see: murderers, child rapists, people who seek to do you harm for their own benefit, etc), and it makes no sense to invest the same amount in everyone. You wouldn't call your stock broker and tell him to invest the same amount of money in every stock. On another level, what sort of person can you really hope to aspire to if you have the same "fundamental value" as everyone else? If you don't yourself believe that you're smarter, or faster, or deserve more than everyone else because of your gifts, what reason do you have to ask for the resources to help you succeed better? The concept that you shouldn't optimize for utility to society is so fundamentally silly that I can't believe anyone could seriously believe it.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

rayiner 9y ago

I've long believed the same thing. Our "liberals" today focus on schools because it allows them to buy into the idea of meritocracy and dismiss the other pesky social justice issues with a clean conscience. After a few years of living in downtown Baltimore and similar places, I've concluded that equality of opportunity achieved through schools is a crock. My wife and I lived in a high income Baltimore neighborhood (Bolton Hill) adjacent to a very low income one (Sandtown). Our daughter went to a private pre-K. You could put a retinue of Nobel laureates on the faculty of the elementary school in Sandtown and you wouldn't be able to convince the folks in our neighborhood to send our kids there. Trying to fix society with school is like trying to wag a dog by its tail. We're talking about neighborhoods here with massive dysfunction. Where gangs literally divide up the blocks and you'd better be in one or another lest you get beat up walking to school. There are no jobs--you see men milling around the neighborhood in the middle of the day. Teachers can't fix that.

gavinpc 9y ago
Thanks for paragraph two, but why the snarky dig at "liberals"? This tribal caricaturing is itself becoming part of the larger problem.
- humanrebar 9y ago
  We were talking about Baltimore. All of our visits to the moon have come since there was a Republican mayor of Baltimore. In a less ideological point, I'd argue that a political monoculture is part of the issue. It's hard to hold local politicians accountable if there's no real chance for repercussions for being corrupt or just doing a poor job.
  - jdavis703 9y ago
    You hold the politicians accountable in primary elections then. Maybe more states will move to top-two style elections like California does for senators. In places with political party monocultures it gives alternative views within a party a shot at winning a general election.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      > Maybe more states will move to top-two style elections like California does for senators. California does that for most formerly-partisan offices (excluding Presidential electors), not just Senators. > In places with political party monocultures it gives alternative views within a party a shot at winning a general election. Specifically, in urban areas that tend to be supermajority Democrats (there's virtually nowhere with a Republican supermajority strong enough to make it likely that they'd get the top two spaces usually), it gives Republicans, particularly (which are usually the vast majority of non-Democrats) a say in which Democrat gets elected, skewing overall results further to the right.
    - Chathamization 9y ago
      I don't think the California system is great. It ends up benefiting whatever faction fields the least number of candidates. IE, if 40% of voters support the Purple Party and there are only 2 candidates, and 60% of voters support the Yellow Party but there are 10 candidates, there's a decent chance that in the general you'll have two Purple Party candidates even though fewer people support them. Anyway, in my experience the biggest issue with primary votes is that the vast majority of the population doesn't care, doesn't pay attention, and most don't even bother voting. Check out the turnout for most primaries (and California's "jungle primary" doesn't seem to have helped with turnout[1]), or ask the people around you about the positions between the two candidates in some of the recent local primaries. [1] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-meyerson-california-jungle-primary-20140622-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-meyerson-californ...
dragonwriter 9y ago
> Our "liberals" today focus on schools because it allows them to buy into the idea of meritocracy and dismiss the other pesky social justice issues with a clean conscience. Actually, liberals are far more likely to focus on the broader social justice issues with the schools as one component. It's conservatives who tend to focus on school performance in isolation (with the usual remedy being various forms of privatization.)
acjohnson55 9y ago
Most people would probably call my views "liberal", and I think that's a funny way of characterizing the liberal viewpoint. I, for one, am deeply distrustful of what we call meritocracy in this country. For one thing, we project the merit of parents (or lack thereof) onto their children. We do this in how we allow massive intergenerational transfers of wealth. But also, as you point out, the schools a child can attend are very dependent on who their parents are. In Chris Hayes' excellent book, Twilight of the Elites [1], he rejects meritocracy. Not only does he reject it in practice, for reasons like those I presented, but he also rejects it even in theory. He suggests that the idea of showering people with resources that show promise is an affront to the concept that every human being has fundamental value and that all should be invested in. Liberals, broadly speaking, do love schools. But I don't think that's for lack of concern about other issues of social justice! Perhaps you mean economic liberals (e.g. classical liberals and neoliberals)? [1] http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites-America-After-Meritocracy/dp/0307720462 http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Elites-America-After-Meritocr...
- Oxitendwe 9y ago
  >In Chris Hayes' excellent book, Twilight of the Elites [1], he rejects meritocracy. Not only does he reject it in practice, for reasons like those I presented, but he also rejects it even in theory. He suggests that the idea of showering people with resources that show promise is an affront to the concept that every human being has fundamental value and that all should be invested in. That's insane, why shouldn't how many resources people get be dependent on their potential value to society? Why shouldn't we reward people who are faster, smarter, stronger, more than their lesser peers? We're not all equal, we do not all have "fundamental value" (see: murderers, child rapists, people who seek to do you harm for their own benefit, etc), and it makes no sense to invest the same amount in everyone. You wouldn't call your stock broker and tell him to invest the same amount of money in every stock. On another level, what sort of person can you really hope to aspire to if you have the same "fundamental value" as everyone else? If you don't yourself believe that you're smarter, or faster, or deserve more than everyone else because of your gifts, what reason do you have to ask for the resources to help you succeed better? The concept that you shouldn't optimize for utility to society is so fundamentally silly that I can't believe anyone could seriously believe it.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]