6 ms·

Meanwhile, the same tech billionaires influencing the public school system will follow a completely different curriculum—usually private, low tech, with limited

by pdog 9y ago

Meanwhile, the same tech billionaires influencing the public school system will follow a completely different curriculum—usually private, low tech, with limited screen and device time—for their own children. Do as I say, not as I do.

liveoneggs 9y ago
waldorf for everyone isn't going to sell many chromebooks now is it?
jsolson 9y ago
That low tech limited screen time curriculum requires well trained (aka expensive) staff. Yes, it might have better outcomes, but it can't scale without an absurd investment that, so far, society has been unwilling to make. If you can raise the general standard of education at the same cost by going digital, that's still positive sum, no?
- Simulacra 9y ago
  Are we trying to make education cheaper, or better? To that end does technology make education better, cheaper, or easier? I am probably old fashioned at 36 but I'm with Cliff Stoll on this issue: Let's get technology out of the classroom.
  - pc86 9y ago
    I'll quote the part of the GP that I think you're ignoring: > it can't scale without an...investment that, so far, society has been unwilling to make Without making any judgment on what is proper or appropriate education funding, tax policy, or anything political like that, the GP is right. Getting tech out of the classroom 1) is not a 100% positive thing; 2) costs more than society, to date, has been willing to spend. > Are we trying to make education cheaper, or better? It's not a binary proposition and pretending it is is dishonest. I want to see the median increase. I want to do it cost-effectively. If the choice is raising the median 5 points by utilizing technology for a marginal change in overall cost, or raising the median 20 points by quintupling education funding, one is possible and one is not.
- rhizome 9y ago
  Classic blinkered-technocrat perspective, why does "scale" matter in education? What is the endgame when education is scaled as much as possible, plugging kids into VR headsets and calling it a day?
  - TeMPOraL 9y ago
    Because that's literally how civilization improves. You're able to code for a living because people before you figured out how to make agriculture scale. All humans have finite amount of time during the day, finite resources and finite lifespans. All of which is allocated pretty tightly. If you want to add value to the lives of people, your best bet is something that doesn't come at a great cost to them. Hence scale. A secondary benefit is that big things which don't scale are only attempted by few players with lots of resources; making things more scalable means more smaller players can compete on the market.
    - rhizome 9y ago
      How about we spend more effort creating more fairly-paid teachers than making more dormfart-website CEOs?
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        1. "Dormfart-website CEOs" are not necessarily what's required to scale education. 2. How about we reduce the number of teachers (and have the remaining be paid fairly) by making education scale? See also my agriculture example.
        rhizome 9y ago
        "Dormfart-website CEOs" are not necessarily what's required to scale education. But they're consuming money and attention that could be redirected to solving real problems. I know, this is a perpetual complaint with someone in any crowd. How about we reduce the number of teachers (and have the remaining be paid fairly) by making education scale? Unless you have an innovation in mind that I haven't seen, I fall back to the copiously documented truism that you can't use technology to solve a people problem. See also my agriculture example. I don't concede that children can be educated within the same concepts that are used to harvest cows and cotton.
karmicthreat 9y ago
Could you even produce enough quality teachers across America to have that sort of outcome? NYC maybe, Lewiston NC probably not. If software can turn a mediocre education system into a good one then I think it's worth doing. Even if it isn't going to raise a mediocre system into an excellent one. People are attending and graduating from these schools now. It is far better that their outcome improves now rather than only work to some perfect solution.
- thex10 9y ago
  > Could you even produce enough quality teachers across America to have that sort of outcome? Possibly, if we could actually pay all public school teachers decent salaries.
  - karmicthreat 9y ago
    I don't think so. We are talking about 3+ million teachers. They would decidedly have a bell curve of teacher skills. Not the upper 10% that teach at great private or public institutions. Which students deserve to be taught by the bottom 25% of teachers? Also if we wanted to move the mean skill of these teachers higher what would it take? 4 years? 10? I think software provides a faster benefit. And one that can hopefully have an outsized benefit to students who have the bottom 25% of instructors. Plus faster software iteration hopefully lets us find more optimal solutions faster for groups of students. This gives us some breathing room for fixing the long tail instructor issues.
    - thex10 9y ago
      > I don't think so. We are talking about 3+ million teachers. They would decidedly have a bell curve of teacher skills. Yes, there is a wide spectrum of competency/skill amongst all the practitioners of a profession; that's not a remotely novel insight. That's not an argument for underpaying them. > Which students deserve to be taught by the bottom 25% of teachers? Also if we wanted to move the mean skill of these teachers higher what would it take? 4 years? 10? I think software provides a faster benefit. Which students deserve to get taught by the bottom 25% of shitty, barely-tested software chugging algorithms designed on specious theories? Not your kids, I'd bet.
sogen 9y ago
And homeless teachers: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6aadft/math_teacher_at_sf_public_school_ends_up_homeless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6aadft/math_teache...

by pdog 9y ago

liveoneggs 9y ago

waldorf for everyone isn't going to sell many chromebooks now is it?

jsolson 9y ago

That low tech limited screen time curriculum requires well trained (aka expensive) staff. Yes, it might have better outcomes, but it can't scale without an absurd investment that, so far, society has been unwilling to make. If you can raise the general standard of education at the same cost by going digital, that's still positive sum, no?

Simulacra 9y ago
Are we trying to make education cheaper, or better? To that end does technology make education better, cheaper, or easier? I am probably old fashioned at 36 but I'm with Cliff Stoll on this issue: Let's get technology out of the classroom.
- pc86 9y ago
  I'll quote the part of the GP that I think you're ignoring: > it can't scale without an...investment that, so far, society has been unwilling to make Without making any judgment on what is proper or appropriate education funding, tax policy, or anything political like that, the GP is right. Getting tech out of the classroom 1) is not a 100% positive thing; 2) costs more than society, to date, has been willing to spend. > Are we trying to make education cheaper, or better? It's not a binary proposition and pretending it is is dishonest. I want to see the median increase. I want to do it cost-effectively. If the choice is raising the median 5 points by utilizing technology for a marginal change in overall cost, or raising the median 20 points by quintupling education funding, one is possible and one is not.
rhizome 9y ago
Classic blinkered-technocrat perspective, why does "scale" matter in education? What is the endgame when education is scaled as much as possible, plugging kids into VR headsets and calling it a day?
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  Because that's literally how civilization improves. You're able to code for a living because people before you figured out how to make agriculture scale. All humans have finite amount of time during the day, finite resources and finite lifespans. All of which is allocated pretty tightly. If you want to add value to the lives of people, your best bet is something that doesn't come at a great cost to them. Hence scale. A secondary benefit is that big things which don't scale are only attempted by few players with lots of resources; making things more scalable means more smaller players can compete on the market.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    How about we spend more effort creating more fairly-paid teachers than making more dormfart-website CEOs?
    - TeMPOraL 9y ago
      1. "Dormfart-website CEOs" are not necessarily what's required to scale education. 2. How about we reduce the number of teachers (and have the remaining be paid fairly) by making education scale? See also my agriculture example.
      - rhizome 9y ago
        "Dormfart-website CEOs" are not necessarily what's required to scale education. But they're consuming money and attention that could be redirected to solving real problems. I know, this is a perpetual complaint with someone in any crowd. How about we reduce the number of teachers (and have the remaining be paid fairly) by making education scale? Unless you have an innovation in mind that I haven't seen, I fall back to the copiously documented truism that you can't use technology to solve a people problem. See also my agriculture example. I don't concede that children can be educated within the same concepts that are used to harvest cows and cotton.

karmicthreat 9y ago

Could you even produce enough quality teachers across America to have that sort of outcome? NYC maybe, Lewiston NC probably not. If software can turn a mediocre education system into a good one then I think it's worth doing. Even if it isn't going to raise a mediocre system into an excellent one. People are attending and graduating from these schools now. It is far better that their outcome improves now rather than only work to some perfect solution.

thex10 9y ago
> Could you even produce enough quality teachers across America to have that sort of outcome? Possibly, if we could actually pay all public school teachers decent salaries.
- karmicthreat 9y ago
  I don't think so. We are talking about 3+ million teachers. They would decidedly have a bell curve of teacher skills. Not the upper 10% that teach at great private or public institutions. Which students deserve to be taught by the bottom 25% of teachers? Also if we wanted to move the mean skill of these teachers higher what would it take? 4 years? 10? I think software provides a faster benefit. And one that can hopefully have an outsized benefit to students who have the bottom 25% of instructors. Plus faster software iteration hopefully lets us find more optimal solutions faster for groups of students. This gives us some breathing room for fixing the long tail instructor issues.
  - thex10 9y ago
    > I don't think so. We are talking about 3+ million teachers. They would decidedly have a bell curve of teacher skills. Yes, there is a wide spectrum of competency/skill amongst all the practitioners of a profession; that's not a remotely novel insight. That's not an argument for underpaying them. > Which students deserve to be taught by the bottom 25% of teachers? Also if we wanted to move the mean skill of these teachers higher what would it take? 4 years? 10? I think software provides a faster benefit. Which students deserve to get taught by the bottom 25% of shitty, barely-tested software chugging algorithms designed on specious theories? Not your kids, I'd bet.

sogen 9y ago

And homeless teachers: https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6aadft/math_teacher_at_sf_public_school_ends_up_homeless/ https://www.reddit.com/r/bayarea/comments/6aadft/math_teache...