5 ms·

A simple thought experiment. Consider bussing kids from 'good' places to bad and from 'bad' to good. See after how long their outcomes become equivalent. Do so

by RhysU 9y ago

A simple thought experiment. Consider bussing kids from 'good' places to bad and from 'bad' to good. See after how long their outcomes become equivalent. Do so at different grade levels to measure the convergence time versus age of displacement. And now for the actual experiment: how do you impactfully present such results? I assume no outcome. Just the existence of an outcome. I posit that priceless data would be worthless in American society.

Analemma_ 9y ago
How many parents, who probably paid a lot of money and work two full-time jobs to live in the "good" place so their kids could go to the good school, are going to be OK with this experiment? Do you plan to force them, if there aren't enough volunteers to get statistically significant results?
- nibstwo 9y ago
  All school is private. Sometimes you pay tuition, which seems better for accountability, and sometimes you pay more for housing. That people send their kids to school is unfortunate. It seems like if you took the daycare out of it, school would not be structured the way that it is at all. It is a source of daycare for children first, and an attempt at productively using that time second.
- santaclaus 9y ago
  San Francisco, some of America's most expensive real estate, doesn't tie school assignments to geography. The system hasn't been voted out yet.
  - haihaibye 9y ago
    30 percent of children in San Francisco attend private schools — the highest rate of private-school attendance in California, and the third-highest in the nation
- RhysU 9y ago
  The thought experiment isn't doing the bussing (effectively impossible as others have noted). The thought experiment is how would you present the resulting data.
marcoperaza 9y ago
Such busing was court-mandated in the US for several decades. It is widely considered to have been a failure.
- frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
  That depends on what you classify as failure. It failed in the sense that the white and wealthy mostly fled to the suburbs and reversed any progress integration had made. It succeeded in the sense that in the places and times where schools were well integrated the racial achievement gap closed.
  - toxiccwm 9y ago
    Do you have any pointers to data showing this close? Most of what I've seen shows the gap being shockingly persistent in the face of intervention across a wide variety of systems, but I'm always looking for more.
    - boomboomsubban 9y ago
      I reccomend Malcolm Gladwell's podcast on the subject. He makes a strong argument that the failure to integrate teachers to any degree caused a large part of the failure. Some of his sources are on the page, but I haven't reviewed them well personally. http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/13-miss-buchanans-period-of-adjustment http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/13-miss-buchanans-per...
  - gmarx 9y ago
    The racial achievement gap closed? That would be a huge story and I would be surprised if I missed it...unless you mean the gap closed within the school (i.e. not relative to society at large) because the remaining whites achievements were lower than the average before they fled, i.e. selection bias :)
    - devinhelton 9y ago
      To save people from litigating busing, there was a thread on this earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13902960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13902960 (I cited evidence saying that busing did not close the gap).
wmil 9y ago
Aren't you basically describing the desegregation bussing that the US has had since the 50s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing
- RhysU 9y ago
  Somewhat. I am hypthesizing more than ethnicity being used.
  - bpchaps 9y ago
    Something like a magnet school? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_school
ChemicalWarfare 9y ago
>> Consider bussing kids from 'good' places to bad and from 'bad' to good. there's different types of 'good' and 'bad'. for example, the whole IQ thing came into the light in the UK when poor Jewish kids from the ghetto (bad) were clearly outperforming their non-Jewish counterparts from more affluent (good) neighborhoods.
overflowstack 9y ago
I'm not a fan of bussing. It is unfair to the good kids. "Bad" kids know how to deal with other "bad" kids. They grow up in that environment and know the rules of the game. Good kids grow up in a different environment. The consequences of not knowing to handle oneself around "bad" kids are very high. There is no doubt that on average "bad" kids are much bigger bullies with lower empathy. The consequences of not knowing how to conduct oneself around good kids as a "bad" kid are much lower in severity. For the most part, the parents of good kids set limits to the aggression of their children. For example, the biggest social rejects at my upper middle class schools weren't ever really bullied. People pitied the complete rejects and most people thought anyone who would bully the rejects is a complete douchebag. I can't imagine how the social rejects or even the normal nerdy kids at my high school would have fared at a "bad" school. Then there is the minority immigrant issue. Segregation is good for certain minority groups that do not have the language skills and cultural knowledge to integrate into America. They segregate themselves into a separate community that can provide support for its members. Desegregating these communities and their children will have negative effects. The children of these immigrants will have the worst time dealing with the "bad" kids because they may have stunted language skills and lack cultural knowledge and context to be able to effectively navigate bad situations. And to get a better picture of the winners and losers: - > 90% of African Americans are born in America (and presumably have parents, family and connections who know English and understand American culture). - Spanish is ubiquitous in the USA and the Hispanic population is huge. Hispanic people have a much lower need to congregate into a community compared to other minorities.

by RhysU 9y ago

Analemma_ 9y ago

How many parents, who probably paid a lot of money and work two full-time jobs to live in the "good" place so their kids could go to the good school, are going to be OK with this experiment? Do you plan to force them, if there aren't enough volunteers to get statistically significant results?

nibstwo 9y ago
All school is private. Sometimes you pay tuition, which seems better for accountability, and sometimes you pay more for housing. That people send their kids to school is unfortunate. It seems like if you took the daycare out of it, school would not be structured the way that it is at all. It is a source of daycare for children first, and an attempt at productively using that time second.
santaclaus 9y ago
San Francisco, some of America's most expensive real estate, doesn't tie school assignments to geography. The system hasn't been voted out yet.
- haihaibye 9y ago
  30 percent of children in San Francisco attend private schools — the highest rate of private-school attendance in California, and the third-highest in the nation
RhysU 9y ago
The thought experiment isn't doing the bussing (effectively impossible as others have noted). The thought experiment is how would you present the resulting data.

marcoperaza 9y ago

Such busing was court-mandated in the US for several decades. It is widely considered to have been a failure.

frgtpsswrdlame 9y ago
That depends on what you classify as failure. It failed in the sense that the white and wealthy mostly fled to the suburbs and reversed any progress integration had made. It succeeded in the sense that in the places and times where schools were well integrated the racial achievement gap closed.
- toxiccwm 9y ago
  Do you have any pointers to data showing this close? Most of what I've seen shows the gap being shockingly persistent in the face of intervention across a wide variety of systems, but I'm always looking for more.
  - boomboomsubban 9y ago
    I reccomend Malcolm Gladwell's podcast on the subject. He makes a strong argument that the failure to integrate teachers to any degree caused a large part of the failure. Some of his sources are on the page, but I haven't reviewed them well personally. http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/13-miss-buchanans-period-of-adjustment http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/13-miss-buchanans-per...
- gmarx 9y ago
  The racial achievement gap closed? That would be a huge story and I would be surprised if I missed it...unless you mean the gap closed within the school (i.e. not relative to society at large) because the remaining whites achievements were lower than the average before they fled, i.e. selection bias :)
  - devinhelton 9y ago
    To save people from litigating busing, there was a thread on this earlier this year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13902960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13902960 (I cited evidence saying that busing did not close the gap).

wmil 9y ago

Aren't you basically describing the desegregation bussing that the US has had since the 50s? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desegregation_busing

RhysU 9y ago
Somewhat. I am hypthesizing more than ethnicity being used.
- bpchaps 9y ago
  Something like a magnet school? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_school https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnet_school

ChemicalWarfare 9y ago

>> Consider bussing kids from 'good' places to bad and from 'bad' to good. there's different types of 'good' and 'bad'. for example, the whole IQ thing came into the light in the UK when poor Jewish kids from the ghetto (bad) were clearly outperforming their non-Jewish counterparts from more affluent (good) neighborhoods.

overflowstack 9y ago

I'm not a fan of bussing. It is unfair to the good kids. "Bad" kids know how to deal with other "bad" kids. They grow up in that environment and know the rules of the game. Good kids grow up in a different environment. The consequences of not knowing to handle oneself around "bad" kids are very high. There is no doubt that on average "bad" kids are much bigger bullies with lower empathy. The consequences of not knowing how to conduct oneself around good kids as a "bad" kid are much lower in severity. For the most part, the parents of good kids set limits to the aggression of their children. For example, the biggest social rejects at my upper middle class schools weren't ever really bullied. People pitied the complete rejects and most people thought anyone who would bully the rejects is a complete douchebag. I can't imagine how the social rejects or even the normal nerdy kids at my high school would have fared at a "bad" school. Then there is the minority immigrant issue. Segregation is good for certain minority groups that do not have the language skills and cultural knowledge to integrate into America. They segregate themselves into a separate community that can provide support for its members. Desegregating these communities and their children will have negative effects. The children of these immigrants will have the worst time dealing with the "bad" kids because they may have stunted language skills and lack cultural knowledge and context to be able to effectively navigate bad situations. And to get a better picture of the winners and losers: - > 90% of African Americans are born in America (and presumably have parents, family and connections who know English and understand American culture). - Spanish is ubiquitous in the USA and the Hispanic population is huge. Hispanic people have a much lower need to congregate into a community compared to other minorities.