6 ms·

Yeah, but isn't that also the "problem" with subsidizing K-12 public school? One doesn't need a high school education to wait tables or stock shelves, and most

by vec 9y ago

Yeah, but isn't that also the "problem" with subsidizing K-12 public school? One doesn't need a high school education to wait tables or stock shelves, and most apprenticeships and trade schools could probably be started several years earlier without issue. We used to have this Enlightenment ideal of a Liberal Arts Education. It served as job training, sure, but it also tried to make its recipients better citizens and more adept thinkers and more capable adults and, broadly speaking, more effective human beings in a bunch of socially and culturally important ways. I'm optimistic that free college tuition would be a net gain for the economy, but I also strongly suspect that it's worth doing even if it costs us some economic growth. Besides, if someone wants to take a 4 year vacation, they're already well within their rights to just not get a job and do whatever they like with their early 20s right now, presuming they can cover their living expenses somehow. Free college tuition doesn't actually allow anyone who wouldn't otherwise be able to to slack off, but it does give them something socially positive to do with their slacking.

rjbwork 9y ago
Was just talking with my boss about how they do it in Germany. Essentially they do heavy tracking, if you can't cut it in the college track, you get put into blue collar training and apprentice programs. This is why they are such an industrial powerhouse still - they have a well prepared white collar and blue collar work force.
- ma2rten 9y ago
  I went to school in Germany and live in the US now. I think every system has it's pros and cons. The German education system is interesting, because it's different from other countries. However, if it wasn't for the hefty price of education (including how important it is what school district you are in) I would prefer the US education system overall. In Germany it's easy to be put on one of the two lower tracks which lead to apprenticeships [1], because you didn't do well in primary school. At that point is harder (but still possible) to go to college. It also leads to segregation because immigrants who don't speak German at home are unlikely to do well in primary school. [1] Calling it blue collar is a bit of misnomer here because you can also do apprenticeships in white collar jobs, even software engineering.
  - dvcrn 9y ago
    Yup. I ended up in my apprenticeship because during elementary school I wanted to go to the school where all my friends went even though my scores were better. Stupid I know but I was a kid that wasn't able to make reasonable decisions. Yet I ended up through a apprenticeship in Software Engineering and I could go back at any time and finish my 12 years then go to university. Part of me wants to go study and get a degree, but all universities I inquired at rejected me for not having 12 years despite working for 8 years now.
    - tobltobs 9y ago
      Could'nt you go to a Fachhochschule with your apprenticeship in Software Engineering?
      - ma2rten 9y ago
        You have to do 1 or 2 years of school (Fachoberschule) first. My friend did this, but it's a path that not many people will choose, because it's hard to go back to school for such a long time after you started to earn money.
  - tobltobs 9y ago
    It is true that it is too easy to be put on one of the two lower tracks during primary school. But there are multiple options (Fachhochschule, Berufsakademie) to go to university after you have finished your apprenticeship. Fachhochschule is free and in the case of the Berufsakademie you even get some money from a company while studying.
  - zaarn 9y ago
    Primary Schools offer additional help to bring immigrant children up to speed with their german, though I'm not sure how many families use this option. You can also almost always switch tracks, the farther down you are one track the harder it gets to switch up. I went for the second lowest (Realschule) and then went to a tertiary school (Fachoberschule). With that I can study in a University for Applied Sciences (different from normal University). The german education system has many options open, the general push in the lower two tracks is to get you into a job as early as possible (there are lots of job fairs I went to) but still permit you to pick any of the other 20 options.
- ordinaryradical 9y ago
  This is only functional if you have an equitable education system in K-12 that allows every child the preparation necessary to reach their potential. Speaking as the spouse of someone who's worked for a decade in urban education, we are very far from that reality. Conceptually, it's nice to imagine a purely meritocratic system wherein everyone may ascertain the level of potential they desire, but the US is living through the hangover of centuries of systemic racism. The only way this tracked solution could be truly fair is if access to education was universally available and equitable; in our current reality, what it actually would mean is that those who can afford the best education in K-12 will be highly over-represented in the college track and those who cannot will be under-represented. So in the end it turns out to be an anti-meritocratic solution.
ithilglin909 9y ago
Comparing a college education to K-12 public education doesn't make sense. In general, one needs to understand some mathematics up through Algebra and have some reading and writing abilities to be an employable, productive adult. Whether the public school system in the USA does a good job of providing a basic education is a different discussion. I’m not the kind of engineer that has a STEM only mindset and I see a lot of value in good Liberal Arts education, but let’s be realistic -- whether it’s because of nature or nurture, there are plenty of college freshmen who are just not going to be intellectuals. Even if it was free (and it would never really be free), it's not a positive thing to encourage them to spend four years majoring in communications or the like.
- throwawayaway12 9y ago
  >Comparing a college education to K-12 public education doesn't make sense. In general, one needs to understand some mathematics up through Algebra and have some reading and writing abilities to be an employable, productive adult. Whether the public school system in the USA does a good job of providing a basic education is a different discussion. It does seem like this baseline understanding does shift with progress though. For example our ancestors did not need a lot of education to push a plow, but more education will be needed with the continued elimination of physical labor.
  - unethical_ban 9y ago
    You need to be basically educated in algebra, literature and philosophy/civics to be a productive, contributing voter and citizen. Forget vocation.
    - ithilglin909 9y ago
      I agree, but many college graduates (and for that matter some people with advanced degrees I've run into) have no or little understanding of philosophy/civics, history, literature, etc.
Bartweiss 9y ago
> Yeah, but isn't that also the "problem" with subsidizing K-12 public school? Eh, 9-12 public school maybe. The dirty not-a-secret of K-8 is that it's effectively state-sponsored daycare as well as an educational system, so its role as a holding pen is a feature rather than a bug.
- weeksie 9y ago
  I find people who say things like this don't understand the great amount of good that elementary education provides. Basic literacy and mathematics skills are tough things to teach effectively. They're not at all difficult to provide if you have the time and resources to spend on your child, but many people do not (have the inclination or the time). Bad idea to punish the children of those people for their parents' decisions. Until you've seen the difference a good elementary education can make for a kid growing up in The Bronx, I'd say hold off on the snap judgement.
  - Bartweiss 9y ago
    I think I was unclear, or you're rounding my view off to a very different one that I admit is common. I'm a child of teachers, and I know quite a lot of people who teach in inner cities or narrowly made it out of impoverished towns because of good education. There's a reason I said "as well as an educational system", and I definitely don't believe the daycare role of schools is a reason to cut budgets or cut schooling. Educating kids is hard. Many people lack the time, knowledge, and resources to substantially educate their children themselves. Many students benefit from years of often-repetitive teaching to ensure information is available when they're developmentally and environmentally ready for it. I don't doubt any of this, and I absolutely think public schooling is a sensible solution to it. My point was only that "you could say K-12 education acts as a state sponsored vacation" misunderstands the role of schools as daycares. Non-educational time at school isn't a vacation, it's a public service for two-income households that struggle to afford daycare. I'm not talking about teaching kids math. I'm talking about the existence of three-recesses-per-day kindergarten, or middle schoolers sitting in voluntary, teacher-run study hall after school. The district I grew up in had a public debate about whether to move to half-day kindergarten, where the two sides were "it'll cut school costs" and "it'll cost parents more in daycare". No one even claimed it was an educational debate, because less than half the day was spent on education. None of this has anything to do with whether teaching literacy in the Bronx is important. I'm simply asserting that "provides childcare for free" is an intentional benefit, not an accidental drawback, of public schooling.
anthmcc 9y ago
I think a decent way of doing things would be to have people do public service of some sort (military included) for a few years and they get free school in exchange. Gives people a chance to do a bit more and going to college at 21 instead of 18 seems like a good thing to me.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
There's a lot of countries where it's not normal to keep going to school until you are 18. In New Zealand, you can leave school when you're 16 and start an apprenticeship. I think that by 16, most people will know if they're definitely not going to be going to university, and I think that 11 years of schooling is enough to set people up with the basics for life. It's the point where (at least in New Zealand) you start specialising, picking specific subjects that are going to help you with, or be required for, university

by vec 9y ago

rjbwork 9y ago

Was just talking with my boss about how they do it in Germany. Essentially they do heavy tracking, if you can't cut it in the college track, you get put into blue collar training and apprentice programs. This is why they are such an industrial powerhouse still - they have a well prepared white collar and blue collar work force.

ma2rten 9y ago
I went to school in Germany and live in the US now. I think every system has it's pros and cons. The German education system is interesting, because it's different from other countries. However, if it wasn't for the hefty price of education (including how important it is what school district you are in) I would prefer the US education system overall. In Germany it's easy to be put on one of the two lower tracks which lead to apprenticeships [1], because you didn't do well in primary school. At that point is harder (but still possible) to go to college. It also leads to segregation because immigrants who don't speak German at home are unlikely to do well in primary school. [1] Calling it blue collar is a bit of misnomer here because you can also do apprenticeships in white collar jobs, even software engineering.
- dvcrn 9y ago
  Yup. I ended up in my apprenticeship because during elementary school I wanted to go to the school where all my friends went even though my scores were better. Stupid I know but I was a kid that wasn't able to make reasonable decisions. Yet I ended up through a apprenticeship in Software Engineering and I could go back at any time and finish my 12 years then go to university. Part of me wants to go study and get a degree, but all universities I inquired at rejected me for not having 12 years despite working for 8 years now.
  - tobltobs 9y ago
    Could'nt you go to a Fachhochschule with your apprenticeship in Software Engineering?
    - ma2rten 9y ago
      You have to do 1 or 2 years of school (Fachoberschule) first. My friend did this, but it's a path that not many people will choose, because it's hard to go back to school for such a long time after you started to earn money.
- tobltobs 9y ago
  It is true that it is too easy to be put on one of the two lower tracks during primary school. But there are multiple options (Fachhochschule, Berufsakademie) to go to university after you have finished your apprenticeship. Fachhochschule is free and in the case of the Berufsakademie you even get some money from a company while studying.
- zaarn 9y ago
  Primary Schools offer additional help to bring immigrant children up to speed with their german, though I'm not sure how many families use this option. You can also almost always switch tracks, the farther down you are one track the harder it gets to switch up. I went for the second lowest (Realschule) and then went to a tertiary school (Fachoberschule). With that I can study in a University for Applied Sciences (different from normal University). The german education system has many options open, the general push in the lower two tracks is to get you into a job as early as possible (there are lots of job fairs I went to) but still permit you to pick any of the other 20 options.
ordinaryradical 9y ago
This is only functional if you have an equitable education system in K-12 that allows every child the preparation necessary to reach their potential. Speaking as the spouse of someone who's worked for a decade in urban education, we are very far from that reality. Conceptually, it's nice to imagine a purely meritocratic system wherein everyone may ascertain the level of potential they desire, but the US is living through the hangover of centuries of systemic racism. The only way this tracked solution could be truly fair is if access to education was universally available and equitable; in our current reality, what it actually would mean is that those who can afford the best education in K-12 will be highly over-represented in the college track and those who cannot will be under-represented. So in the end it turns out to be an anti-meritocratic solution.

ithilglin909 9y ago

Comparing a college education to K-12 public education doesn't make sense. In general, one needs to understand some mathematics up through Algebra and have some reading and writing abilities to be an employable, productive adult. Whether the public school system in the USA does a good job of providing a basic education is a different discussion. I’m not the kind of engineer that has a STEM only mindset and I see a lot of value in good Liberal Arts education, but let’s be realistic -- whether it’s because of nature or nurture, there are plenty of college freshmen who are just not going to be intellectuals. Even if it was free (and it would never really be free), it's not a positive thing to encourage them to spend four years majoring in communications or the like.

throwawayaway12 9y ago
>Comparing a college education to K-12 public education doesn't make sense. In general, one needs to understand some mathematics up through Algebra and have some reading and writing abilities to be an employable, productive adult. Whether the public school system in the USA does a good job of providing a basic education is a different discussion. It does seem like this baseline understanding does shift with progress though. For example our ancestors did not need a lot of education to push a plow, but more education will be needed with the continued elimination of physical labor.
- unethical_ban 9y ago
  You need to be basically educated in algebra, literature and philosophy/civics to be a productive, contributing voter and citizen. Forget vocation.
  - ithilglin909 9y ago
    I agree, but many college graduates (and for that matter some people with advanced degrees I've run into) have no or little understanding of philosophy/civics, history, literature, etc.

Bartweiss 9y ago

> Yeah, but isn't that also the "problem" with subsidizing K-12 public school? Eh, 9-12 public school maybe. The dirty not-a-secret of K-8 is that it's effectively state-sponsored daycare as well as an educational system, so its role as a holding pen is a feature rather than a bug.

weeksie 9y ago
I find people who say things like this don't understand the great amount of good that elementary education provides. Basic literacy and mathematics skills are tough things to teach effectively. They're not at all difficult to provide if you have the time and resources to spend on your child, but many people do not (have the inclination or the time). Bad idea to punish the children of those people for their parents' decisions. Until you've seen the difference a good elementary education can make for a kid growing up in The Bronx, I'd say hold off on the snap judgement.
- Bartweiss 9y ago
  I think I was unclear, or you're rounding my view off to a very different one that I admit is common. I'm a child of teachers, and I know quite a lot of people who teach in inner cities or narrowly made it out of impoverished towns because of good education. There's a reason I said "as well as an educational system", and I definitely don't believe the daycare role of schools is a reason to cut budgets or cut schooling. Educating kids is hard. Many people lack the time, knowledge, and resources to substantially educate their children themselves. Many students benefit from years of often-repetitive teaching to ensure information is available when they're developmentally and environmentally ready for it. I don't doubt any of this, and I absolutely think public schooling is a sensible solution to it. My point was only that "you could say K-12 education acts as a state sponsored vacation" misunderstands the role of schools as daycares. Non-educational time at school isn't a vacation, it's a public service for two-income households that struggle to afford daycare. I'm not talking about teaching kids math. I'm talking about the existence of three-recesses-per-day kindergarten, or middle schoolers sitting in voluntary, teacher-run study hall after school. The district I grew up in had a public debate about whether to move to half-day kindergarten, where the two sides were "it'll cut school costs" and "it'll cost parents more in daycare". No one even claimed it was an educational debate, because less than half the day was spent on education. None of this has anything to do with whether teaching literacy in the Bronx is important. I'm simply asserting that "provides childcare for free" is an intentional benefit, not an accidental drawback, of public schooling.

anthmcc 9y ago

I think a decent way of doing things would be to have people do public service of some sort (military included) for a few years and they get free school in exchange. Gives people a chance to do a bit more and going to college at 21 instead of 18 seems like a good thing to me.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

There's a lot of countries where it's not normal to keep going to school until you are 18. In New Zealand, you can leave school when you're 16 and start an apprenticeship. I think that by 16, most people will know if they're definitely not going to be going to university, and I think that 11 years of schooling is enough to set people up with the basics for life. It's the point where (at least in New Zealand) you start specialising, picking specific subjects that are going to help you with, or be required for, university