4 ms·

My original comment was not meant to say we should pay more or pay less to teachers, the whole argument is a red herring. Teachers should make a professional sa

My original comment was not meant to say we should pay more or pay less to teachers, the whole argument is a red herring. Teachers should make a professional salary for their location and they mostly do. There are certainly some outlier states who do not value teachers and they are having increasing difficulty retaining teachers. This system is working. My comment was meant to highlight the disparity between districts. You can pit the best US students against the best students from any country and get excellent rankings. Our worst students are far worse then other developed nations. We need to address the systematic problems in our country that are causing us to value certain students more, and give them better opportunities. All children deserve opportunity.

indubitable 9y ago
I understood your comment perfectly well I believe. But this is our fundamental disagreement. If you can think back to even your middle school class, you would do far better than random at 'guessing' who was going to 'make it.' I didn't really realize how apparent this was until I taught for some time. In school I felt I always worked hard, or was somehow more incentivized for the work than others. The harsh reality, apparent in hindsight, is that I was lazy and it came to me easily - as it does to many people. In teaching you one begins to quickly appreciate that inherent differences between children is absolutely night and day - and these differences emerge even as early as elementary. These inherent differences are the giant elephant in the room that nobody wants to consider. In my opinion ignoring them and pretending that all we need to do is give more opportunity or money to some schools is doing us all great a disservice. A near majority of the kids in the classes I taught I could personally adopt and give them 24/7 attention and education at home and I suspect they would still fall well below the curve. What is the solution? I have absolutely none. But at the same time I think that complete and open honesty and assessment is the first step to resolving any problem. When we start with false assumption as its more socially palatable, is it any wonder that we spend all of this money with absolutely nothing to show for it?
- pnutjam 9y ago
  Yes, there are kids who will make it and kids who won't. Our current system throws out whole neighborhoods of kids regardless of where they fall on that spectrum. Creating a level playing field is the least we could do to improve schools.

indubitable 9y ago

I understood your comment perfectly well I believe. But this is our fundamental disagreement. If you can think back to even your middle school class, you would do far better than random at 'guessing' who was going to 'make it.' I didn't really realize how apparent this was until I taught for some time. In school I felt I always worked hard, or was somehow more incentivized for the work than others. The harsh reality, apparent in hindsight, is that I was lazy and it came to me easily - as it does to many people. In teaching you one begins to quickly appreciate that inherent differences between children is absolutely night and day - and these differences emerge even as early as elementary. These inherent differences are the giant elephant in the room that nobody wants to consider. In my opinion ignoring them and pretending that all we need to do is give more opportunity or money to some schools is doing us all great a disservice. A near majority of the kids in the classes I taught I could personally adopt and give them 24/7 attention and education at home and I suspect they would still fall well below the curve. What is the solution? I have absolutely none. But at the same time I think that complete and open honesty and assessment is the first step to resolving any problem. When we start with false assumption as its more socially palatable, is it any wonder that we spend all of this money with absolutely nothing to show for it?

pnutjam 9y ago
Yes, there are kids who will make it and kids who won't. Our current system throws out whole neighborhoods of kids regardless of where they fall on that spectrum. Creating a level playing field is the least we could do to improve schools.