7 ms·

Definitely an interesting piece. While college has the potential to be a great equalizer, society needs to focus on the school system before kids reach college

Definitely an interesting piece. While college has the potential to be a great equalizer, society needs to focus on the school system before kids reach college. Teachers walked out in three states because they are so underpaid. Teacher have second or third jobs. You want everyone to have an equal footing? Let’s adequately fund our education from k-12. And while we are at it let’s have some universal pre-k. If we do both, we can have a more merit based society. If we just focus on colleges, it won’t solve root cause.

ivan_ah 9y ago
Good point. If high schools were to prepare all young adults equally well in the fundamentals (reading, writing, math), it is conceivable that they would be able to continue their education on their own. There is a really nice essay titled "The aims of education" by the mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, which talks about what high school education could be. Summary: https://minireference.com/blog/the-aims-of-education-according-to-whitehead/ https://minireference.com/blog/the-aims-of-education-accordi... Original http://www.anthonyflood.com/whiteheadeducation.htm http://www.anthonyflood.com/whiteheadeducation.htm
- IAmEveryone 9y ago
  I have a fried who's a genius. He's the best mathematician I've personally known. He published a short story in a literary magazine to impress his mother and it started a 4-way bidding contest among known publishers for a book deal. He's funny, leaves a trail of sad ex-girlfriends (none of whom are ever mad, somehow), and made four "thirty-under-thirty" lists for his political work at the EU. Someone recommended him for a master stipend at Harvard's Kennedy School. He turned it down. Then I pestered him for a week and he unturned it down. Why? He's from a working class background, and was afraid of the $10,000/year he'd have pay (with debt). He read the syllabus of each class he'd take and had decided that he could learn just as much by spending $10 on late fees at the library. He was also afraid of his parent's posting their house as collateral for the debt, and that they couldn't do so twice and his brother wouldn't get the same if he wanted. My point: social mobility is also limited by what people consider possible. My parents were elite, at least in status if not economically, and "Harvard" has meaning in the family beyond being a good university. Similar mechanisms are probably at play with entrepreneurship. Or in the proven tendency of women to feel underqualified for jobs that men with exactly the same CV would apply to without any self-doubts. That's why we need to actively work on getting underrepresented groups into these institutions and professions. There's too much talent going to waste for stupid reasons right now. Getting that guy to Cambridge, MA may well end up being my most significant contribution to society.
njarboe 9y ago
If the traits that produce a person of high "merit" are 50% due to genetics and another 25% to environment from conception to age 3 (as most studies suggest), how to you plan on solving the "root cause" of the problem? In the US at least, people a more and more mating with their peers in IQ, conscientiousness, and culture. With the huge variation in human traits, a meritocracy is going to see massive inequality especially over generations. Careful what you wish for.
- konceptz 9y ago
  Do you have a source for these statistics? You put merit in quotes and then stated percentages plus the claim that there is a growth in similar IQ partnering.
  - iguy 9y ago
    50% genetic + 50% "unshared environment" is the rule of thumb for any complex trait, I assume that's what GP had in mind. Unshared env is a polite way of saying noise; approximately 0% "shared env" i.e. parenting, education, etc. (There are many caveats, obviously.) You could do worse than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates as a place to start.
- frockington 9y ago
  Compound your statement with education level being inversely related to child bearing and you're looking at a society with one small educated elite and one large "general" population starting to form in the next few generations. I am nervous that we will soon blame genetics for inequality and take rash actions.
ptero 9y ago
Funding may be a problem (it probably is in some states), but let's get rid of the teachers unions shenanigans. Let's make it easier to reward the good teachers and fire the bad ones. School choice (and the ability to take money to a private school) colud help. More charters would, too.
- ianai 9y ago
  This is counter to the point of funding them more. Unions exist to empower labor. Remove them and you diminish teachers. Regulating them or coming up with creative incentives for societal outcomes would help. Ie give a subsidy (or even an award) to unions for onboarding new teachers and retraining current teachers.
  - sokoloff 9y ago
    Unions are one way to pay teachers more. It's possible to be in favor of paying teachers more and still be anti-teacher union. Disclaimer: My parents both taught in public schools their entire careers and their county was unionized. My parents seemed to hate the union on balance, but now I'll have to ask them... The shenanigans that I experienced first and second hand that were enabled and supported/defended by the union were appalling. Teachers teaching subjects they were unqualified for, teachers not showing up to work reliably being protected, a math teacher who literally replied that "the square root of 2 is irrational because it says so on page 79", etc. It was always "gimme more, more, more" and never seemed to be about the kids. If that experience is in any way indicative, I'm all for gutting the teachers' (and other similar) unions. I don't mind paying teachers more than we currently do (and paying the required taxes to enable that), but I'd like to see some accountability and improved results. The key question is how to judge that on a timeframe that is both fair to the kids and the measurement (a long timeframe) and to the teachers (who probably don't want to wait until kindergarten junior is 30 to be paid)
    - ianai 9y ago
      To propose gutting unions requires proposing a substitute. Unions are known to protect “incombants”. It is a very real problem with plenty of studies in the labor literature.
galieos_ghost 9y ago
We spend more than any other country on education, that's not the issue. Baltimore for example spends 16k per student, 4th most in the country and only 11% of their students graduate proficient in math, 13 schools didn't have a single student proficient in math. Paying more money to teachers isn't the answer, the answer is expanding the reach of great teachers using tech. I learned to code for free using online resources. I was able to take courses from Harvard, MIT, and Stanford for free. I brushed up on math skills with Khan academy. What's the point in pay to learn from random teachers and professors when you can learn from the top researchers in the world? Another issue is language. In California 45% of students speak Spanish at home, so of course they are going to struggle in English and other classes as well as part of that. This also increases costs because you need bilingual teachers.
RobertRoberts 9y ago
>...society needs to focus on the school system before kids reach college. I don't think schools are the problem, I think it's people. Parents today are either overworked, poor, stressed, unhappy or depressed, single, sick, or a combination of the these and then some. I talked with a guy just this past week who works at a school for Native American kids. The primary job of these teachers is to make the kids feel safe. Their primary job. Not to teach useful skills, but safety. This is an a major metropolitan area, not on a reservation. During one class, a teacher asked if anyone had died from or suffered gun violence, every hand went up. These are elementary school kids. Tell me what difference it makes if the teachers make more money if the kids are all on the edge of committing suicide or at least have no hope for the future. Maybe in places where the kids are fine, teachers can strike and ask for more money. I have a kid going into teaching, and one of my best friends did teaching. I taught at a local college, and when half the students don't turn in any work at all, it's not a teaching problem.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  Pretty much agree. Our kids are in Cambridge public schools (conscious choice on our part) and we volunteer in various ways to try to help all the kids. The spread of preparedness, ability, and focus of the kids even in K-5 and early elementary is stark. Some kids are unable to focus for even 45 seconds. Some kids regularly have no parents showing up for parent events. Some kids can't read (in any language) by grade 2. There's less that teachers can do in the 1000-ish hours of classroom time per year as compared to what the 4500-ish hours of awake, non-classroom time that the families have control over (or the hopefully 3000-ish hours of sleep that they also control). Parents expect teachers to work miracles I think as compared to what's possible. Families have wildly more time and vastly more individualized time theoretically available to them and for a variety of reasons (some circumstance, some choice), I think that time is frequently squandered/not used effectively and then it's the teachers' fault somehow when an achievement gap surfaces.
  - RobertRoberts 9y ago
    >Parents expect teachers to work miracles... I think this sums it up well, and it's sad. My wife works in public school for the last few years, and has personally been yelled at by parent that said "my child would never do anything like that!" (the kid had destroyed a school book, even admitted he did it...) The public fight against the teachers, and the teachers are convinced that school should be fun and play time instead of primarily a learning time. So not only does discipline slide, so does learning, and everyone is part of the problem. A dead comment below pointed out the difference between "gun violence" and "simply violence", it just so happened the story I was relaying was about guns. But I think other forms of abuse are pervasive everywhere, and gun violence affects only a tiny amount of the population. Which is why it was such a striking point for that school and those kids. He completely misunderstood the implications. Edit: I want to also reiterate that while I taught in college, the students were more interested in Facebook, video games and their phones than learning. This is a student problem as much as anything else.
lr4444lr 9y ago
I'd say there is a definite problem with teacher pay if there is high turnover and a significant number of them need 2nd jobs, but the general "problem of education" is something entirely different. Every metric we have of educational quality shows that per pupil expenditure has little correlation with good outcomes - the big urban areas with some of the highest expenditures often have much worse performance than many of their nearby suburbs spending less. Not every problem is solved by throwing money at it.
neap24 9y ago
I'm not convinced about the underpaid teachers argument (I have been a teacher for 10 years). If you actually adjust the salary for number of days worked, most teachers do quite well. For me a "second job" is something I decide to pick up in the summer just to try something new. In how many professions can you do that? I'd say the biggest problem with teacher pay is in the public school realm where there is a fixed salary ladder. This leaves no incentive for teachers to put in any effort beyond the minimum.
- kageneko 9y ago
  My wife was a teacher for ~10 years. She made a nice salary, but she also spent a pretty good amount on supplies for her classroom since her school was routinely overenrolled and underfunded. She also had to spend money on classes and certifications every few years in order to maintain her license. Georgia (at the time) gave bonuses and increased salary for additional degrees and specializations, so there was some incentive to improve. When she left (mostly because she was tired of dealing with parents...) there was talk about removing the higher education/specialization bonuses, but I don't know if that came about. There's also no union. There are a few professional organizations, but they don't have bargaining power. I think in the United States, it's really hard to talk about teacher experience as a whole, given the different laws and situations.
  - neap24 9y ago
    True, but given the technical age we live in, I think supply costs are rapidly diminishing. I also happen to think that "school supplies" are vastly overrated (having taught in Teach For America in an underserved school myself). Furthermore, why do you think that an incentive for advanced degrees/specialization is a good incentive? I think that's the worst kind. The teachers I've met with advanced degrees do not even seem to correlate with the best teachers. I'm not saying your point isn't defensible, it's just that saying teachers/districts are underpaid is far from the obvious answer.
bobcostas55 9y ago
An experiment in DC[0] cut costs by 75%: no change in outcomes. An experiment in Kansas increased costs to comical levels[1]: no change in outcomes. The literature on educational interventions is to a first approximation 100% null results. The US already spends significantly more than much-admired Finland (and more than the OECD average)[2]. Educational costs have ballooned with no corresponding change in results[3]. The whole thing is a sham. [0] http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104018/pdf/20104018.pdf http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104018/pdf/20104018.pdf [1] https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-298.pdf https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-298... [2] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_605.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_605.10.a... [3] https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-char...
ensignavenger 9y ago
How much funding is adequate? If you want to "adequately" fund schools, you have to first define how much adequate is, and go from there. And that is the step where many disagree.
zdragnar 9y ago
I know a teacher in very rural (and white) America. There's not a lot of funding, but throwing more money at them would not change outcomes. It is not at all uncommon for 5 and 6 year olds coming to her classes to be swearing like sailors, unable to spell their names, not knowing numbers, etc. It's not simply a matter of kids being behind, their parents simply don't care. It's a cultural attitude old as time, and crosses race and geographical boundaries, from the dense urban city centers to trailer parks in the countryside. It is coincidental with widespread poverty; both a cause and effect. We have universal Pre-K and k-12 in my nearest metro area, a nearly-hyper liberal bastion. We also have among the worst white-color divide in the country in terms of education outcomes, with a large minority (25% as a record low) dropping out before completing a high school degree. There are so many factors at play, and money (in most schools) is not the primary problem, nor will it be the solution.
Consultant32452 9y ago
Kids who go to pre-k have a small advantage at first, but become statistically indistinguishable after a few years. So universal pre-k is not a great equalizer. Teacher salary is so low because supply is too high [0]. The top 10% of teachers have a huge impact on the success of their students, but it's difficult to impossible to reward them [1]. On the other side of the coin it's practically impossible to fire incompetent teachers [2]. We might also need to increase funding for schools, but I don't believe it will work without fixing these other systemic problems. I think credentialism is really the core issue here. People use credentials as a proxy for merit because they lack better tools. The science is pretty solid around the correlation between IQ/EQ and workplace performance, but it's illegal to give IQ tests to potential hires. If you can't get into Harvard due to some social/economic issue, you may at least have a high IQ. The more useful metrics we give to hiring companies the closer we will likely get to meritocracy. [0]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/18/oversupply-elementary-education/1917569/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/18/oversu... [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/02/are-teachers-overpaid/there-are-simply-too-many-teachers https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/02/are-teacher... [2]: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/no_teacher_left_behind.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > The science is pretty solid around the correlation between IQ/EQ and workplace performance, No, it's not, generally (the science around pretty much any practical application of any of the various different constructs identified as “EQ” is weak). > but it's illegal to give IQ tests to potential hires. No, it's not; specifically, it's not where there is clear evidence that IQ test given is closely tied to performance in the particular job being hired for. The idea that this is illegal is a myth based on a case where a particular instance was found to be illegal racial discrimination given it's disparate racial impact specifically because there was no demonstrated connection between job performance in the jobs being hired for to support that it was a bona fide test of job ability. IQ tests have been upheld by the courts subsequently when challenged when there was evidence that they were related to slecific job performance, including when a police department used scores above a certain level as a negative hiring signal.

ivan_ah 9y ago

Good point. If high schools were to prepare all young adults equally well in the fundamentals (reading, writing, math), it is conceivable that they would be able to continue their education on their own. There is a really nice essay titled "The aims of education" by the mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, which talks about what high school education could be. Summary: https://minireference.com/blog/the-aims-of-education-according-to-whitehead/ https://minireference.com/blog/the-aims-of-education-accordi... Original http://www.anthonyflood.com/whiteheadeducation.htm http://www.anthonyflood.com/whiteheadeducation.htm

IAmEveryone 9y ago
I have a fried who's a genius. He's the best mathematician I've personally known. He published a short story in a literary magazine to impress his mother and it started a 4-way bidding contest among known publishers for a book deal. He's funny, leaves a trail of sad ex-girlfriends (none of whom are ever mad, somehow), and made four "thirty-under-thirty" lists for his political work at the EU. Someone recommended him for a master stipend at Harvard's Kennedy School. He turned it down. Then I pestered him for a week and he unturned it down. Why? He's from a working class background, and was afraid of the $10,000/year he'd have pay (with debt). He read the syllabus of each class he'd take and had decided that he could learn just as much by spending $10 on late fees at the library. He was also afraid of his parent's posting their house as collateral for the debt, and that they couldn't do so twice and his brother wouldn't get the same if he wanted. My point: social mobility is also limited by what people consider possible. My parents were elite, at least in status if not economically, and "Harvard" has meaning in the family beyond being a good university. Similar mechanisms are probably at play with entrepreneurship. Or in the proven tendency of women to feel underqualified for jobs that men with exactly the same CV would apply to without any self-doubts. That's why we need to actively work on getting underrepresented groups into these institutions and professions. There's too much talent going to waste for stupid reasons right now. Getting that guy to Cambridge, MA may well end up being my most significant contribution to society.

njarboe 9y ago

If the traits that produce a person of high "merit" are 50% due to genetics and another 25% to environment from conception to age 3 (as most studies suggest), how to you plan on solving the "root cause" of the problem? In the US at least, people a more and more mating with their peers in IQ, conscientiousness, and culture. With the huge variation in human traits, a meritocracy is going to see massive inequality especially over generations. Careful what you wish for.

konceptz 9y ago
Do you have a source for these statistics? You put merit in quotes and then stated percentages plus the claim that there is a growth in similar IQ partnering.
- iguy 9y ago
  50% genetic + 50% "unshared environment" is the rule of thumb for any complex trait, I assume that's what GP had in mind. Unshared env is a polite way of saying noise; approximately 0% "shared env" i.e. parenting, education, etc. (There are many caveats, obviously.) You could do worse than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates as a place to start.
frockington 9y ago
Compound your statement with education level being inversely related to child bearing and you're looking at a society with one small educated elite and one large "general" population starting to form in the next few generations. I am nervous that we will soon blame genetics for inequality and take rash actions.

ptero 9y ago

Funding may be a problem (it probably is in some states), but let's get rid of the teachers unions shenanigans. Let's make it easier to reward the good teachers and fire the bad ones. School choice (and the ability to take money to a private school) colud help. More charters would, too.

ianai 9y ago
This is counter to the point of funding them more. Unions exist to empower labor. Remove them and you diminish teachers. Regulating them or coming up with creative incentives for societal outcomes would help. Ie give a subsidy (or even an award) to unions for onboarding new teachers and retraining current teachers.
- sokoloff 9y ago
  Unions are one way to pay teachers more. It's possible to be in favor of paying teachers more and still be anti-teacher union. Disclaimer: My parents both taught in public schools their entire careers and their county was unionized. My parents seemed to hate the union on balance, but now I'll have to ask them... The shenanigans that I experienced first and second hand that were enabled and supported/defended by the union were appalling. Teachers teaching subjects they were unqualified for, teachers not showing up to work reliably being protected, a math teacher who literally replied that "the square root of 2 is irrational because it says so on page 79", etc. It was always "gimme more, more, more" and never seemed to be about the kids. If that experience is in any way indicative, I'm all for gutting the teachers' (and other similar) unions. I don't mind paying teachers more than we currently do (and paying the required taxes to enable that), but I'd like to see some accountability and improved results. The key question is how to judge that on a timeframe that is both fair to the kids and the measurement (a long timeframe) and to the teachers (who probably don't want to wait until kindergarten junior is 30 to be paid)
  - ianai 9y ago
    To propose gutting unions requires proposing a substitute. Unions are known to protect “incombants”. It is a very real problem with plenty of studies in the labor literature.

galieos_ghost 9y ago

We spend more than any other country on education, that's not the issue. Baltimore for example spends 16k per student, 4th most in the country and only 11% of their students graduate proficient in math, 13 schools didn't have a single student proficient in math. Paying more money to teachers isn't the answer, the answer is expanding the reach of great teachers using tech. I learned to code for free using online resources. I was able to take courses from Harvard, MIT, and Stanford for free. I brushed up on math skills with Khan academy. What's the point in pay to learn from random teachers and professors when you can learn from the top researchers in the world? Another issue is language. In California 45% of students speak Spanish at home, so of course they are going to struggle in English and other classes as well as part of that. This also increases costs because you need bilingual teachers.

RobertRoberts 9y ago

>...society needs to focus on the school system before kids reach college. I don't think schools are the problem, I think it's people. Parents today are either overworked, poor, stressed, unhappy or depressed, single, sick, or a combination of the these and then some. I talked with a guy just this past week who works at a school for Native American kids. The primary job of these teachers is to make the kids feel safe. Their primary job. Not to teach useful skills, but safety. This is an a major metropolitan area, not on a reservation. During one class, a teacher asked if anyone had died from or suffered gun violence, every hand went up. These are elementary school kids. Tell me what difference it makes if the teachers make more money if the kids are all on the edge of committing suicide or at least have no hope for the future. Maybe in places where the kids are fine, teachers can strike and ask for more money. I have a kid going into teaching, and one of my best friends did teaching. I taught at a local college, and when half the students don't turn in any work at all, it's not a teaching problem.

sokoloff 9y ago
Pretty much agree. Our kids are in Cambridge public schools (conscious choice on our part) and we volunteer in various ways to try to help all the kids. The spread of preparedness, ability, and focus of the kids even in K-5 and early elementary is stark. Some kids are unable to focus for even 45 seconds. Some kids regularly have no parents showing up for parent events. Some kids can't read (in any language) by grade 2. There's less that teachers can do in the 1000-ish hours of classroom time per year as compared to what the 4500-ish hours of awake, non-classroom time that the families have control over (or the hopefully 3000-ish hours of sleep that they also control). Parents expect teachers to work miracles I think as compared to what's possible. Families have wildly more time and vastly more individualized time theoretically available to them and for a variety of reasons (some circumstance, some choice), I think that time is frequently squandered/not used effectively and then it's the teachers' fault somehow when an achievement gap surfaces.
- RobertRoberts 9y ago
  >Parents expect teachers to work miracles... I think this sums it up well, and it's sad. My wife works in public school for the last few years, and has personally been yelled at by parent that said "my child would never do anything like that!" (the kid had destroyed a school book, even admitted he did it...) The public fight against the teachers, and the teachers are convinced that school should be fun and play time instead of primarily a learning time. So not only does discipline slide, so does learning, and everyone is part of the problem. A dead comment below pointed out the difference between "gun violence" and "simply violence", it just so happened the story I was relaying was about guns. But I think other forms of abuse are pervasive everywhere, and gun violence affects only a tiny amount of the population. Which is why it was such a striking point for that school and those kids. He completely misunderstood the implications. Edit: I want to also reiterate that while I taught in college, the students were more interested in Facebook, video games and their phones than learning. This is a student problem as much as anything else.

lr4444lr 9y ago

I'd say there is a definite problem with teacher pay if there is high turnover and a significant number of them need 2nd jobs, but the general "problem of education" is something entirely different. Every metric we have of educational quality shows that per pupil expenditure has little correlation with good outcomes - the big urban areas with some of the highest expenditures often have much worse performance than many of their nearby suburbs spending less. Not every problem is solved by throwing money at it.

neap24 9y ago

I'm not convinced about the underpaid teachers argument (I have been a teacher for 10 years). If you actually adjust the salary for number of days worked, most teachers do quite well. For me a "second job" is something I decide to pick up in the summer just to try something new. In how many professions can you do that? I'd say the biggest problem with teacher pay is in the public school realm where there is a fixed salary ladder. This leaves no incentive for teachers to put in any effort beyond the minimum.

kageneko 9y ago
My wife was a teacher for ~10 years. She made a nice salary, but she also spent a pretty good amount on supplies for her classroom since her school was routinely overenrolled and underfunded. She also had to spend money on classes and certifications every few years in order to maintain her license. Georgia (at the time) gave bonuses and increased salary for additional degrees and specializations, so there was some incentive to improve. When she left (mostly because she was tired of dealing with parents...) there was talk about removing the higher education/specialization bonuses, but I don't know if that came about. There's also no union. There are a few professional organizations, but they don't have bargaining power. I think in the United States, it's really hard to talk about teacher experience as a whole, given the different laws and situations.
- neap24 9y ago
  True, but given the technical age we live in, I think supply costs are rapidly diminishing. I also happen to think that "school supplies" are vastly overrated (having taught in Teach For America in an underserved school myself). Furthermore, why do you think that an incentive for advanced degrees/specialization is a good incentive? I think that's the worst kind. The teachers I've met with advanced degrees do not even seem to correlate with the best teachers. I'm not saying your point isn't defensible, it's just that saying teachers/districts are underpaid is far from the obvious answer.

bobcostas55 9y ago

An experiment in DC[0] cut costs by 75%: no change in outcomes. An experiment in Kansas increased costs to comical levels[1]: no change in outcomes. The literature on educational interventions is to a first approximation 100% null results. The US already spends significantly more than much-admired Finland (and more than the OECD average)[2]. Educational costs have ballooned with no corresponding change in results[3]. The whole thing is a sham. [0] http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104018/pdf/20104018.pdf http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/pubs/20104018/pdf/20104018.pdf [1] https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-298.pdf https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa-298... [2] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_605.10.asp https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_605.10.a... [3] https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-chart https://www.cato.org/blog/public-school-spending-theres-char...

ensignavenger 9y ago

How much funding is adequate? If you want to "adequately" fund schools, you have to first define how much adequate is, and go from there. And that is the step where many disagree.

zdragnar 9y ago

I know a teacher in very rural (and white) America. There's not a lot of funding, but throwing more money at them would not change outcomes. It is not at all uncommon for 5 and 6 year olds coming to her classes to be swearing like sailors, unable to spell their names, not knowing numbers, etc. It's not simply a matter of kids being behind, their parents simply don't care. It's a cultural attitude old as time, and crosses race and geographical boundaries, from the dense urban city centers to trailer parks in the countryside. It is coincidental with widespread poverty; both a cause and effect. We have universal Pre-K and k-12 in my nearest metro area, a nearly-hyper liberal bastion. We also have among the worst white-color divide in the country in terms of education outcomes, with a large minority (25% as a record low) dropping out before completing a high school degree. There are so many factors at play, and money (in most schools) is not the primary problem, nor will it be the solution.

Consultant32452 9y ago

Kids who go to pre-k have a small advantage at first, but become statistically indistinguishable after a few years. So universal pre-k is not a great equalizer. Teacher salary is so low because supply is too high [0]. The top 10% of teachers have a huge impact on the success of their students, but it's difficult to impossible to reward them [1]. On the other side of the coin it's practically impossible to fire incompetent teachers [2]. We might also need to increase funding for schools, but I don't believe it will work without fixing these other systemic problems. I think credentialism is really the core issue here. People use credentials as a proxy for merit because they lack better tools. The science is pretty solid around the correlation between IQ/EQ and workplace performance, but it's illegal to give IQ tests to potential hires. If you can't get into Harvard due to some social/economic issue, you may at least have a high IQ. The more useful metrics we give to hiring companies the closer we will likely get to meritocracy. [0]: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/18/oversupply-elementary-education/1917569/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/18/oversu... [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/02/are-teachers-overpaid/there-are-simply-too-many-teachers https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/01/02/are-teacher... [2]: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/07/no_teacher_left_behind.html http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/20...

dragonwriter 9y ago
> The science is pretty solid around the correlation between IQ/EQ and workplace performance, No, it's not, generally (the science around pretty much any practical application of any of the various different constructs identified as “EQ” is weak). > but it's illegal to give IQ tests to potential hires. No, it's not; specifically, it's not where there is clear evidence that IQ test given is closely tied to performance in the particular job being hired for. The idea that this is illegal is a myth based on a case where a particular instance was found to be illegal racial discrimination given it's disparate racial impact specifically because there was no demonstrated connection between job performance in the jobs being hired for to support that it was a bona fide test of job ability. IQ tests have been upheld by the courts subsequently when challenged when there was evidence that they were related to slecific job performance, including when a police department used scores above a certain level as a negative hiring signal.