5 ms·

I don't think there is a mass conspiracy going on. I do think there are disvirtuous circles going on. Ex one school is located in a bad area over time gets less

I don't think there is a mass conspiracy going on. I do think there are disvirtuous circles going on. Ex one school is located in a bad area over time gets less funding, becomes less attractive, fewer people with means want to send their children there, school gets less funding etc. It's not just rich people who oppose poor people. It's also poor people. Think of the guy who is scraping to get ahead and sees someone he knows totally taking advantage of the system and not working, or is involved in criminal activity. This was a good article on it: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-we-cant-stop-hating-poor/&ved=2ahUKEwjd08D42q3aAhUIvlMKHV31CeoQFjABegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw39P5_o6d_CBFjSzR2xfhSM https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...

sseveran 9y ago
Where I grew up in Baltimore the problem wasn't the funding of the schools. Indeed, when I was in school Baltimore City spent just a bit less per pupil than Montgomery county which was one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation. However the money was spent very differently. So while I would agree that there are real systemic problems I don't think there is any amount of money that could be thrown at Baltimore City that would really change the outcomes in a meaningful way. And that is what makes me the most sad about it.
- aantix 9y ago
  I’m curious as to spencific differences in purchases?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- lifeisstillgood 9y ago
  how can you spend money so differently in one district to another ? Teacher salaries, buildings, books seem to be the likely highest costs wherever you are.
  - philipkglass 9y ago
    School personnel end up acting as ad hoc social workers for children who show up unwilling or unable to focus on academic study. If one student comes to school worrying about what college they'll be able to get into, and another comes to school worrying if the family's going to be evicted from their apartment, then the same money/attention isn't likley to produce the same academic outcomes. I don't know if that is what sseveran alludes to -- Baltimore seems to be famously corrupt also -- but it's a significant problem. It's one of the reasons that some teachers are willing to take a pay cut to work at a private school that's selective about students. Teaching students who are attentive and ready to learn can be pleasurable. Trying to teach students who are resentful, distracted, and unprepared -- that's less attractive. Or at least it takes a rarer personality type to find it rewarding.
  - cl0ckt0wer 9y ago
    Security is very expensive, and Baltimore needs way more of it.
  - dashundchen 9y ago
    Spending per pupil alone doesn't tell the whole story. In the US, it's common for school districts in high poverty areas to end up providing services that in other countries would be provided via state welfare or privately. So free school lunches and breakfasts, physical and occupational therapy, counseling and nursing for students, transportation for handicapped, social workers etc all get wrapped up in a district budget, with the largest chunk of spending going towards the highest need students. Add up the higher rates of childhood poverty and special needs in urban areas and the per pupil spending becomes a poor measure of what is actually spent on education for the average student. I'll note that in my state, the balakanized school district situation in many metros leaves suburban districts too small to provide these services themselves, and they'll often send their highest need students into the bigger urban district. Here's an article describing some of this disparity among districts in the Cleveland, Ohio area. http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/01/poverty_and_special_needs_eat.html http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/01/poverty_and...
- StanislavPetrov 9y ago
  That's because the wealth and education level of one's parents is much more highly correlated to the wealth and education level of a child than any other factor. People who are poor and uneducated tend to raise children who end up poor an uneducated, regardless of race. Studies have shown that growing up in poverty produces measurable changes in the brains of infants. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0080954 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... It may be en vogue to focus on race and identity has the major problems in our society, but all the data points to poverty and being the unifying cause - not race.
  - SamReidHughes 9y ago
    If you read the paper you'll find that the conclusion posted here is absolute nonsense. Kids in poverty had average numbers 0.4-0.5 standard deviations below the mean. The authors didn't make any attempt to disprove the simple and obvious biological explanation: poor parents often had genes making them dumber, more impulsive low-grey-matter-havers that they passed on to their kids. I'll bet you Syrian refugee kids don't exhibit anywhere near such a large gray matter problem.
hasbroslasher 9y ago
A mass conspiracy is a kind of a disingenuous characterization of classist/racist oppression. The Ku Klux Klan is, by definition, involved in racist conspiracy - they are famous for meeting together to plan and execute racist acts of violence/oppression. People who work at Microsoft are obviously not involved in planning violent attacks against poor/brown people, but are often still involved in a much more complex and convoluted racist/classist conspiracy. When large companies, e.g. Wal-Mart, donate to political causes, they often contribute to ones that will help their bottom line. No matter how benevolent Google and Apple might seem, they and some of their employees and executives DO provide money to political campaigns that do some of the following: 1. Prioritize issues irrelevant to limiting race/class oppression to the top of their talking points. For instance, Hillary Clinton is memorable to voters not because she provided a good solution to widening income inequality, but because she held feel-good positions about immigration and LGBT issues. That's not to insinuate economic/racial issues are the ONLY thing worth caring about, but that they should be a top concern for those who want to eliminate racism and classism from our society. The effect is that by voting for such candidates (who often quietly fall more towards the center, economically), you perpetuate inaction on income inequality. 2. Directly support racist/classist legislation. Giving money to (or voting for) a campaign that opposes a drastically higher Federal minimum wage law directly supports income inequality. Giving money to a campaign that will not support deindustrialization of prisons, drastic improvements in education in low-income areas, or healthcare for all directly supports income inequality and institutional racism. Giving money to a presidential candidate who insinuates that minorities and immigrants are criminals, similarly, directly supports institutional racism. Now, even if you are one of the "good" ones who only votes for Bernie Sanders, etc. you may still be the beneficiary of racist/classist laws that your company seeks to uphold, implicating you in this conspiracy. For instance, Amazon's political funding that opposes higher Federal Minimum Wage means that they have more money to pay Data Scientists and Marketers and Front-End Designers, hence their ability to hire you. And if you're a good employee, your work will enrich both you and your employer, and some of this cash will flow back into the cycle of supporting racist and classist legislation. So we (assuming readers of HN are largely well paid FTE employees) are left in a situation where it's REALLY hard to escape our connections to this conspiracy. We can choose to work at places that aren't Amazon or Google (often for less money than they'd give us), we can try extra hard to make our individual efforts efficacious, we can vote with our dollars, we can support other non-political causes to lessen racist/classist oppression, etc. TLDR; this is what people mean when they say "all White people are racist" - not that you're personally going out there each day and doing all that you can to make black people's lives suck, or purposely waking up and thinking "how can I take more money from the disadvantaged today?". But rather that you benefit implicitly from systemic racism and classism and don't do a whole heck of a lot to fix it. My involvement (and some of your involvement) in perpetuating racism and classism is much higher than I'd like to admit and it's really hard to fully disentangle myself from the privileges that my race, class, upbringing, and place of residence have afforded me so far in life.
hedvig 9y ago
You might not call it a conspiracy, but in any event there are consequences to "strategically pushed for policies—such as relatively low minimum wages and business-friendly deregulation" that need to be acknowledged and reversed.
ryandrake 9y ago
> I do think there are disvirtuous circles going on. Ex one school is located in a bad area over time gets less funding, becomes less attractive, fewer people with means want to send their children there, school gets less funding etc. Reinforced by the virtuous cycle going on in parallel: school is in rich area, therefore has more funding/resources, school becomes more attractive, property values get higher, fewer people without means can move in...
- phil21 9y ago
  Only that's not actually what happens on the ground. The "bad" schools typically had more money per student (and were larger, so more money in total) than the "good" schools where I grew up. The sole and only difference that mattered was the raw material (students) that attended. Heck, I attended a private inner city high school for a year - those demographics were identical to the public school next door, but since the private school could filter for the best students they did far more with far less. School funding is rarely the problem. You could increase funding 3x and still not put a dent in the problem until we decide as a society that school's are not social welfare centers. Exceedingly few children can be "saved" from a horrible environment outside of school. Edit: I do actually agree with the virtuous cycle premise - I just don't think it's directly related to finances. I am quite convinced after 20 years of studying the debate that school funding is almost entirely divorced from school performance. I've had a unique enough education background to know small pockets of poor folks who value education exist - and they get just as good if not better outcomes than the rich suburban "college prep" schools for about a quarter of the cost if they are large enough to fund a private school, or even less if it's simply a high-functioning homeschool group. Parents are pretty much the only thing that matters in this debate, the rest is line noise at best.

sseveran 9y ago

Where I grew up in Baltimore the problem wasn't the funding of the schools. Indeed, when I was in school Baltimore City spent just a bit less per pupil than Montgomery county which was one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation. However the money was spent very differently. So while I would agree that there are real systemic problems I don't think there is any amount of money that could be thrown at Baltimore City that would really change the outcomes in a meaningful way. And that is what makes me the most sad about it.

aantix 9y ago
I’m curious as to spencific differences in purchases?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
lifeisstillgood 9y ago
how can you spend money so differently in one district to another ? Teacher salaries, buildings, books seem to be the likely highest costs wherever you are.
- philipkglass 9y ago
  School personnel end up acting as ad hoc social workers for children who show up unwilling or unable to focus on academic study. If one student comes to school worrying about what college they'll be able to get into, and another comes to school worrying if the family's going to be evicted from their apartment, then the same money/attention isn't likley to produce the same academic outcomes. I don't know if that is what sseveran alludes to -- Baltimore seems to be famously corrupt also -- but it's a significant problem. It's one of the reasons that some teachers are willing to take a pay cut to work at a private school that's selective about students. Teaching students who are attentive and ready to learn can be pleasurable. Trying to teach students who are resentful, distracted, and unprepared -- that's less attractive. Or at least it takes a rarer personality type to find it rewarding.
- cl0ckt0wer 9y ago
  Security is very expensive, and Baltimore needs way more of it.
- dashundchen 9y ago
  Spending per pupil alone doesn't tell the whole story. In the US, it's common for school districts in high poverty areas to end up providing services that in other countries would be provided via state welfare or privately. So free school lunches and breakfasts, physical and occupational therapy, counseling and nursing for students, transportation for handicapped, social workers etc all get wrapped up in a district budget, with the largest chunk of spending going towards the highest need students. Add up the higher rates of childhood poverty and special needs in urban areas and the per pupil spending becomes a poor measure of what is actually spent on education for the average student. I'll note that in my state, the balakanized school district situation in many metros leaves suburban districts too small to provide these services themselves, and they'll often send their highest need students into the bigger urban district. Here's an article describing some of this disparity among districts in the Cleveland, Ohio area. http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/01/poverty_and_special_needs_eat.html http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/01/poverty_and...
StanislavPetrov 9y ago
That's because the wealth and education level of one's parents is much more highly correlated to the wealth and education level of a child than any other factor. People who are poor and uneducated tend to raise children who end up poor an uneducated, regardless of race. Studies have shown that growing up in poverty produces measurable changes in the brains of infants. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0080954 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... It may be en vogue to focus on race and identity has the major problems in our society, but all the data points to poverty and being the unifying cause - not race.
- SamReidHughes 9y ago
  If you read the paper you'll find that the conclusion posted here is absolute nonsense. Kids in poverty had average numbers 0.4-0.5 standard deviations below the mean. The authors didn't make any attempt to disprove the simple and obvious biological explanation: poor parents often had genes making them dumber, more impulsive low-grey-matter-havers that they passed on to their kids. I'll bet you Syrian refugee kids don't exhibit anywhere near such a large gray matter problem.

hasbroslasher 9y ago

A mass conspiracy is a kind of a disingenuous characterization of classist/racist oppression. The Ku Klux Klan is, by definition, involved in racist conspiracy - they are famous for meeting together to plan and execute racist acts of violence/oppression. People who work at Microsoft are obviously not involved in planning violent attacks against poor/brown people, but are often still involved in a much more complex and convoluted racist/classist conspiracy. When large companies, e.g. Wal-Mart, donate to political causes, they often contribute to ones that will help their bottom line. No matter how benevolent Google and Apple might seem, they and some of their employees and executives DO provide money to political campaigns that do some of the following: 1. Prioritize issues irrelevant to limiting race/class oppression to the top of their talking points. For instance, Hillary Clinton is memorable to voters not because she provided a good solution to widening income inequality, but because she held feel-good positions about immigration and LGBT issues. That's not to insinuate economic/racial issues are the ONLY thing worth caring about, but that they should be a top concern for those who want to eliminate racism and classism from our society. The effect is that by voting for such candidates (who often quietly fall more towards the center, economically), you perpetuate inaction on income inequality. 2. Directly support racist/classist legislation. Giving money to (or voting for) a campaign that opposes a drastically higher Federal minimum wage law directly supports income inequality. Giving money to a campaign that will not support deindustrialization of prisons, drastic improvements in education in low-income areas, or healthcare for all directly supports income inequality and institutional racism. Giving money to a presidential candidate who insinuates that minorities and immigrants are criminals, similarly, directly supports institutional racism. Now, even if you are one of the "good" ones who only votes for Bernie Sanders, etc. you may still be the beneficiary of racist/classist laws that your company seeks to uphold, implicating you in this conspiracy. For instance, Amazon's political funding that opposes higher Federal Minimum Wage means that they have more money to pay Data Scientists and Marketers and Front-End Designers, hence their ability to hire you. And if you're a good employee, your work will enrich both you and your employer, and some of this cash will flow back into the cycle of supporting racist and classist legislation. So we (assuming readers of HN are largely well paid FTE employees) are left in a situation where it's REALLY hard to escape our connections to this conspiracy. We can choose to work at places that aren't Amazon or Google (often for less money than they'd give us), we can try extra hard to make our individual efforts efficacious, we can vote with our dollars, we can support other non-political causes to lessen racist/classist oppression, etc. TLDR; this is what people mean when they say "all White people are racist" - not that you're personally going out there each day and doing all that you can to make black people's lives suck, or purposely waking up and thinking "how can I take more money from the disadvantaged today?". But rather that you benefit implicitly from systemic racism and classism and don't do a whole heck of a lot to fix it. My involvement (and some of your involvement) in perpetuating racism and classism is much higher than I'd like to admit and it's really hard to fully disentangle myself from the privileges that my race, class, upbringing, and place of residence have afforded me so far in life.

hedvig 9y ago

You might not call it a conspiracy, but in any event there are consequences to "strategically pushed for policies—such as relatively low minimum wages and business-friendly deregulation" that need to be acknowledged and reversed.

ryandrake 9y ago

> I do think there are disvirtuous circles going on. Ex one school is located in a bad area over time gets less funding, becomes less attractive, fewer people with means want to send their children there, school gets less funding etc. Reinforced by the virtuous cycle going on in parallel: school is in rich area, therefore has more funding/resources, school becomes more attractive, property values get higher, fewer people without means can move in...

phil21 9y ago
Only that's not actually what happens on the ground. The "bad" schools typically had more money per student (and were larger, so more money in total) than the "good" schools where I grew up. The sole and only difference that mattered was the raw material (students) that attended. Heck, I attended a private inner city high school for a year - those demographics were identical to the public school next door, but since the private school could filter for the best students they did far more with far less. School funding is rarely the problem. You could increase funding 3x and still not put a dent in the problem until we decide as a society that school's are not social welfare centers. Exceedingly few children can be "saved" from a horrible environment outside of school. Edit: I do actually agree with the virtuous cycle premise - I just don't think it's directly related to finances. I am quite convinced after 20 years of studying the debate that school funding is almost entirely divorced from school performance. I've had a unique enough education background to know small pockets of poor folks who value education exist - and they get just as good if not better outcomes than the rich suburban "college prep" schools for about a quarter of the cost if they are large enough to fund a private school, or even less if it's simply a high-functioning homeschool group. Parents are pretty much the only thing that matters in this debate, the rest is line noise at best.