4 ms·

How the Startup Mentality Failed Kids in San Francisco

17 points by rising-sky 8y ago

rayiner 8y ago
> This gutted California’s education funding so severely that the state’s public schools, which had been ranked best in the nation in the 1950s, fell to among the worst in a few decades. (They now hover around 35th.) Stopped reading here. This statistic is useless without adjusting for change in demographics (the time period coincided with a massive increase in percentage of students from ESL backgrounds).
- madeofpalk 8y ago
  ...because the new demographics are significantly generically stupider?
  - tptacek 8y ago
    You can put a math prodigy in a room with me and I will have a harder time teaching them (anything) if their Spanish is good and their English is weak, because my English is good and my Spanish nonexistent. "Stupid" has nothing to do with it.
  - Gibbon1 8y ago
    Cause is easier to blame Mexicans and South East Asians than insufficient school funding.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    ...because they’re being tested in a language their parents often don’t speak at home?
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  Yeah, no. Gutting funding is going to make schools worse no matter what. Stop trying to blame things on immigrants.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    He's not "blaming" anything on immigrants; he's saying the simplistic statistic presented is confounded, and is unlikely to show the direct correlation between funding and student outcomes that it purports to show. You're required to be charitable here; it's in the site guidelines. Yours is not just an uncharitable interpretation, but a deliberately inflammatory one.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      No. I am not going to be charitable to an obvious attack on immigrants.
      - dang 8y ago
        It wasn't "an obvious attack on immigrants", as anyone who's read many of rayiner's HN comments would know. Please follow the site guidelines.
nwah1 8y ago
Prop 13, mentioned in the article, correlates with the sharp turn of California's public schools from the among the best to among the worst. I'm sure there's numerous factors that contribute, but this is core. And repealing this bad law would have numerous other positive effects on crucial issues like affordable housing and sprawl, because it would cut down on idle land speculation which drives up real estate prices in prime locations.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
allthenews 8y ago
>San Francisco has been trying, and mostly failing, for half a century to give African American and Latino students an education comparable to that provided to white and Asian students in the city. At what point will it become appropriate to admit that there is a cultural problem among certain low income minorities that leads to poor outcomes in education? Regardless of whether it is fair, is it really reasonable to force middle class minorities and whites to be exposed to drugs and violence in middle school, in a clearly failed attempt to bring up worst performers? These policies are a net loss to society. Instead of boosting performance of the lower tail, we are only hampering the middle and, especially, upper reaches of achievement. Some problems can't be solved by money, or even celebrity apparently, according to this article.
- TwoWheelWonder 8y ago
  Fuck off, you didn't even read the article.
  - allthenews 8y ago
    I even quoted it...and I'm speaking toward a trend across the U.S. Even where I went to school, after Katrina, our peaceful hallways were suddenly breaking out in racial brawls between Hispanic and African American children. How was that good for anyone? The kids who didn't give a shit about school continued to not give a shit about school, meanwhile the rest of us had to suffer a reduction in the quality of our education. There is a problem, but what we've been attempting to do to solve it for decades clearly isn't working. I'd appreciate a more substantiative rebuttal.
- natecavanaugh 8y ago
  The only reasonable part of that question was in specifying low income, which seems the main influencer on students across the spectrum. I'm not saying those cultures don't have unique negatives (even though we Americans pretend as if there's no such thing as diversity of weaknesses), but keeping "us" from "them", whether that's racial or economic terms, seems truly unamerican in terms of ideals and what we try to sell to the world. It's not as if the poor white are blowing away their contemporaries with over achievement. It's a pretty consistent pattern, and one we can have some influence on both through the state and personally. Also, maybe instead of looking at other cultures and only pinpointing any negatives we see, we can look at our own. What does it say about us culturally that we are totally fine with exploiting the poor by preying on their weaker position, but the second someone mentions preventing it, half of our country throws a fit? I'm not stating that it always needs a governmental solution, but your response indicates a general disdain for the poor, especially those who have very little control (the kids) over their previous experiences, and don't always get the opportunity to learn how to make better choices in the future. I think as a society we function better when we address poverty as a "we" problem, not just a "you" problem. Edit: Spelling. Thanks Gboard :P

17 points by rising-sky 8y ago

> This gutted California’s education funding so severely that the state’s public schools, which had been ranked best in the nation in the 1950s, fell to among the worst in a few decades. (They now hover around 35th.) Stopped reading here. This statistic is useless without adjusting for change in demographics (the time period coincided with a massive increase in percentage of students from ESL backgrounds).

madeofpalk 8y ago
...because the new demographics are significantly generically stupider?
- tptacek 8y ago
  You can put a math prodigy in a room with me and I will have a harder time teaching them (anything) if their Spanish is good and their English is weak, because my English is good and my Spanish nonexistent. "Stupid" has nothing to do with it.
- Gibbon1 8y ago
  Cause is easier to blame Mexicans and South East Asians than insufficient school funding.
- rayiner 8y ago
  ...because they’re being tested in a language their parents often don’t speak at home?
s73v3r_ 8y ago
Yeah, no. Gutting funding is going to make schools worse no matter what. Stop trying to blame things on immigrants.
- tptacek 8y ago
  He's not "blaming" anything on immigrants; he's saying the simplistic statistic presented is confounded, and is unlikely to show the direct correlation between funding and student outcomes that it purports to show. You're required to be charitable here; it's in the site guidelines. Yours is not just an uncharitable interpretation, but a deliberately inflammatory one.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    No. I am not going to be charitable to an obvious attack on immigrants.
    - dang 8y ago
      It wasn't "an obvious attack on immigrants", as anyone who's read many of rayiner's HN comments would know. Please follow the site guidelines.

nwah1 8y ago

Prop 13, mentioned in the article, correlates with the sharp turn of California's public schools from the among the best to among the worst. I'm sure there's numerous factors that contribute, but this is core. And repealing this bad law would have numerous other positive effects on crucial issues like affordable housing and sprawl, because it would cut down on idle land speculation which drives up real estate prices in prime locations.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

allthenews 8y ago

>San Francisco has been trying, and mostly failing, for half a century to give African American and Latino students an education comparable to that provided to white and Asian students in the city. At what point will it become appropriate to admit that there is a cultural problem among certain low income minorities that leads to poor outcomes in education? Regardless of whether it is fair, is it really reasonable to force middle class minorities and whites to be exposed to drugs and violence in middle school, in a clearly failed attempt to bring up worst performers? These policies are a net loss to society. Instead of boosting performance of the lower tail, we are only hampering the middle and, especially, upper reaches of achievement. Some problems can't be solved by money, or even celebrity apparently, according to this article.

TwoWheelWonder 8y ago
Fuck off, you didn't even read the article.
- allthenews 8y ago
  I even quoted it...and I'm speaking toward a trend across the U.S. Even where I went to school, after Katrina, our peaceful hallways were suddenly breaking out in racial brawls between Hispanic and African American children. How was that good for anyone? The kids who didn't give a shit about school continued to not give a shit about school, meanwhile the rest of us had to suffer a reduction in the quality of our education. There is a problem, but what we've been attempting to do to solve it for decades clearly isn't working. I'd appreciate a more substantiative rebuttal.
natecavanaugh 8y ago
The only reasonable part of that question was in specifying low income, which seems the main influencer on students across the spectrum. I'm not saying those cultures don't have unique negatives (even though we Americans pretend as if there's no such thing as diversity of weaknesses), but keeping "us" from "them", whether that's racial or economic terms, seems truly unamerican in terms of ideals and what we try to sell to the world. It's not as if the poor white are blowing away their contemporaries with over achievement. It's a pretty consistent pattern, and one we can have some influence on both through the state and personally. Also, maybe instead of looking at other cultures and only pinpointing any negatives we see, we can look at our own. What does it say about us culturally that we are totally fine with exploiting the poor by preying on their weaker position, but the second someone mentions preventing it, half of our country throws a fit? I'm not stating that it always needs a governmental solution, but your response indicates a general disdain for the poor, especially those who have very little control (the kids) over their previous experiences, and don't always get the opportunity to learn how to make better choices in the future. I think as a society we function better when we address poverty as a "we" problem, not just a "you" problem. Edit: Spelling. Thanks Gboard :P