4 ms·

how about we recognize education for what it is in this country: indoctrination and grooming for your role in the economy. to make it more relatable: the missio

how about we recognize education for what it is in this country: indoctrination and grooming for your role in the economy. to make it more relatable: the mission statements (ethos) from schools are exactly like company culture statements from tech ("don't be evil"); they're meaningless as far as the real purpose of the organization. CMU doesn't care about passion - it cares about bottom line and its bottom line is a function of donations/tuition/research funding (in the form of institution overhead). with the harvard asian personality thing, the nyc public schools shsat thing, and now this i wonder how is that people don't recognize all of this hand-wringing over affluence begetting affluence and "hacking" for what it is: band-aids on a broken system. we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? i don't know because all of this is so highly coupled that you'd need a phd in market design and non-linear optimization to even start unwinding the relationships. edit: i'm getting downvoted. when microsoft/google/uber/etc. speak from their ethos does anyone believe them? when fb last year released chat for children and claimed to be interested in helping kids or whatever did anyone believe them? what's the difference here? CMU doesn't even operate under the guise of a public service - it is a private institution after all.

forapurpose 8y ago
> we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? It seems straightforward: Lower the cost of education significantly. The reasons you cite are the reasons for the public universities in the US, AFAIK. The number one predictor of college education, IIRC, is parental wealth or income; education wasn't always this expensive.
- mlevental 8y ago
  great. now fund public institutions better than private so excellent researchers have the tools and the compensation they need in order to work for them rather than privates. california seems to get it.
  - mdorazio 8y ago
    Excellent researchers does not equal good education for the broader student body. It's also not at all clear that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes or higher likelihood of landing a good job (the data is a bit old, but the divergence is clear here: [1]). Either way, education funding is just something that the US population is demonstrably not interested in. Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education, which is what it would take, leading to things like teachers needing to strike just to get low-class income. And outside of specific demographic groups we do not have a culture that encourages academic study from a young age like many other countries do. These are big socioeconomic problems that are going to take a generation or more to change even a little bit. [1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-Chart-on-Tuition-vs-Earnings-for-College-Grads http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-C...
    - forapurpose 8y ago
      > Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education That's not supported by the facts. A candidate for U.S. President who advocated funding free college education for families with incomes under ~$100K received the most votes for President. A candidate who advocated free college education for everyone arguably was third most popular (though we have no official measure of that). > http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/.. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/... The parent's cite is about the relationship between future earnings and tuition; it's not about public funding.
      - mdorazio 8y ago
        Presidents don't make tax laws, Congress does. Please point me to the majority of representatives getting elected on platforms of raising taxes for education. Outside of a few states like California you'll find that that is a minority platform. I see where the mixup is with that citation. Tuition is a direct proxy for college funding (think of it as student funding rather than public funding). I meant it to show that increasing funding for colleges does not equate with improving outcomes for most students.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  That is basically the German system right?

forapurpose 8y ago

> we should decouple education (which is essential for being productive) from social selection. how? It seems straightforward: Lower the cost of education significantly. The reasons you cite are the reasons for the public universities in the US, AFAIK. The number one predictor of college education, IIRC, is parental wealth or income; education wasn't always this expensive.

mlevental 8y ago
great. now fund public institutions better than private so excellent researchers have the tools and the compensation they need in order to work for them rather than privates. california seems to get it.
- mdorazio 8y ago
  Excellent researchers does not equal good education for the broader student body. It's also not at all clear that increased funding leads to better educational outcomes or higher likelihood of landing a good job (the data is a bit old, but the divergence is clear here: [1]). Either way, education funding is just something that the US population is demonstrably not interested in. Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education, which is what it would take, leading to things like teachers needing to strike just to get low-class income. And outside of specific demographic groups we do not have a culture that encourages academic study from a young age like many other countries do. These are big socioeconomic problems that are going to take a generation or more to change even a little bit. [1] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-Chart-on-Tuition-vs-Earnings-for-College-Grads http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2012/11/30/Shocking-C...
  - forapurpose 8y ago
    > Very few people push for more taxes to pay for education That's not supported by the facts. A candidate for U.S. President who advocated funding free college education for families with incomes under ~$100K received the most votes for President. A candidate who advocated free college education for everyone arguably was third most popular (though we have no official measure of that). > http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/.. http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/... The parent's cite is about the relationship between future earnings and tuition; it's not about public funding.
    - mdorazio 8y ago
      Presidents don't make tax laws, Congress does. Please point me to the majority of representatives getting elected on platforms of raising taxes for education. Outside of a few states like California you'll find that that is a minority platform. I see where the mixup is with that citation. Tuition is a direct proxy for college funding (think of it as student funding rather than public funding). I meant it to show that increasing funding for colleges does not equate with improving outcomes for most students.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
That is basically the German system right?