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A better startup idea would be some way for people in a neighborhood to act collectively to improve the local school. How can someone who isn't a parent improv

A better startup idea would be some way for people in a neighborhood to act collectively to improve the local school. How can someone who isn't a parent improve the quality of their local school? A point is worth _a lot_ around here. I know buyers are thinking to themselves: "I can either send my children to private school, or I can buy this house and send them to public school. Either I spend $35k/yr per child in fees, or I can spend $80k/yr and buy in a good district." At that point the $80k is a good buy - they're thinking they can get it back. I look at my school (poorly scored school) and ask "how can I convince them to send that private school funding money my way?" Typically I would vote up property taxes but I don't have that lever in California.

thatfrenchguy 8y ago
Or maybe we should collectively wonder whether we're tracking the good metrics and whether GreatSchools is really tracking something useful. Not to mention they're funded by the CEO of Walmart :-/
slg 8y ago
I think you just invented local government.
- jpollock 8y ago
  I'm not allowed to participate in government. :)
njarboe 8y ago
Extra money does not help school quality much. School quality, I think (someone on the internet who lives with a teacher), is determined: first the qualities of the students at the school, second the quality of the student's parents, third the quality of the teachers and school admin, fourth the quality of the school's infrastructure and equipment. You can greatly influence the last with money and the third somewhat with higher salaries, but not so much the first or the second. Say you took any poorly scored school and decided to create two schools from the student body. Same funding per child. Children whose parents come to a signup night for the new school get to go to the new school. The rest stay in the old school. The academic results from these two schools will be very different, just by this simple sorting. Money and better teachers help, but so far applying them from the outside doesn't seem to move the needle much.
- lifeisstillgood 8y ago
  That's a horrible thought experiment. and probably correct So how about this as a hypothesis- spend the money on improving parental engagement. Weekly training events, much better planned homework (xeroxd sheets handed out is not the same as a guided syllabus for the parents to follow) You can do a lot just by engaging those parents
  - dhruvrrp 8y ago
    > You can do a lot just by engaging those parents But what if those parents don't want to be engaged with. A lot of children who would be "left behind" in the old school would have been from a worse social-economic background which would mean the parents just won't have time for the school events. Or they might just not care about the kids.
    - deletemenow 8y ago
      What if the state took away kids from parents who can't be bothered to raise them and they get put into state run boarding homes that are jrotc style? Would people be for or against this?
    - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
      Very few parents are sociopaths - so let's go with 99.9% of parents care about their children and their future - but most of us don't have credible people standing in front of us geeing is on to take the right actions at the right time Have "parent trainers" for a school and i expect a massive increase in engagement - and pupil outcomes. This of course comes at a cost. And where parents are working 3 jobs to get buy, then yes, there is another extra cost to society - which is to ask why have we arranged society so some people are in that situation ? cf tax regieme, welfare state etc etc
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > Have "parent trainers" for a school and i expect a massive increase in engagement - and pupil outcomes. I don't. For three reasons: (1) the needed training is probably deep, not shallow, and needs years of lead time. (2) most parents aren't sociopaths, sure, but that doesn't mean they accept an offered external authority as more knowledgeable than themselves on rearing their children, even if they actually were. (3) #1 is only a “probably” because it's not entirely clear what the needed training is; we know parental wealth and educational attainment makes a big difference, but we don't know on a more detailed level why, and there are conflicting explanations. Having trainers may not help much of we don't know what it is that they should be training.

thatfrenchguy 8y ago

Or maybe we should collectively wonder whether we're tracking the good metrics and whether GreatSchools is really tracking something useful. Not to mention they're funded by the CEO of Walmart :-/

slg 8y ago

I think you just invented local government.

jpollock 8y ago
I'm not allowed to participate in government. :)

njarboe 8y ago

Extra money does not help school quality much. School quality, I think (someone on the internet who lives with a teacher), is determined: first the qualities of the students at the school, second the quality of the student's parents, third the quality of the teachers and school admin, fourth the quality of the school's infrastructure and equipment. You can greatly influence the last with money and the third somewhat with higher salaries, but not so much the first or the second. Say you took any poorly scored school and decided to create two schools from the student body. Same funding per child. Children whose parents come to a signup night for the new school get to go to the new school. The rest stay in the old school. The academic results from these two schools will be very different, just by this simple sorting. Money and better teachers help, but so far applying them from the outside doesn't seem to move the needle much.

lifeisstillgood 8y ago
That's a horrible thought experiment. and probably correct So how about this as a hypothesis- spend the money on improving parental engagement. Weekly training events, much better planned homework (xeroxd sheets handed out is not the same as a guided syllabus for the parents to follow) You can do a lot just by engaging those parents
- dhruvrrp 8y ago
  > You can do a lot just by engaging those parents But what if those parents don't want to be engaged with. A lot of children who would be "left behind" in the old school would have been from a worse social-economic background which would mean the parents just won't have time for the school events. Or they might just not care about the kids.
  - deletemenow 8y ago
    What if the state took away kids from parents who can't be bothered to raise them and they get put into state run boarding homes that are jrotc style? Would people be for or against this?
  - lifeisstillgood 8y ago
    Very few parents are sociopaths - so let's go with 99.9% of parents care about their children and their future - but most of us don't have credible people standing in front of us geeing is on to take the right actions at the right time Have "parent trainers" for a school and i expect a massive increase in engagement - and pupil outcomes. This of course comes at a cost. And where parents are working 3 jobs to get buy, then yes, there is another extra cost to society - which is to ask why have we arranged society so some people are in that situation ? cf tax regieme, welfare state etc etc
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Have "parent trainers" for a school and i expect a massive increase in engagement - and pupil outcomes. I don't. For three reasons: (1) the needed training is probably deep, not shallow, and needs years of lead time. (2) most parents aren't sociopaths, sure, but that doesn't mean they accept an offered external authority as more knowledgeable than themselves on rearing their children, even if they actually were. (3) #1 is only a “probably” because it's not entirely clear what the needed training is; we know parental wealth and educational attainment makes a big difference, but we don't know on a more detailed level why, and there are conflicting explanations. Having trainers may not help much of we don't know what it is that they should be training.