5 ms·

Equalizing the funding doesn't help much if you're still stuck going to school based on where you live. If all the rich kids go to one school and all the poor k

Equalizing the funding doesn't help much if you're still stuck going to school based on where you live. If all the rich kids go to one school and all the poor kids go to another, it's entirely predictable that you'll have vastly different outcomes. I once conversed with a friend in college who had grown up upper-middle class and attended very nice public schooling. She told me that poor schools would be better if the parents just got more involved with PTA, etc. I thought, what an ignorant and privileged position to think that, yes, a single mother working two jobs to make ends-meet has the time and energy to go to PTA meetings! Locking kids into the school they are closest too only means that they've got basically the same support structures as the local community. And if the people of that community aren't in a position to help improve things, then improvement doesn't come.

luckydata 8y ago
That's the reason why sending more money to schools at some point doesn't do anything to improve outcomes. It's much better to spend on safety nets like single payer healthcare, unemployement support etc... so that parents can actually get more involved with their kids' education. But in Mad Max America only the strong survives so none of that will ever happen. I hope the "winners" like the world they are creating because I find it fucking horrifying.
- munk-a 8y ago
  Honestly, the only way to "win" the game at this point is to emigrate to somewhere sensible, Canada is nice!
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  An unfortunate facet of the human condition is the idea of throwing enough money at a problem will solve it. And that involves paying 10x as much for a pound of cure compared to an ounce of prevention. It is a darn shame.
JackFr 8y ago
> I thought, what an ignorant and privileged position to think that, yes, a single mother working two jobs to make ends-meet has the time and energy to go to PTA meetings! What a smug and condescending attitude! Poor schools are a very hard problem. Your friend's point certainly only capture's one aspect of a many-faceted problem. However, her point is borne out, to some extent, by performance of inner city parochial schools: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-learn-how-to-learn-inner-city-pupils-in-catholic-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-... "...a growing number of researchers who have found that poor, minority children do particularly well in Catholic schools compared with their public school peers. ... Public school defenders insist that the comparisons are unfair because only the most motivated parents and children, however poor, choose Catholic schools..." Rather than calling out your friend's privilege, how about assuming good faith on her part. If you assume she would like poor schools to improve as much as you would, how would your response have been different? Maybe you both could learn something.
sudosteph 8y ago
This is why I'm still a proponent of busing, but doing it based on general socioeconomic diversity rather than just race. I know there are a lot of inefficiencies with bussing and in some communities (Boston) the backlash was awful, but the long-term effects in many communities did show it actually worked in many ways (Charlotte NC - see this article showing how much worse it got after bussing stopped: http://prospect.org/article/battle-royal-over-segregation-queen-city-0 http://prospect.org/article/battle-royal-over-segregation-qu...) The problem with having "good" and "bad" school districts within a metro area is that you aren't just creating inequal and un-diverse educational facilities, you're contributing to the stratification of the neighborhoods themselves. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that people who can't afford to live in a nice school district will end up moving to a poorer one with fewer high-quality education options.

luckydata 8y ago

That's the reason why sending more money to schools at some point doesn't do anything to improve outcomes. It's much better to spend on safety nets like single payer healthcare, unemployement support etc... so that parents can actually get more involved with their kids' education. But in Mad Max America only the strong survives so none of that will ever happen. I hope the "winners" like the world they are creating because I find it fucking horrifying.

munk-a 8y ago
Honestly, the only way to "win" the game at this point is to emigrate to somewhere sensible, Canada is nice!
Brockenstein 8y ago
An unfortunate facet of the human condition is the idea of throwing enough money at a problem will solve it. And that involves paying 10x as much for a pound of cure compared to an ounce of prevention. It is a darn shame.

JackFr 8y ago

> I thought, what an ignorant and privileged position to think that, yes, a single mother working two jobs to make ends-meet has the time and energy to go to PTA meetings! What a smug and condescending attitude! Poor schools are a very hard problem. Your friend's point certainly only capture's one aspect of a many-faceted problem. However, her point is borne out, to some extent, by performance of inner city parochial schools: https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-learn-how-to-learn-inner-city-pupils-in-catholic-schools.html https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/20/education/where-children-... "...a growing number of researchers who have found that poor, minority children do particularly well in Catholic schools compared with their public school peers. ... Public school defenders insist that the comparisons are unfair because only the most motivated parents and children, however poor, choose Catholic schools..." Rather than calling out your friend's privilege, how about assuming good faith on her part. If you assume she would like poor schools to improve as much as you would, how would your response have been different? Maybe you both could learn something.

sudosteph 8y ago

This is why I'm still a proponent of busing, but doing it based on general socioeconomic diversity rather than just race. I know there are a lot of inefficiencies with bussing and in some communities (Boston) the backlash was awful, but the long-term effects in many communities did show it actually worked in many ways (Charlotte NC - see this article showing how much worse it got after bussing stopped: http://prospect.org/article/battle-royal-over-segregation-queen-city-0 http://prospect.org/article/battle-royal-over-segregation-qu...) The problem with having "good" and "bad" school districts within a metro area is that you aren't just creating inequal and un-diverse educational facilities, you're contributing to the stratification of the neighborhoods themselves. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that people who can't afford to live in a nice school district will end up moving to a poorer one with fewer high-quality education options.