5 ms·

It's sad how common these feelings are and how nearly all of them trace back to the government's (arguably) well-intentioned insistence on running schools itsel

by karzeem 16y ago

It's sad how common these feelings are and how nearly all of them trace back to the government's (arguably) well-intentioned insistence on running schools itself.

stretchwithme 16y ago
The pattern with the government is the same from situation to situation. 1) Government makes something free 2) The market for private delivery of the same thing dries up. Those few that still want to pay must pay much more than they would have before the government started giving it away for free because the market has shrunk so much 3) The same thing happens to alternatives to the thing they made free 4) Decisions are now made by those delivering the process instead of the person choosing between the alternatives. Costs and benefits are no longer weighed together or by the person that cares about the outcome the most. Considerations easily described in resumes and sound bites become uber important 5) The corporations and unions move in and start influencing the decision makers, carving out expensive niches for themselves 6) Things that truly matter but aren't profitable for the politically connected fall by the wayside 7) People getting something free put up with it because ditching the free thing for same thing done right is now a super expensive alternative 8) Delivering the free thing grows more expensive, much faster than the rate of inflation 9) Eventually the tax payers fight back and the costs of delivering the thing are slashed, along with quality. The corporations and unions have to spend and/or threaten more to hang on to their protected positions. 10) Those getting the service for free now have to spend all their time at rallies and fine tuning the stories about how badly they're being treated.
- crayz 16y ago
  Why is this seemingly not true in other western countries where they have cheaper, better-functioning public institutions? I think there's truth in what you're saying, but the idea that government itself is the sole problem is far too simple an answer
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - karzeem 16y ago
    On education in particular, school choice is common in much of western Europe, and that seems to go some way towards mitigating the effects of government involvement.
    - eftpotrm 16y ago
      School choice is far from an unmitigated blessing - it has a very strong tendency to produce 'sink schools' with very poor outcomes, simply because the parents who care congregate around the schools they think are best. Note think - we know how much the statistics are manipulated, classes are taught to the test to significantly undermine league tables - so you end up with state sponsored failure, waste and the dooming of those children who got stuck in the sink schools because there weren't places elsewhere. If you introduce favouring of more local pupils then property prices rise around the more favoured schools, if you introduce selection by ballot people complain it's 'unfair'. Honestly, I don't think there is a 'perfect system'. But school choice is somewhat illusory when there are limited and largely fixed numbers of places and it honestly has real, significant problems. (As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions. I forget which country but there was an interesting example given during our election campaign last year of a country with very high outcomes and yet relatively modest teaching salaries, which was alleged to be significantly due to teaching being accorded very high status and very difficult admission criteria. The upshot of this was competent, respected teachers with pride in their jobs and better outcomes all round.)
      - anamax 16y ago
        > As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions. As an "insider", the thing that really shocks me about outsiders' comments is their assumption that they know enough to comment intelligently about what's going on in the US. Actually, it doesn't shock me at all because it's SOP. We get that you watch US media, but don't confuse that with information. Helpful tip - don't expect warm water at LA's beaches, let alone SF's. Yes, we know that bay watch suggests otherwise, but ....
epistasis 16y ago
Does anyone think it really was well-intentioned? Did the people who passed No Child Left Behind think that the federal government is capable of doing anything good? Did they think that federal regulations and requirements help things on the local level? Did the people who voted for NCLB value education? Did anyone involved with education think that NCLB could improve education? I don't think so. I think NCLB was a giant Fuck You to people who don't have the money to pay for private schools, a corollary to Starving the Beast. There's little other rational way to look at it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
ylem 16y ago
I though Singapore, Japan, etc. have government managed schools that seem to be doing rather well...I can't even argue the locality issue because Switzerland seems to be doing rather well also. I think one of the difficulties in US schools is brought up by the author--we try to teach everyone and we believe in 2nd and 3rd chances. Many countries begin tracking rather early, so their teachers don't have some of the same special needs issues (I'm not arguing right or wrong here, just fact) that teachers here face. Then, there is the family component. In a number of industrialized countries, education is highly prized and parents are deeply involved in their kids' education. Here, that is again not necessarily the case in many schools--and there is a limit to how much teachers can do to overcome that. Also, I think that in many other industrialized countries, teachers are respected and paid reasonably compared to other professions. This draws talented people into the field (passion is important, but so is economics).
- lutorm 16y ago
  One aspect of the "family component" is also that the US is a much more unequal society than most western European countries, which is further exacerbated by the very local nature of US school funding. This gets lost in looking at averages.
- angus77 16y ago
  Most Japanese kids end up going to cram schools to make up for what the school system (both public and private) lacks. The system sucks---long hours, Saturday classes are being reintroduced this spring, and the cram schools are usually at least 2 hours long---sometimes as much as 4 or 5 hours. And Japan still can't get into the top 10 of the Education Index.
kenjackson 16y ago
It's largely the same at private schools. The budget crunch and parents who insist their children are A+ stars, often worse. The big thing you don't have at private schools is often the child who can't speak English, or is special needs (whether learning or behaviorally). They simply reject them or kick them out. To put it another way, you hear a lot fewer complaints from teachers in public schools that teach in the gifted programs.

by karzeem 16y ago

It's sad how common these feelings are and how nearly all of them trace back to the government's (arguably) well-intentioned insistence on running schools itself.

stretchwithme 16y ago

The pattern with the government is the same from situation to situation. 1) Government makes something free 2) The market for private delivery of the same thing dries up. Those few that still want to pay must pay much more than they would have before the government started giving it away for free because the market has shrunk so much 3) The same thing happens to alternatives to the thing they made free 4) Decisions are now made by those delivering the process instead of the person choosing between the alternatives. Costs and benefits are no longer weighed together or by the person that cares about the outcome the most. Considerations easily described in resumes and sound bites become uber important 5) The corporations and unions move in and start influencing the decision makers, carving out expensive niches for themselves 6) Things that truly matter but aren't profitable for the politically connected fall by the wayside 7) People getting something free put up with it because ditching the free thing for same thing done right is now a super expensive alternative 8) Delivering the free thing grows more expensive, much faster than the rate of inflation 9) Eventually the tax payers fight back and the costs of delivering the thing are slashed, along with quality. The corporations and unions have to spend and/or threaten more to hang on to their protected positions. 10) Those getting the service for free now have to spend all their time at rallies and fine tuning the stories about how badly they're being treated.

crayz 16y ago
Why is this seemingly not true in other western countries where they have cheaper, better-functioning public institutions? I think there's truth in what you're saying, but the idea that government itself is the sole problem is far too simple an answer
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- karzeem 16y ago
  On education in particular, school choice is common in much of western Europe, and that seems to go some way towards mitigating the effects of government involvement.
  - eftpotrm 16y ago
    School choice is far from an unmitigated blessing - it has a very strong tendency to produce 'sink schools' with very poor outcomes, simply because the parents who care congregate around the schools they think are best. Note think - we know how much the statistics are manipulated, classes are taught to the test to significantly undermine league tables - so you end up with state sponsored failure, waste and the dooming of those children who got stuck in the sink schools because there weren't places elsewhere. If you introduce favouring of more local pupils then property prices rise around the more favoured schools, if you introduce selection by ballot people complain it's 'unfair'. Honestly, I don't think there is a 'perfect system'. But school choice is somewhat illusory when there are limited and largely fixed numbers of places and it honestly has real, significant problems. (As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions. I forget which country but there was an interesting example given during our election campaign last year of a country with very high outcomes and yet relatively modest teaching salaries, which was alleged to be significantly due to teaching being accorded very high status and very difficult admission criteria. The upshot of this was competent, respected teachers with pride in their jobs and better outcomes all round.)
    - anamax 16y ago
      > As an outsider looking in, the thing that really shocks me about American schools is the consistent, persistent denigration of teachers and implication that so many are only there because their greedy, too-strong unions are protecting them in spite of incompetence and laziness while demanding outrageous salaries and pensions. As an "insider", the thing that really shocks me about outsiders' comments is their assumption that they know enough to comment intelligently about what's going on in the US. Actually, it doesn't shock me at all because it's SOP. We get that you watch US media, but don't confuse that with information. Helpful tip - don't expect warm water at LA's beaches, let alone SF's. Yes, we know that bay watch suggests otherwise, but ....

epistasis 16y ago

Does anyone think it really was well-intentioned? Did the people who passed No Child Left Behind think that the federal government is capable of doing anything good? Did they think that federal regulations and requirements help things on the local level? Did the people who voted for NCLB value education? Did anyone involved with education think that NCLB could improve education? I don't think so. I think NCLB was a giant Fuck You to people who don't have the money to pay for private schools, a corollary to Starving the Beast. There's little other rational way to look at it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

ylem 16y ago

I though Singapore, Japan, etc. have government managed schools that seem to be doing rather well...I can't even argue the locality issue because Switzerland seems to be doing rather well also. I think one of the difficulties in US schools is brought up by the author--we try to teach everyone and we believe in 2nd and 3rd chances. Many countries begin tracking rather early, so their teachers don't have some of the same special needs issues (I'm not arguing right or wrong here, just fact) that teachers here face. Then, there is the family component. In a number of industrialized countries, education is highly prized and parents are deeply involved in their kids' education. Here, that is again not necessarily the case in many schools--and there is a limit to how much teachers can do to overcome that. Also, I think that in many other industrialized countries, teachers are respected and paid reasonably compared to other professions. This draws talented people into the field (passion is important, but so is economics).

lutorm 16y ago
One aspect of the "family component" is also that the US is a much more unequal society than most western European countries, which is further exacerbated by the very local nature of US school funding. This gets lost in looking at averages.
angus77 16y ago
Most Japanese kids end up going to cram schools to make up for what the school system (both public and private) lacks. The system sucks---long hours, Saturday classes are being reintroduced this spring, and the cram schools are usually at least 2 hours long---sometimes as much as 4 or 5 hours. And Japan still can't get into the top 10 of the Education Index.

kenjackson 16y ago

It's largely the same at private schools. The budget crunch and parents who insist their children are A+ stars, often worse. The big thing you don't have at private schools is often the child who can't speak English, or is special needs (whether learning or behaviorally). They simply reject them or kick them out. To put it another way, you hear a lot fewer complaints from teachers in public schools that teach in the gifted programs.