6 ms·

For the same reason there are so few poor whites in STEM. America's dysfunctional education funding. Make education funding federal, and have a nationwide push

by neffy 6y ago

For the same reason there are so few poor whites in STEM. America's dysfunctional education funding. Make education funding federal, and have a nationwide push to have small classes and well funded schools for everybody, and this would be fixed in 10 years. As it is, rich districts pay more taxes and get better schools. Funny that.

crooked-v 6y ago
Even something as simple as having state-level funding go into a single pool that then gets divided out per student among the state's public schools would do a lot, by removing the baseline feedback loop of low local tax income with low local school funding.
CyanLite2 6y ago
Why is that the first thing people think of when it comes to explaining black behavior is that they must be poor? Not all black people are poor. Stop it with the stereotypes.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  Not all black people are absent from STEM. If we're only going to talk about what all black people are or are not, we're not going to find anything useful. I feel like I have to mention that I'm a black person here.
  - neffy 6y ago
    We just want more of you in STEM is all - no scientist left behind...
- scarface74 6y ago
  It’s not about stereotypes. I am sure that everyone on HN knows that not all Black people are poor. I am Black by the way. But, we also have to look at statistics and think longitudinally instead of anecdotally. I came from a middle class family in a small town in the south. But my mom being a well connected high school math teacher did give me some advantages. When I graduated from college, I had a choice between taking a job in a slightly larger city where I could have afforded to take care of myself or move to Atlanta where I could get a job as a computer operator based on a previous internship. But the pay was crap. I wanted to move to Atlanta because I knew I would have more opportunities. My parents had already bought me car, they subsidized me for the first year, and the rest is history - I was able to network my way into getting a software development position. This was in the late 90s. My classmate couldn’t afford to make those choices. He was stuck taking a COBOL programming job in the 90s - the same job I turned down and still is doing that to this day in the same city.
  - blackrock 6y ago
    Nice story. COBOL programmers started making some serious money with Y2K. At least, the contractors started billing advanced hourly rates. And were making more than they ever did. And from what I’ve been seeing, COBOL just isn’t going anywhere. Those mainframes really are built to last. So he should probably have a job for the rest of his life. I hope he’s got a nice pension.
    - scarface74 6y ago
      I hope so. I posted on Facebook that I found my old FORTRAN, Pascal and COBOL textbooks from college when I went home to visit my parents and tagged him and few other classmates. We graduated in the mid 90s. The book was last updated in 1985. He told me he was still programming in COBOL. I just got quiet. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to insult him.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Not all black people are poor. Of course not, but what's your point? The stereotype is accurate. Go read the very article this discussion is about, and it says black families average about 2/3 the income of non-black families. That is reality, and wishing it away won't make it less true. If we want to figure out a long term solution, we can't deny uncomfortable truth.
- tikititaki 6y ago
  "A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016." Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining... Of course not all black people are poor, but that's a very poor understanding of statistics. Just because a black man became President or there are millionaire black men, doesn't mean that institutional racism is suddenly over or economic equality has been established.
  - the_omegist 6y ago
    So that means there are less poor people in STEM, no? Poor blacks are a subset of poor people regardless of race. If the average black family were wealthier than the average white family AND we would keep seeing such difference, it would be interesting to wonder why. But there is nothing new in poor people not being able to access to long studies. The problem is poverty, not race.
- imtringued 6y ago
  I don't know why behavior like yours exists. Nobody knows why X is happening but people notice that a potential solution Y is only possible if Z is true. Then someone says Z is wrong and therefore we lost all our agency and ability to solve X. If this was too difficult to understand then I'll explain it differently. If there are environmental differences between races such as socioeconomic background then you can fix things like educational attainment by improving the socioeconomic background of black people. If there is no environmental difference or solving the environmental difference gives no improved outcomes then this basically means black people are somehow inferior to white people simply based on their race. I don't think that is true. Poor white people suffer from the same things poor black people suffer from so an explanation that is purely based on race is completely insufficient. However you want to deny the socioeconomic differences and blame the differences in ability entirely on race.
  - DanBC 6y ago
    > If there is no environmental difference or solving the environmental difference gives no improved outcomes then this basically means black people are somehow inferior to white people simply based on their race. Or it means perfectly competent black people are excluded simply because they are black; because the white people who gate-keep academic institutions are racist.
eikenberry 6y ago
Seems like there are 2 problems with this. First is that the federal government doesn't have the legal standing to take over the education system. I believe it would require a constitutional amendment to allow it and I don't think they'd get that passed. Secondly, I'm not sure it is such a great idea. Currently federal level education direction comes from the teachers union and you can see the fruits of its labors in our current schools. Also I think this will make the current broken system harder to fix as it will institutionalize many of the current practices and make local experimentation much harder. IMO what we need to do is move away from the industrial revolution era school system. We aren't training a bunch of factory workers anymore and that needs to be reflected in how we teach. We really need to do a lot more trials with alternative educational styles in public school. My understanding is that one of the biggest hurdles to this is the teachers union and their adherence to the current model. I do think funding is an issue, but even if you could magically fix that you'd still have bad schools. There would just be less disparity between them.
- neffy 6y ago
  There's not really a lot of debate about what makes for good schools. Small class sizes, and well qualified(paid) teachers. It is that simple. You can try whatever alternative educational styles you want, and it will not work in a class size of 50. Nor does the federal government have to take over the education system to achieve this, it just has to guarantee equal funding for all students. Or the US can continue to set poor whites against poor blacks as it has now for centuries, and watch itself become increasingly uncompetitive with any country that makes a commitment to equal educational standards for all. "This used to be the greatest country in the world", etc.
  - requin246 6y ago
    The actions of parents are also a huge factor in the success of a school. If your parents make your students do their homework you can move forward with material in class quicker. They also will send children to after-school programs, which has a similar effect. Parents are also somewhat a defense against bad teachers. There’s nothing quite like a parent hounding you and your principal about their child’s academic performance.
rootusrootus 6y ago
> rich districts pay more taxes and get better schools I struggle to see how this is wrong. It's not any different than rich people buying private education, though it makes it easier for non-rich folks to try and find the cheapest place in that district so they can benefit from the well-funded schools. It seems popular to think that people should have equal opportunity, independent of any other factors. But from the perspective of a parent, why should I be disallowed from providing my own kids every possible advantage I can afford?
- crooked-v 6y ago
  > But from the perspective of a parent, why should I be disallowed from providing my own kids every possible advantage I can afford? Because it's bad for society, and because there's a long since established moral precedent in favor of things that may make life slightly worse for any given individual but better for a large majority of everyone. It's also worth keeping in mind that there's a massive difference between "rich" and "ultra-rich". "Rich" and "poor" are, if anything, closer to each other than either is to "ultra-rich", and spreading out the spending of that last category would dramatically benefit an overwhelming majority of people without hurting the schools of ultra-rich areas in a way that, frankly, anyone should actually care about.
  - rootusrootus 6y ago
    > Because it's bad for society That is a very big claim. It seems just as plausible to suggest that society will in fact be collectively better off if every parent gives their kid the best possible start in life, even if some kids will miss out due to circumstance.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - harpratap 6y ago
      We are at a point in human history where at least the developed countries can easily afford to not let even a single child miss out.
tomohawk 6y ago
Can you provide any information that shows that per pupil spending and/or small class size correlates to better outcomes? Since the US Dept of Ed was created by Jimmy Carter, can you show positive results and benefits of this approach?
- bobthepanda 6y ago
  > Since the US Dept of Ed was created by Jimmy Carter, can you show positive results and benefits of this approach? The Dept of Ed is pretty far removed from what the grandfather comment is advocating for, so I'm not sure why they would advocate for it. It doesn't establish curricula, it doesn't run schools, it doesn't even run accreditations. 92% of current funding for primary and secondary education is state or local-level.
CincinnatiMan 6y ago
My understanding is that most good suburban schools actually spend less per pupil than the worse city schools. Do you happen to have numbers offhand?
DuskStar 6y ago
What makes you think that "more funding" would improve outcomes? As far as I'm aware, states that spend more per pupil don't significantly outperform those that spend less...
- harpratap 6y ago
  It's not about "more" funding as it is much about "targeted" funding. Ones who are deprived and poor should get more opportunities for free and quality education.
watertom 6y ago
Most poor families don't value education, so it's very hard to get children interested in school when their family actively discourages the involvement. Drugs and crime have destroyed the family structure in all poor neighborhoods. Frankly there is a strong anti-education bent moving through the entire Republican party, educated people hare harder to control.
- z9e 6y ago
  I was with you until the republicans are anti-education. Can you elaborate?
rayiner 6y ago
The system you’re talking about already exists! Half of all K-12 funding comes from state and federal sources, and is directed to the neediest kids. Here is the district by district breakdown in Maryland: https://i2.wp.com/conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Screenshot-2019-02-19-19.37.24-1.png?w=998&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/wp-content/up... Baltimore City has less than half the local education funding of Anne Arundel (a predominantly white, upper middle class county containing Annapolis and the Naval Academy). But state and federal funding more than makes up for it. Baltimore gets $12,200 per student from the state, versus $5,300 for Anne Arundel. And it gets an extra almost $1,000 from the federal government. In all, Baltimore getting about $3,000 more per student than Anne Arundel. Allegheny County, a mostly white but lower income county, also gets significantly more funding. Note that cost of living is also higher in Anne Arundel than the other two places. In most states, poorer districts actually get slightly more funding than richer districts: https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-kids-get-fair-share https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-kids-....
- opportune 6y ago
  No amount of funding towards schools can make up for a home life or general environment that's not conducive towards education. I wish we in the US looked at solutions beyond throwing money at it (or at least, in a different way) because it obviously doesn't work.
  - tuatoru 6y ago
    Yeah, it depends where the money is thrown. Experiments in Brazil and India suggest that the really simple, dumb solution works best: give poor people money, no strings attached. Sure, they'll waste some of it. But not all that much, maybe a third. To economists, that's very effective targeting. (If you demand perfect targeting and use of funds here, why not with private-sector investments (67%-90% loss rate) or 'normal' government investments (50% - 75% losses)? )
    - dx034 6y ago

by neffy 6y ago

crooked-v 6y ago

Even something as simple as having state-level funding go into a single pool that then gets divided out per student among the state's public schools would do a lot, by removing the baseline feedback loop of low local tax income with low local school funding.

CyanLite2 6y ago

Why is that the first thing people think of when it comes to explaining black behavior is that they must be poor? Not all black people are poor. Stop it with the stereotypes.

pessimizer 6y ago
Not all black people are absent from STEM. If we're only going to talk about what all black people are or are not, we're not going to find anything useful. I feel like I have to mention that I'm a black person here.
- neffy 6y ago
  We just want more of you in STEM is all - no scientist left behind...
scarface74 6y ago
It’s not about stereotypes. I am sure that everyone on HN knows that not all Black people are poor. I am Black by the way. But, we also have to look at statistics and think longitudinally instead of anecdotally. I came from a middle class family in a small town in the south. But my mom being a well connected high school math teacher did give me some advantages. When I graduated from college, I had a choice between taking a job in a slightly larger city where I could have afforded to take care of myself or move to Atlanta where I could get a job as a computer operator based on a previous internship. But the pay was crap. I wanted to move to Atlanta because I knew I would have more opportunities. My parents had already bought me car, they subsidized me for the first year, and the rest is history - I was able to network my way into getting a software development position. This was in the late 90s. My classmate couldn’t afford to make those choices. He was stuck taking a COBOL programming job in the 90s - the same job I turned down and still is doing that to this day in the same city.
- blackrock 6y ago
  Nice story. COBOL programmers started making some serious money with Y2K. At least, the contractors started billing advanced hourly rates. And were making more than they ever did. And from what I’ve been seeing, COBOL just isn’t going anywhere. Those mainframes really are built to last. So he should probably have a job for the rest of his life. I hope he’s got a nice pension.
  - scarface74 6y ago
    I hope so. I posted on Facebook that I found my old FORTRAN, Pascal and COBOL textbooks from college when I went home to visit my parents and tagged him and few other classmates. We graduated in the mid 90s. The book was last updated in 1985. He told me he was still programming in COBOL. I just got quiet. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to insult him.
rootusrootus 6y ago
> Not all black people are poor. Of course not, but what's your point? The stereotype is accurate. Go read the very article this discussion is about, and it says black families average about 2/3 the income of non-black families. That is reality, and wishing it away won't make it less true. If we want to figure out a long term solution, we can't deny uncomfortable truth.
tikititaki 6y ago
"A close examination of wealth in the U.S. finds evidence of staggering racial disparities. At $171,000, the net worth of a typical white family is nearly ten times greater than that of a Black family ($17,150) in 2016." Source: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining-the-black-white-wealth-gap/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/02/27/examining... Of course not all black people are poor, but that's a very poor understanding of statistics. Just because a black man became President or there are millionaire black men, doesn't mean that institutional racism is suddenly over or economic equality has been established.
- the_omegist 6y ago
  So that means there are less poor people in STEM, no? Poor blacks are a subset of poor people regardless of race. If the average black family were wealthier than the average white family AND we would keep seeing such difference, it would be interesting to wonder why. But there is nothing new in poor people not being able to access to long studies. The problem is poverty, not race.
imtringued 6y ago
I don't know why behavior like yours exists. Nobody knows why X is happening but people notice that a potential solution Y is only possible if Z is true. Then someone says Z is wrong and therefore we lost all our agency and ability to solve X. If this was too difficult to understand then I'll explain it differently. If there are environmental differences between races such as socioeconomic background then you can fix things like educational attainment by improving the socioeconomic background of black people. If there is no environmental difference or solving the environmental difference gives no improved outcomes then this basically means black people are somehow inferior to white people simply based on their race. I don't think that is true. Poor white people suffer from the same things poor black people suffer from so an explanation that is purely based on race is completely insufficient. However you want to deny the socioeconomic differences and blame the differences in ability entirely on race.
- DanBC 6y ago
  > If there is no environmental difference or solving the environmental difference gives no improved outcomes then this basically means black people are somehow inferior to white people simply based on their race. Or it means perfectly competent black people are excluded simply because they are black; because the white people who gate-keep academic institutions are racist.

eikenberry 6y ago

Seems like there are 2 problems with this. First is that the federal government doesn't have the legal standing to take over the education system. I believe it would require a constitutional amendment to allow it and I don't think they'd get that passed. Secondly, I'm not sure it is such a great idea. Currently federal level education direction comes from the teachers union and you can see the fruits of its labors in our current schools. Also I think this will make the current broken system harder to fix as it will institutionalize many of the current practices and make local experimentation much harder. IMO what we need to do is move away from the industrial revolution era school system. We aren't training a bunch of factory workers anymore and that needs to be reflected in how we teach. We really need to do a lot more trials with alternative educational styles in public school. My understanding is that one of the biggest hurdles to this is the teachers union and their adherence to the current model. I do think funding is an issue, but even if you could magically fix that you'd still have bad schools. There would just be less disparity between them.

neffy 6y ago
There's not really a lot of debate about what makes for good schools. Small class sizes, and well qualified(paid) teachers. It is that simple. You can try whatever alternative educational styles you want, and it will not work in a class size of 50. Nor does the federal government have to take over the education system to achieve this, it just has to guarantee equal funding for all students. Or the US can continue to set poor whites against poor blacks as it has now for centuries, and watch itself become increasingly uncompetitive with any country that makes a commitment to equal educational standards for all. "This used to be the greatest country in the world", etc.
- requin246 6y ago
  The actions of parents are also a huge factor in the success of a school. If your parents make your students do their homework you can move forward with material in class quicker. They also will send children to after-school programs, which has a similar effect. Parents are also somewhat a defense against bad teachers. There’s nothing quite like a parent hounding you and your principal about their child’s academic performance.

rootusrootus 6y ago

> rich districts pay more taxes and get better schools I struggle to see how this is wrong. It's not any different than rich people buying private education, though it makes it easier for non-rich folks to try and find the cheapest place in that district so they can benefit from the well-funded schools. It seems popular to think that people should have equal opportunity, independent of any other factors. But from the perspective of a parent, why should I be disallowed from providing my own kids every possible advantage I can afford?

crooked-v 6y ago
> But from the perspective of a parent, why should I be disallowed from providing my own kids every possible advantage I can afford? Because it's bad for society, and because there's a long since established moral precedent in favor of things that may make life slightly worse for any given individual but better for a large majority of everyone. It's also worth keeping in mind that there's a massive difference between "rich" and "ultra-rich". "Rich" and "poor" are, if anything, closer to each other than either is to "ultra-rich", and spreading out the spending of that last category would dramatically benefit an overwhelming majority of people without hurting the schools of ultra-rich areas in a way that, frankly, anyone should actually care about.
- rootusrootus 6y ago
  > Because it's bad for society That is a very big claim. It seems just as plausible to suggest that society will in fact be collectively better off if every parent gives their kid the best possible start in life, even if some kids will miss out due to circumstance.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - harpratap 6y ago
    We are at a point in human history where at least the developed countries can easily afford to not let even a single child miss out.

tomohawk 6y ago

Can you provide any information that shows that per pupil spending and/or small class size correlates to better outcomes? Since the US Dept of Ed was created by Jimmy Carter, can you show positive results and benefits of this approach?

bobthepanda 6y ago
> Since the US Dept of Ed was created by Jimmy Carter, can you show positive results and benefits of this approach? The Dept of Ed is pretty far removed from what the grandfather comment is advocating for, so I'm not sure why they would advocate for it. It doesn't establish curricula, it doesn't run schools, it doesn't even run accreditations. 92% of current funding for primary and secondary education is state or local-level.

CincinnatiMan 6y ago

My understanding is that most good suburban schools actually spend less per pupil than the worse city schools. Do you happen to have numbers offhand?

DuskStar 6y ago

What makes you think that "more funding" would improve outcomes? As far as I'm aware, states that spend more per pupil don't significantly outperform those that spend less...

harpratap 6y ago
It's not about "more" funding as it is much about "targeted" funding. Ones who are deprived and poor should get more opportunities for free and quality education.

watertom 6y ago

Most poor families don't value education, so it's very hard to get children interested in school when their family actively discourages the involvement. Drugs and crime have destroyed the family structure in all poor neighborhoods. Frankly there is a strong anti-education bent moving through the entire Republican party, educated people hare harder to control.

z9e 6y ago
I was with you until the republicans are anti-education. Can you elaborate?

rayiner 6y ago

The system you’re talking about already exists! Half of all K-12 funding comes from state and federal sources, and is directed to the neediest kids. Here is the district by district breakdown in Maryland: https://i2.wp.com/conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Screenshot-2019-02-19-19.37.24-1.png?w=998&ssl=1 https://i2.wp.com/conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/wp-content/up... Baltimore City has less than half the local education funding of Anne Arundel (a predominantly white, upper middle class county containing Annapolis and the Naval Academy). But state and federal funding more than makes up for it. Baltimore gets $12,200 per student from the state, versus $5,300 for Anne Arundel. And it gets an extra almost $1,000 from the federal government. In all, Baltimore getting about $3,000 more per student than Anne Arundel. Allegheny County, a mostly white but lower income county, also gets significantly more funding. Note that cost of living is also higher in Anne Arundel than the other two places. In most states, poorer districts actually get slightly more funding than richer districts: https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-kids-get-fair-share https://apps.urban.org/features/school-funding-do-poor-kids-....

opportune 6y ago
No amount of funding towards schools can make up for a home life or general environment that's not conducive towards education. I wish we in the US looked at solutions beyond throwing money at it (or at least, in a different way) because it obviously doesn't work.
- tuatoru 6y ago
  Yeah, it depends where the money is thrown. Experiments in Brazil and India suggest that the really simple, dumb solution works best: give poor people money, no strings attached. Sure, they'll waste some of it. But not all that much, maybe a third. To economists, that's very effective targeting. (If you demand perfect targeting and use of funds here, why not with private-sector investments (67%-90% loss rate) or 'normal' government investments (50% - 75% losses)? )
  - dx034 6y ago