8 ms·

Silicon Valley investor tries to create 'microschool' in yard, backlash ensues

33 points by 7402 6y ago

uberman 6y ago
People who can afford to, hire private staff to fill many jobs and provide many services: coaches, tutors, advisors cooks, drivers, security, cleaning. even private schooling. Where is the issue here? I genuinely don't understand. How is this any different than sending a kid to a private school? I only wish I was rich enough to hire my kids a private teacher.
- posguy 6y ago
  Quality education for every student would be held by many as a human right, hence countries like Finland where all schools are required to charge no fee, and the public education system is superb.
  - gameman144 6y ago
    This makes total sense, but wouldn't a backyard school be a completely reasonable indictment of the local public education system in this case? In other words, it would seem that one wouldn't start a backyard school unless they thought their children would be better off than in public schools. The outrage here seems to be that the public agrees with that assessment: students who have access to this backyard school would have an advantage over students going through public school programs during the pandemic. From both sides, it seems that the ball is in the public schools' court. For the investor, there wouldn't be a need to start a backyard school if he felt that the public schools were offering a reasonable alternative. For the public school parents, there wouldn't be as much outrage if they thought the public schools were offering the same quality of education as this backyard school. Definitely agree that quality education for all is the desired outcome here, but given that it's not in place yet, starting a school to give your own kids every advantage makes sense, as does pushing representatives to fix and fund public schools more fully.
    - zwaps 6y ago
      As I understand it, public schools are not bad because decisionmakers think they are good. So it's interesting to read that "competition" by private schools would increase the quality of public schools. At least empirically, that doesn't seem to be the case. There are two arguments that have been brought up. 1. This sort of disjointed system is not desirable as it propagates inequality in opportunity. This should be fairly obvious and not contentious. 2. Private schools and these pods, as their extreme form, face a similar issue as insurance markets if there is capture in governance (which seems to be the case in the US). On the one hand, wealthy people have an incentive to bundle their funding in private schools, which will lead to higher average contributions. They also have an incentive to petition government not to use their other tax contributions for public school, as they do not profit from it. Even more, their kids profit from this distance. Given that wealthy people are powerful in the US, this seems to be a more likely reason why public schools are not well funded. So economically speaking, private schools on a large scale could be damaging to the quality of general education, much like a fragmented insurance market may eventually split into high and low classes. Countries like Finland have public education on-par with the best private schools elsewhere. One component may be funding for education generally. But it will probably also be true that there is more funding towards public schools in relative terms, since powerful actors (in any sense) have an incentive to make schools for their children decent. In the US, wealthy people in general have zero direct incentive to fund public education. Therefore, it seems to me that the solution is not to introduce competition. Speaking with US teachers and administrators, it doesn't seem that they could provide better education if incentivized by better private schools. What I hear instead is that public education is simply underfunded in the US. That would speak for the argument above.
      - TomMarius 6y ago
        It's easy to talk about 'not introducing competition' from your armchair. It's way harder when it's your children not getting the education and childhood they deserve; and it's not just about education itself, actually IMHO (from my personal experience) it's mostly not about the education but rather about the environment at the school; I won't send my children to a public school not because of low quality teaching, but because of bullying (both by other kids and by the teachers) which the institution was unable to solve for decades or maybe even hundreds of years, and because I absolutely don't believe in exams, preparations for exams, and marks, and because I have zero control over public schools as a parent. Even a high quality school with the classic subjects/preparations/exams/marks system still would be a reason to move to a freer country to me if I lived in Finland, and in fact I have a coworker here in Prague that did just that. Even the richest person on Earth can't fix the public schools with their whole fortune, not even a group of the top 10 could - they wouldn't be able to provide funds for more than a year. And private education is definitely not reserved to the rich, I don't think the majority of parents that send their kids to private schools have more than average income.
  - uberman 6y ago
    No one is suggesting that public schooling should not exist. I totally agree that every child has a right to education, but how does someone rich hiring a private teacher somehow conflict with this? Child actors have had private teachers and have decades. Private schools have existed for centuries. Homeschooling is an excepted right. Why should the rich not be allowed to home school using private staff or demonized for wanting to do so? Does anyone begrudge Mark Zuckerberg for hiring private security to help protect his family?
    - loki49152 6y ago
      I am suggesting exactly that. Government should be absolutely separate from education for the exact same reason government is absolutely separate from religion. The purpose of government-run schools is not to ensure that each child gets an education. The purpose is to make sure the government gets to decide what constitutes an education.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    > Finland <snip> the public education system is superb This has been looked at extensively. At the most basic level it boils down to the structure of government/politics, culture and unions. Taken in reverse order, unions in the US had plenty of justification to exist decades ago. From my perspective, except of for a limited set of domains, they have been doing more harm than good for a very long time. Education is one such domain. If one were to dig down through problem areas in the US educational system one would find the dirty, ugly, stinky intersection of teacher unions and politics. Culture is another factor. The US is very different culturally from lots of countries. I mean, not to go too far, look at the ridiculous rejection of masks in the middle of a pandemic. Anyone who doesn't understand just how different the US is from a place like Finland need not go much farther than the cultural differences as they apply to this pandemic. Finally, government. Unlike Finland (and lots of other countries) there is no unified US-wide educational system. The federal government does not run the show. What we have is fifty mini countries, each with their own idea of reality. Even worse, we have thousands of teacher unions, each, in turn, with their own ideas of reality. This all leads to a f-ing mess where some schools want to teach such nonsense as intelligent design while others focus on science. No, we can't compare the US to Finland (or anyone else) other than to say that we definitely need to sort this out. How? Isn't that the question.
- toss1 6y ago
  >>I only wish I was rich enough to hire my kids a private teacher. There is the answer to your question It is of course common for the wealthy to send their kids to private school and/or hire private tutors for the educational advantages and privacy (and at some wealth levels, security). This is normally done without much fanfare. Nearly everyone wishes they could do it, as do you. This guy doing it by advertising on Twitter just rubs everyone else's nose in the fact that they can't do it, the fact that their public schools are inferior, and he's getting ahead. In established wealthy society this would be considered massively gauche and a stunt of some nouveaux riches interloper - which, pretty much, it is. This is just some jerk either flaunting his new wealth, or being so crude about it that he doesn't see the social implications. So, yeah, no surprise he got roasted on Twitter.
  - uberman 6y ago
    I see your point about people perhaps at the core being mad not at the education part but at the flaunting part. Good point.
    - toss1 6y ago
      Yes, and this is related to the reasons the concept of the nouveaux riches and their crass flaunting is very old. People with multi-generational wealth figured out a long time ago that flaunting wealth may feel good for minutes, but it brings the wrong kind of attention for decades, and that wrong kind of attention can be the guillotine. Plus, even if you don't flaunt it yourself, someone in your group flaunting it can create problems for you. So, among the 'real', multi-generational money, any displays are considered very crass. Everything related to wealth signalling in that set is understated, and there are myriad cues, but they're all subtle.
      - toss1 6y ago
        (oh yes, and among those subtle cues is the name of the private schools you/kids/grandkids went to, etc. ...)
- ffggvv 6y ago
  look at it from the point of view of teachers unions and their power in the democratic party machine and it'll start to add up
0xy 6y ago
As much as the school district wants to complain about this, it's not illegal and they can't stop them. Homeschooled students perform better than public school students, in addition.
rdtwo 6y ago
Meh somebody on Twitter got triggered... every one else is jealous. The entire system is failing during covid so is that really all that surprising that wealthy people are opting out
Y-Bopinator 6y ago
Isn’t it crazy how they want to stop your children from receiving an education so they won’t be ahead of the other children. We’re all stupid so we will force you to be too. Don’t challenge us or you’ll go to jail.
ffggvv 6y ago
twitter is definitely the worst platform for our culture and public discourse. not sure why Facebook gets all the hate.
julienreszka 6y ago
Envy really is one of the greatest sins. May those people find inner peace one day.
- shean_massey 6y ago
  Exactly. WTF is the complaining about. Alternative title: Guy wants to do the best for his kid while other parents wine about it on Twitter. If he wasn't wealthy, and sourced the funds from elsewhere, nobody would bat an eye. He'd maybe even be applauded for the resourcefulness. But no, he's rich, I'm not, it's unfair, boohoo

33 points by 7402 6y ago

People who can afford to, hire private staff to fill many jobs and provide many services: coaches, tutors, advisors cooks, drivers, security, cleaning. even private schooling. Where is the issue here? I genuinely don't understand. How is this any different than sending a kid to a private school? I only wish I was rich enough to hire my kids a private teacher.

posguy 6y ago
Quality education for every student would be held by many as a human right, hence countries like Finland where all schools are required to charge no fee, and the public education system is superb.
- gameman144 6y ago
  This makes total sense, but wouldn't a backyard school be a completely reasonable indictment of the local public education system in this case? In other words, it would seem that one wouldn't start a backyard school unless they thought their children would be better off than in public schools. The outrage here seems to be that the public agrees with that assessment: students who have access to this backyard school would have an advantage over students going through public school programs during the pandemic. From both sides, it seems that the ball is in the public schools' court. For the investor, there wouldn't be a need to start a backyard school if he felt that the public schools were offering a reasonable alternative. For the public school parents, there wouldn't be as much outrage if they thought the public schools were offering the same quality of education as this backyard school. Definitely agree that quality education for all is the desired outcome here, but given that it's not in place yet, starting a school to give your own kids every advantage makes sense, as does pushing representatives to fix and fund public schools more fully.
  - zwaps 6y ago
    As I understand it, public schools are not bad because decisionmakers think they are good. So it's interesting to read that "competition" by private schools would increase the quality of public schools. At least empirically, that doesn't seem to be the case. There are two arguments that have been brought up. 1. This sort of disjointed system is not desirable as it propagates inequality in opportunity. This should be fairly obvious and not contentious. 2. Private schools and these pods, as their extreme form, face a similar issue as insurance markets if there is capture in governance (which seems to be the case in the US). On the one hand, wealthy people have an incentive to bundle their funding in private schools, which will lead to higher average contributions. They also have an incentive to petition government not to use their other tax contributions for public school, as they do not profit from it. Even more, their kids profit from this distance. Given that wealthy people are powerful in the US, this seems to be a more likely reason why public schools are not well funded. So economically speaking, private schools on a large scale could be damaging to the quality of general education, much like a fragmented insurance market may eventually split into high and low classes. Countries like Finland have public education on-par with the best private schools elsewhere. One component may be funding for education generally. But it will probably also be true that there is more funding towards public schools in relative terms, since powerful actors (in any sense) have an incentive to make schools for their children decent. In the US, wealthy people in general have zero direct incentive to fund public education. Therefore, it seems to me that the solution is not to introduce competition. Speaking with US teachers and administrators, it doesn't seem that they could provide better education if incentivized by better private schools. What I hear instead is that public education is simply underfunded in the US. That would speak for the argument above.
    - TomMarius 6y ago
      It's easy to talk about 'not introducing competition' from your armchair. It's way harder when it's your children not getting the education and childhood they deserve; and it's not just about education itself, actually IMHO (from my personal experience) it's mostly not about the education but rather about the environment at the school; I won't send my children to a public school not because of low quality teaching, but because of bullying (both by other kids and by the teachers) which the institution was unable to solve for decades or maybe even hundreds of years, and because I absolutely don't believe in exams, preparations for exams, and marks, and because I have zero control over public schools as a parent. Even a high quality school with the classic subjects/preparations/exams/marks system still would be a reason to move to a freer country to me if I lived in Finland, and in fact I have a coworker here in Prague that did just that. Even the richest person on Earth can't fix the public schools with their whole fortune, not even a group of the top 10 could - they wouldn't be able to provide funds for more than a year. And private education is definitely not reserved to the rich, I don't think the majority of parents that send their kids to private schools have more than average income.
- uberman 6y ago
  No one is suggesting that public schooling should not exist. I totally agree that every child has a right to education, but how does someone rich hiring a private teacher somehow conflict with this? Child actors have had private teachers and have decades. Private schools have existed for centuries. Homeschooling is an excepted right. Why should the rich not be allowed to home school using private staff or demonized for wanting to do so? Does anyone begrudge Mark Zuckerberg for hiring private security to help protect his family?
  - loki49152 6y ago
    I am suggesting exactly that. Government should be absolutely separate from education for the exact same reason government is absolutely separate from religion. The purpose of government-run schools is not to ensure that each child gets an education. The purpose is to make sure the government gets to decide what constitutes an education.
- robomartin 6y ago
  > Finland <snip> the public education system is superb This has been looked at extensively. At the most basic level it boils down to the structure of government/politics, culture and unions. Taken in reverse order, unions in the US had plenty of justification to exist decades ago. From my perspective, except of for a limited set of domains, they have been doing more harm than good for a very long time. Education is one such domain. If one were to dig down through problem areas in the US educational system one would find the dirty, ugly, stinky intersection of teacher unions and politics. Culture is another factor. The US is very different culturally from lots of countries. I mean, not to go too far, look at the ridiculous rejection of masks in the middle of a pandemic. Anyone who doesn't understand just how different the US is from a place like Finland need not go much farther than the cultural differences as they apply to this pandemic. Finally, government. Unlike Finland (and lots of other countries) there is no unified US-wide educational system. The federal government does not run the show. What we have is fifty mini countries, each with their own idea of reality. Even worse, we have thousands of teacher unions, each, in turn, with their own ideas of reality. This all leads to a f-ing mess where some schools want to teach such nonsense as intelligent design while others focus on science. No, we can't compare the US to Finland (or anyone else) other than to say that we definitely need to sort this out. How? Isn't that the question.
toss1 6y ago
>>I only wish I was rich enough to hire my kids a private teacher. There is the answer to your question It is of course common for the wealthy to send their kids to private school and/or hire private tutors for the educational advantages and privacy (and at some wealth levels, security). This is normally done without much fanfare. Nearly everyone wishes they could do it, as do you. This guy doing it by advertising on Twitter just rubs everyone else's nose in the fact that they can't do it, the fact that their public schools are inferior, and he's getting ahead. In established wealthy society this would be considered massively gauche and a stunt of some nouveaux riches interloper - which, pretty much, it is. This is just some jerk either flaunting his new wealth, or being so crude about it that he doesn't see the social implications. So, yeah, no surprise he got roasted on Twitter.
- uberman 6y ago
  I see your point about people perhaps at the core being mad not at the education part but at the flaunting part. Good point.
  - toss1 6y ago
    Yes, and this is related to the reasons the concept of the nouveaux riches and their crass flaunting is very old. People with multi-generational wealth figured out a long time ago that flaunting wealth may feel good for minutes, but it brings the wrong kind of attention for decades, and that wrong kind of attention can be the guillotine. Plus, even if you don't flaunt it yourself, someone in your group flaunting it can create problems for you. So, among the 'real', multi-generational money, any displays are considered very crass. Everything related to wealth signalling in that set is understated, and there are myriad cues, but they're all subtle.
    - toss1 6y ago
      (oh yes, and among those subtle cues is the name of the private schools you/kids/grandkids went to, etc. ...)
ffggvv 6y ago
look at it from the point of view of teachers unions and their power in the democratic party machine and it'll start to add up

0xy 6y ago

As much as the school district wants to complain about this, it's not illegal and they can't stop them. Homeschooled students perform better than public school students, in addition.

rdtwo 6y ago

Meh somebody on Twitter got triggered... every one else is jealous. The entire system is failing during covid so is that really all that surprising that wealthy people are opting out

Y-Bopinator 6y ago

Isn’t it crazy how they want to stop your children from receiving an education so they won’t be ahead of the other children. We’re all stupid so we will force you to be too. Don’t challenge us or you’ll go to jail.

ffggvv 6y ago

twitter is definitely the worst platform for our culture and public discourse. not sure why Facebook gets all the hate.

julienreszka 6y ago

Envy really is one of the greatest sins. May those people find inner peace one day.

shean_massey 6y ago
Exactly. WTF is the complaining about. Alternative title: Guy wants to do the best for his kid while other parents wine about it on Twitter. If he wasn't wealthy, and sourced the funds from elsewhere, nobody would bat an eye. He'd maybe even be applauded for the resourcefulness. But no, he's rich, I'm not, it's unfair, boohoo