4 ms·

I had to eat cake, like it or not. Nobody gave me the option to show up without school supplies. That would be an "F" grade. The schools are funded. Some of ou

by burfog 6y ago

I had to eat cake, like it or not. Nobody gave me the option to show up without school supplies. That would be an "F" grade. The schools are funded. Some of our best funded schools, the ones in DC for example, are particularly terrible. It's crazy enough to make one wonder if funding makes things worse! Typical problem: The school buys Chromebooks or iPads for everybody. There is no consequence for property destruction. Kids make a sport of tossing them down stairwells. The school provides replacements at no cost to the student. Maybe the student is "supposed to" reimburse the school, just like the student is "supposed to" not purposely destroy property, but nobody has the will or ability to enforce anything.

qchris 6y ago
Okay, I guess we'll jump through this step-by-step... >> Nobody gave me the option to show up without school supplies. That would be an "F" grade. That sucks, I'm sorry you had that experience. In a public school system, that's not the way I think it should be. If your family can't (or even won't, some caregivers are worse than others) afford to provide the basics of school supplies like notebooks and pens, then the community should pitch in the maybe $20/year per student in that situation to make that happen. Failing a minor because they can't obtain simple supplies, and who fundamentally don't have much control over that part (or most other) parts of their life, in a mandatory public school environment, is ridiculous and a failure on behalf of the community. >> The schools are funded. Some of our best funded schools, the ones in DC for example, are particularly terrible. It's crazy enough to make one wonder if funding makes things worse! You're going to need to provide multiple, peer-reviewed sources from reputable institutions demonstrating an inverse relationship between funding and performance in primary or secondary schools if you want a chance of getting me to believe this. Alternatively, if you really believe this, school matriculation and funding rates are public record. You could do your own study. Otherwise, the "it's enough to make one wonder" is a lazy rhetorical device commonly used in situations without enough empirical evidence to back up a claim, because it obscures the relevant core aspects of one's argument. I'm going to treat it as such. >> Typical problem: The school buys Chromebooks or iPads for everybody Typical where? I'm a millennial, and both iPads and Chromebooks were available for (relatively) cheap. The school didn't supply them, and I went to a well-funded public high school. We had computer labs, with additional access in the library for after-school assignments if we needed it. There wasn't a budget to buy individual devices for everyone--the only laptops available had to be loaned out like a library book for multimedia projects, and (almost, because sometimes stuff happens) came back intact. Again, I have family and friends who have worked in public schools that have literally had to purchase their own supplies to print out student assignment sheets. Those schools aren't buying markers for whiteboards, let alone iPads and Chromebooks for each student. Maybe somewhere, somehow, this has happened. But your description of "typical problem" and the subsequent attempt to generalize that experience to most everywhere else in the country is so far removed from my own experience (and, to be honest, basically every other person I've known, from Massachusetts to California) that I find it unlikely to be actually true. >> Maybe the student is "supposed to" reimburse the school [...] but nobody has the will or ability to enforce anything. Even if there had been the money to buy those devices, if there was the widespread property damage on those devices, you can take it to the bank that there wouldn't have been replacements purchased. Board of Education and city council meetings are brutal, and the money (if it was still kept in the school budget at all) would almost certainly have been diverted to something else. Despite fairly good economic times before COVID-19, there's a lot of districts that still hadn't fully recovered from the Great Recession.
- burfog 6y ago
  I truly believe there there is very little relationship between funding and performance. Any claim that funding fixes performance problems is destroyed by the DC public schools. (only need one counterexample) It isn't totally crazy to think that funding could cause some performance problems. Money buys gadgets, and gadgets are distractions. All computing devices are repurposed into game machines. If teachers "literally had to purchase their own supplies", where was the union? Was the school firing teachers who didn't forego a portion of their pay to get supplies? Replacements get purchased because it won't be acceptable to have some students without the equipment, particularly if that involves any demographic factors that could cause a scandal. The risk of a civil rights lawsuit, or even just a major unflattering news story, is not going to be taken.
  - qchris 6y ago
    This is something people researched for a long time. Either way, you definitely need more than a single counterexample to wholesale claim that there is little relationship between funding and performance. I've linked a couple of studies below; one is a direct rebuttal to a previously done study claiming what you are.[1] Both sides are a little dated, so I've linked a 2016 Rutgers study which directly states in the conclusion that "The idea that 'money doesn't matter' is no longer defensible." [2] I'm sure you can look for additional primary sources in that paper's references. I'd also like to know where the union was, although I suspect they were working on it or were fighting for other things. As I mentioned before, recovery to even pre-Recession levels has taken a long time even with educator union action, and even then has been uneven across the country[3]. If you're actually interested, I can reach out to those people in my life for more specifics, but it may be a few days before I hear back. I disagree about the actions that a school administration would take. To me, it's more likely they'd just say "nope, that didn't work" and use them for in-class-only activities for a few years until the machines gave up, rather than spend money on replacements. Because it's a hypothetical, I don't see much of a way forward here, besides just agreeing to disagree. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543066003361 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430660033... (may need to use SciHub, etc. for access) [2] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596199.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596199.pdf [3] https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/3-6-19sfp.pdf https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/3-6-19s...

by burfog 6y ago

qchris 6y ago

Okay, I guess we'll jump through this step-by-step... >> Nobody gave me the option to show up without school supplies. That would be an "F" grade. That sucks, I'm sorry you had that experience. In a public school system, that's not the way I think it should be. If your family can't (or even won't, some caregivers are worse than others) afford to provide the basics of school supplies like notebooks and pens, then the community should pitch in the maybe $20/year per student in that situation to make that happen. Failing a minor because they can't obtain simple supplies, and who fundamentally don't have much control over that part (or most other) parts of their life, in a mandatory public school environment, is ridiculous and a failure on behalf of the community. >> The schools are funded. Some of our best funded schools, the ones in DC for example, are particularly terrible. It's crazy enough to make one wonder if funding makes things worse! You're going to need to provide multiple, peer-reviewed sources from reputable institutions demonstrating an inverse relationship between funding and performance in primary or secondary schools if you want a chance of getting me to believe this. Alternatively, if you really believe this, school matriculation and funding rates are public record. You could do your own study. Otherwise, the "it's enough to make one wonder" is a lazy rhetorical device commonly used in situations without enough empirical evidence to back up a claim, because it obscures the relevant core aspects of one's argument. I'm going to treat it as such. >> Typical problem: The school buys Chromebooks or iPads for everybody Typical where? I'm a millennial, and both iPads and Chromebooks were available for (relatively) cheap. The school didn't supply them, and I went to a well-funded public high school. We had computer labs, with additional access in the library for after-school assignments if we needed it. There wasn't a budget to buy individual devices for everyone--the only laptops available had to be loaned out like a library book for multimedia projects, and (almost, because sometimes stuff happens) came back intact. Again, I have family and friends who have worked in public schools that have literally had to purchase their own supplies to print out student assignment sheets. Those schools aren't buying markers for whiteboards, let alone iPads and Chromebooks for each student. Maybe somewhere, somehow, this has happened. But your description of "typical problem" and the subsequent attempt to generalize that experience to most everywhere else in the country is so far removed from my own experience (and, to be honest, basically every other person I've known, from Massachusetts to California) that I find it unlikely to be actually true. >> Maybe the student is "supposed to" reimburse the school [...] but nobody has the will or ability to enforce anything. Even if there had been the money to buy those devices, if there was the widespread property damage on those devices, you can take it to the bank that there wouldn't have been replacements purchased. Board of Education and city council meetings are brutal, and the money (if it was still kept in the school budget at all) would almost certainly have been diverted to something else. Despite fairly good economic times before COVID-19, there's a lot of districts that still hadn't fully recovered from the Great Recession.

burfog 6y ago
I truly believe there there is very little relationship between funding and performance. Any claim that funding fixes performance problems is destroyed by the DC public schools. (only need one counterexample) It isn't totally crazy to think that funding could cause some performance problems. Money buys gadgets, and gadgets are distractions. All computing devices are repurposed into game machines. If teachers "literally had to purchase their own supplies", where was the union? Was the school firing teachers who didn't forego a portion of their pay to get supplies? Replacements get purchased because it won't be acceptable to have some students without the equipment, particularly if that involves any demographic factors that could cause a scandal. The risk of a civil rights lawsuit, or even just a major unflattering news story, is not going to be taken.
- qchris 6y ago
  This is something people researched for a long time. Either way, you definitely need more than a single counterexample to wholesale claim that there is little relationship between funding and performance. I've linked a couple of studies below; one is a direct rebuttal to a previously done study claiming what you are.[1] Both sides are a little dated, so I've linked a 2016 Rutgers study which directly states in the conclusion that "The idea that 'money doesn't matter' is no longer defensible." [2] I'm sure you can look for additional primary sources in that paper's references. I'd also like to know where the union was, although I suspect they were working on it or were fighting for other things. As I mentioned before, recovery to even pre-Recession levels has taken a long time even with educator union action, and even then has been uneven across the country[3]. If you're actually interested, I can reach out to those people in my life for more specifics, but it may be a few days before I hear back. I disagree about the actions that a school administration would take. To me, it's more likely they'd just say "nope, that didn't work" and use them for in-class-only activities for a few years until the machines gave up, rather than spend money on replacements. Because it's a hypothetical, I don't see much of a way forward here, besides just agreeing to disagree. [1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543066003361 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430660033... (may need to use SciHub, etc. for access) [2] https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596199.pdf https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED596199.pdf [3] https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/3-6-19sfp.pdf https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/3-6-19s...