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> People have very anachronistic views of home schooling. Yeah, those people have never set foot in a public school in the bible belt. Separation of church and

> People have very anachronistic views of home schooling. Yeah, those people have never set foot in a public school in the bible belt. Separation of church and state my ass.

surge 6y ago
Yeah, that's actually a great argument, and no matter what school you're kid is going to be exposed to the personal crackpot values, politics, and theories of any teacher, the more likely a teacher is to share their personal values the more likely they're not something. They often forget their job is purely to deliver content based on the curriculum and there is a boundary there they need to respect. i generally respect teachers, but I don't trust someone who got a 4 year degree and certification to take an underpaying job making less than an average college educated salary, and often requiring a breadwining spouse to live comfortably, to think rationally about something including their value systems. Yes, they may have done it for other reasons, but that's still an indicator of making major life decisions on emotional thinking and further contributes to the issue of underpaid teachers (they're not going to pay you more if there are plenty of teachers willing to work for that salary). I'm dubious and sceptical of the kind of person who reads The Secret, or relates everything in life to Harry Potter, but says all religion is dumb. I've had one teacher tell my sister my mom was awful and was cheating on her taxes in front of the entire class humiliating her because my single mother, didn't get my sister a SS card, which at the time you didn't need until you paid into SS. You don't have to like every parent, but ultimately the child is their responsiblity, the values of a child are up to a parent to pass on. Not the teacher's or the government's role. Outside of something that is actually inflicting harm, and you can hate religion but its not the worst thing in and of itself and bad parents don't need religion to mess a kid up.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  I am a teacher. Would you trust me more if you viewed my underpaid work as a charitable donation to the society in which I live? Would you pay 60% marginal tax to see class sizes halved, salaries doubled, but maybe also remove any sense of public duty from the role? (One more: would you like to see complete commercialization of eduction, with real salary competition driving up wages, but with the state rather than the parent picking up the bill. Compare this with college education, where student loan companies pick up the bill — you can see where I’m going with that analogy.)
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Not the OP, but I would be happy with teachers earning twice as much IF it went hand to hand with removing the worst teachers from the system. Unions will fight that with tooth and claw. It is my experience that the worst 2-3 per cent of people can ruin entire institutions if left unchecked.
    - vkou 6y ago
      > IF it went hand to hand with removing the worst teachers from the system. How will we decide who is the worst teacher? Peer review? Student review? Ask the parents which teacher's politics they dislike more? I'm not saying it can't be done, but I am saying that it's unlikely to be done right.
      - inglor_cz 6y ago
        That is a hard question, yes. There is no universal metric that would tell you that. That said, it is not unique to schooling alone. Bosses around the world have to address this problem as well. IDK how Elon Musk runs his "no assholes policy" in SpaceX, but he seems to be successful. Ofc, maybe his approach isn't scalable, who knows.
      - bananaface 6y ago
        Parental review sounds like the perfect way to judge teachers. Parents are the most invested and least affected by nepotism within the institution. They're also way more likely to be concerned about the outcome for the kids. In general though parents should be the ones making decisions about their children. Teachers being judged by arbitrary beurocrats i.e. what we have now sounds obviously worse to me. The whole political argument seems weak to me. I think most parents probably care about academics more than that to begin with, but if political homogeneity is important to a particular parent, why shouldn't that influence their vote?
        Cederfjard 6y ago
        Least affected by nepotism within the institution, sure, but obviously affected by their relationship with their kids. Surely that would create a bias in favor of teachers who are likely to give students good grades? If the education is subpar, the particular skills and knowledge that were missed can probably be picked up later as needed, but poor grades can alter the trajectory of your life in ways that are harder to recover from. So I'd expect parents who care more about the best possible outcome for their children more than being conscientious (which I honestly assume is a majority) to prefer those.

> People have very anachronistic views of home schooling. Yeah, those people have never set foot in a public school in the bible belt. Separation of church and state my ass.

surge 6y ago

Yeah, that's actually a great argument, and no matter what school you're kid is going to be exposed to the personal crackpot values, politics, and theories of any teacher, the more likely a teacher is to share their personal values the more likely they're not something. They often forget their job is purely to deliver content based on the curriculum and there is a boundary there they need to respect. i generally respect teachers, but I don't trust someone who got a 4 year degree and certification to take an underpaying job making less than an average college educated salary, and often requiring a breadwining spouse to live comfortably, to think rationally about something including their value systems. Yes, they may have done it for other reasons, but that's still an indicator of making major life decisions on emotional thinking and further contributes to the issue of underpaid teachers (they're not going to pay you more if there are plenty of teachers willing to work for that salary). I'm dubious and sceptical of the kind of person who reads The Secret, or relates everything in life to Harry Potter, but says all religion is dumb. I've had one teacher tell my sister my mom was awful and was cheating on her taxes in front of the entire class humiliating her because my single mother, didn't get my sister a SS card, which at the time you didn't need until you paid into SS. You don't have to like every parent, but ultimately the child is their responsiblity, the values of a child are up to a parent to pass on. Not the teacher's or the government's role. Outside of something that is actually inflicting harm, and you can hate religion but its not the worst thing in and of itself and bad parents don't need religion to mess a kid up.

gorgoiler 6y ago
I am a teacher. Would you trust me more if you viewed my underpaid work as a charitable donation to the society in which I live? Would you pay 60% marginal tax to see class sizes halved, salaries doubled, but maybe also remove any sense of public duty from the role? (One more: would you like to see complete commercialization of eduction, with real salary competition driving up wages, but with the state rather than the parent picking up the bill. Compare this with college education, where student loan companies pick up the bill — you can see where I’m going with that analogy.)
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Not the OP, but I would be happy with teachers earning twice as much IF it went hand to hand with removing the worst teachers from the system. Unions will fight that with tooth and claw. It is my experience that the worst 2-3 per cent of people can ruin entire institutions if left unchecked.
  - vkou 6y ago
    > IF it went hand to hand with removing the worst teachers from the system. How will we decide who is the worst teacher? Peer review? Student review? Ask the parents which teacher's politics they dislike more? I'm not saying it can't be done, but I am saying that it's unlikely to be done right.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      That is a hard question, yes. There is no universal metric that would tell you that. That said, it is not unique to schooling alone. Bosses around the world have to address this problem as well. IDK how Elon Musk runs his "no assholes policy" in SpaceX, but he seems to be successful. Ofc, maybe his approach isn't scalable, who knows.
    - bananaface 6y ago
      Parental review sounds like the perfect way to judge teachers. Parents are the most invested and least affected by nepotism within the institution. They're also way more likely to be concerned about the outcome for the kids. In general though parents should be the ones making decisions about their children. Teachers being judged by arbitrary beurocrats i.e. what we have now sounds obviously worse to me. The whole political argument seems weak to me. I think most parents probably care about academics more than that to begin with, but if political homogeneity is important to a particular parent, why shouldn't that influence their vote?
      - Cederfjard 6y ago
        Least affected by nepotism within the institution, sure, but obviously affected by their relationship with their kids. Surely that would create a bias in favor of teachers who are likely to give students good grades? If the education is subpar, the particular skills and knowledge that were missed can probably be picked up later as needed, but poor grades can alter the trajectory of your life in ways that are harder to recover from. So I'd expect parents who care more about the best possible outcome for their children more than being conscientious (which I honestly assume is a majority) to prefer those.