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Yes, but the "pretty good" schools come from kids and families taking academics seriously. In Finland that's the default, but in the US you need an entrance exa

Yes, but the "pretty good" schools come from kids and families taking academics seriously. In Finland that's the default, but in the US you need an entrance exam to keep the jocks out. It's no surprise that middle-class white kids are underrepresented and would like to get in without all the hard work and discipline.

hrktb 6y ago
Can’t you fail them during the previous year, where they don’t have enough grades to graduate ? That’s the system in France, where public schools can’t refuse kids, but those kids can only move classes if they passed. If you aren’t interested in studying you’ll spend your life in middle school until you’re 16 and just drop out.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  In the US, graduation rate is seen as the primary metric of public school quality, so policies that encourage people not to graduate aren't feasible. (One of our most famous educational reforms was named the No Child Left Behind Act, on the principle that in an ideal world not a single child would fail to graduate high school.)
- csa 6y ago
  > Can’t you fail them during the previous year, where they don’t have enough grades to graduate Theoretically this can happen, but in practice it is very rare.
- AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
  A school not graduating a child essentially admits its teachers are not good enough to put some basic knowledge into this child's head. No school wants to be in such position.
  - ericd 6y ago
    Are you saying that the students bear no responsibility, or that it’s our current attitude that teachers can somehow coerce people to learn?
    - HarryHirsch 6y ago
      The really scary thing is that world-wise bloggers like Scott Aaronson and Siderea think that bullying is an inevitable fact of going to school. Those of us that grew up outside the US know different.
      - jcranmer 6y ago
        Where, pray tell, do you live that bullying is nonexistent? The surveys that I've seen show that bullying is pretty universal. About ⅓ of students worldwide are bullied at some point in their education, and these rates don't change all that much from country to country, although the form of bullying does have drastic differences. (Notably, Europe and the US tend to have less physical bullying and more psychological bullying compared to the rest of the world).
  - hrktb 6y ago
    That's surely where the financing model is important. Schools here get money based on the number of students, and the dispatch of teachers is done at a region level depending on the needs. A school with "bad" teachers would just get better teachers if it was warranted (in practice, everyone understands why kids are failing, and they'll send low experience teachers instead, because fuck them, I guess)
csa 6y ago
> but in the US you need an entrance exam to keep the jocks out This comment is unnecessarily and rudely exclusive. I went to a county-wide gifted magnet school that was a satellite to one of the regular county high schools. The athletes played sports at the main school, and non-athletes took gym classes there. About 20% of each class were varsity athletes, and the athletes fit in quite nicely with the non-athletes in academic and social settings. It’s sad that you added this line, since your first sentence regarding the need for kids and (most importantly) families to take academics seriously is a very important point.
- price 6y ago
  > > but in the US you need an entrance exam to keep the jocks out > This comment is unnecessarily and rudely exclusive. Indeed. It's also completely wrong about TJ, just as it is about the school you went to. From my experience (graduating in '02), lots and lots of TJ students played sports -- and quite a lot of them were very serious about it and quite proud of how well they did. I believe our crew teams, in particular, were nationally competitive. This is counter-intuitive to a lot of people who don't expect "nerds" to be interested in sports or "jocks" to be good at math, science, or technology. (Including me when I first got there.) But I don't think it's a coincidence. It turns out that working hard, showing up, and keeping at it even when things aren't easy is a powerful way to get better at something. That's just as true for a sport as for an academic subject.
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    The anti-sports stance is deliberate. Pursuing athletics at a high level takes time and money, both of which would better be directed elsewhere in a world of limited resources. It's also sending a message: this is a school, not a sports club; if you want sports, join the sports club, there you get sports. There are studies that school districts that dropped sports have better academic outcomes: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-cas... Especially, what's with the focus on competitive sports? At school you absolutely want to reach the unfit kids because school sports is the only time they get any kind of exercise. You have to be inclusionary, the purpose is public health, individual fitness, not competition, but competitive sports is exclusionary. Also, what's with the focus on team sports? American schoolkids have a staggering need for conformity, and team sports seem to feed that need.
analyte123 6y ago
The kids that really cause trouble aren’t usually “jocks” because in many states you have to pass classes to play sports. To play sports you also have to be disciplined and listen to instructions, and not get caught with drugs or arrested for armed robbery.

hrktb 6y ago

Can’t you fail them during the previous year, where they don’t have enough grades to graduate ? That’s the system in France, where public schools can’t refuse kids, but those kids can only move classes if they passed. If you aren’t interested in studying you’ll spend your life in middle school until you’re 16 and just drop out.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
In the US, graduation rate is seen as the primary metric of public school quality, so policies that encourage people not to graduate aren't feasible. (One of our most famous educational reforms was named the No Child Left Behind Act, on the principle that in an ideal world not a single child would fail to graduate high school.)
csa 6y ago
> Can’t you fail them during the previous year, where they don’t have enough grades to graduate Theoretically this can happen, but in practice it is very rare.
AlexTWithBeard 6y ago
A school not graduating a child essentially admits its teachers are not good enough to put some basic knowledge into this child's head. No school wants to be in such position.
- ericd 6y ago
  Are you saying that the students bear no responsibility, or that it’s our current attitude that teachers can somehow coerce people to learn?
  - HarryHirsch 6y ago
    The really scary thing is that world-wise bloggers like Scott Aaronson and Siderea think that bullying is an inevitable fact of going to school. Those of us that grew up outside the US know different.
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      Where, pray tell, do you live that bullying is nonexistent? The surveys that I've seen show that bullying is pretty universal. About ⅓ of students worldwide are bullied at some point in their education, and these rates don't change all that much from country to country, although the form of bullying does have drastic differences. (Notably, Europe and the US tend to have less physical bullying and more psychological bullying compared to the rest of the world).
- hrktb 6y ago
  That's surely where the financing model is important. Schools here get money based on the number of students, and the dispatch of teachers is done at a region level depending on the needs. A school with "bad" teachers would just get better teachers if it was warranted (in practice, everyone understands why kids are failing, and they'll send low experience teachers instead, because fuck them, I guess)

csa 6y ago

> but in the US you need an entrance exam to keep the jocks out This comment is unnecessarily and rudely exclusive. I went to a county-wide gifted magnet school that was a satellite to one of the regular county high schools. The athletes played sports at the main school, and non-athletes took gym classes there. About 20% of each class were varsity athletes, and the athletes fit in quite nicely with the non-athletes in academic and social settings. It’s sad that you added this line, since your first sentence regarding the need for kids and (most importantly) families to take academics seriously is a very important point.

price 6y ago
> > but in the US you need an entrance exam to keep the jocks out > This comment is unnecessarily and rudely exclusive. Indeed. It's also completely wrong about TJ, just as it is about the school you went to. From my experience (graduating in '02), lots and lots of TJ students played sports -- and quite a lot of them were very serious about it and quite proud of how well they did. I believe our crew teams, in particular, were nationally competitive. This is counter-intuitive to a lot of people who don't expect "nerds" to be interested in sports or "jocks" to be good at math, science, or technology. (Including me when I first got there.) But I don't think it's a coincidence. It turns out that working hard, showing up, and keeping at it even when things aren't easy is a powerful way to get better at something. That's just as true for a sport as for an academic subject.
- HarryHirsch 6y ago
  The anti-sports stance is deliberate. Pursuing athletics at a high level takes time and money, both of which would better be directed elsewhere in a world of limited resources. It's also sending a message: this is a school, not a sports club; if you want sports, join the sports club, there you get sports. There are studies that school districts that dropped sports have better academic outcomes: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-case-against-high-school-sports/309447/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/10/the-cas... Especially, what's with the focus on competitive sports? At school you absolutely want to reach the unfit kids because school sports is the only time they get any kind of exercise. You have to be inclusionary, the purpose is public health, individual fitness, not competition, but competitive sports is exclusionary. Also, what's with the focus on team sports? American schoolkids have a staggering need for conformity, and team sports seem to feed that need.

analyte123 6y ago

The kids that really cause trouble aren’t usually “jocks” because in many states you have to pass classes to play sports. To play sports you also have to be disciplined and listen to instructions, and not get caught with drugs or arrested for armed robbery.