9 ms·

This is what I would expect a technocratic forum like HN to suggest. America's most poverty stricken regions have had public education for nearly a century with

by anewaccount2021 6y ago

This is what I would expect a technocratic forum like HN to suggest. America's most poverty stricken regions have had public education for nearly a century with almost no meaningful improvement in prospects. Tell me how rural poverty in West Viriginia is reduced by giving people humanities degrees. Better educated voters? Who cares, the poor have no representation of merit anyway; their choices are to vote for one party who ignores them or the other that ignores them.

eloff 6y ago
Public education in the US is awful and lags nearly the entire developed world. Humanities degrees are not terribly useful, but boiling all education down to humanities degrees is a blatant strawman that signals a lot about your willingness to have a nuanced discussion. I think it's fairly self evident that investment in the future is what improves the future and education is probably the most important and significant such investment.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  Good education system does not neatly translate to, say, economic success. Italy has top-class university system, much older than Columbus, and yet the country seems to be stuck in stagnation for last 20 years and the talented fresh graduates of those top schools move abroad.
  - eloff 6y ago
    I would say it's one very important factor among others. Ray Dalio outlines many of the factors involved in nations rising and falling, including education in a freely available online book. I've found it an interesting read, although he takes a while to get to the point.[1] [1] https://www.principles.com/the-changing-world-order/ https://www.principles.com/the-changing-world-order/
  - j0ba 6y ago
    > Good education system does not neatly translate to, say, economic success. If you think anyone said that, you should probably talk less and read more. Because it doesn't appear you're competent in either. Education is necessary but not sufficient.
    - eloff 6y ago
      That's a bit harsh. The OP has a good point, and he's not mischaracterizing anyone's argument. Please re-read the HN guidelines about being civil.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - ImprovedSilence 6y ago
    You still need a government that can get out of it's own way, legislatively, while still providing an environment (or the right incentives for one) where business can and does get done.
    - eloff 6y ago
      Among many things. Recent governments in the US have been very ineffective. Legislators are more interested in making each other look bad than actually doing their job.
- AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
  I'm not entirely clear on how many nations are able to be compared with the US within the developed world. Given its size, configuration, and geopolitical contexts, the US has few comparable nations against which we can test. I guess we can say Russia is closest, followed by Canada & Mexico, then the entire EU and the CCP. India maybe? > boiling all education down to humanities degrees is a blatant strawman No, it isn't. The other nations I just listed by comparison churn out very few humanities degrees. What people choose to do with their privilege of going to college is a relevant data point, which feeds back into the quality of the education system overall. > signals a lot about your willingness to have a nuanced discussion. Let's not go around insinuating such things when you yourself started this conversation off failing to address the nuances of comparing the US against other "developed world" countries.
  - eloff 6y ago
    Are you the OP posting under a different account? > Given its size, configuration, and geopolitical contexts, the US has few comparable nations against which we can test. Why does country size affect academic performance of students? Russia, China, India, and Mexico are not developed nations. I wouldn't compare their educational results with the US. I'd be more interested in Canada, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the European nations. The USA compares near the bottom of this list. > No, it isn't. The other nations I just listed by comparison churn out very few humanities degrees. You used humanities degrees as a strawman argument in the OP. You asserting you did not do that is just a waste of effort. Perhaps you need to look up what a strawman argument is?
    - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
      > Are you the OP posting under a different account? No... are you? That's easily the strangest question I have ever been asked on HN.
- tamaharbor 6y ago
  Stupid people of every race, color, or party are the major problem. And covid lockdowns have made education just more ineffective.
klyrs 6y ago
Bush II's "No Child Left Behind" was replaced by Obama's "Race to the Top" was followed by DeVos's "invisible hand." The common thread in all of these education policies is that schools that are doing well get rewarded; schools that are underperforming get the same, or reduced funding, or get closed. To get better educated voters, you need better education for poorest performing students -- not more investment in the high performers. Additionally, poor kids can't focus on school for various reasons ranging from malnutrition to working multiple part-time jobs to keep their family afloat. Addressing poverty on a systemic level will be necessary to raise our baseline of education.
- anewaccount2021 6y ago
  Once again - the best educated voter still only has two choices, and neither of these represent the poor. Do people on HN really think the very rich or the very poor were at all bothered by the Capitol riots? Government is irrelevant to both groups, in different ways.
  - thatguy0900 6y ago
    Judging by the unanimous and immediate technocrat and media response to the capitol riot I would wager the rich are very concerned about it. I agree noone wealthy seemed all that concerned about the riots before that
    - Dma54rhs 6y ago
      There was no way to spin it off as marketing either, why would they be concerned.
  - kaitai 6y ago
    The best educated voter -- any voter in fact -- can also run for office and transform the party. I dislike the rhetoric you're using that implies the parties are outside and beyond the reach of "normal" citizens. Of course they are institutions with substantial inertia and aims of their own. But as the elections of people as diverse as Cori Bush and Madison Cawthorne and Marjorie Taylor Greene show, it is certainly still possible to make your way from citizen to elected official.
CyberDildonics 6y ago
Public education in the US is funded by neighborhood, so wealthy neighborhoods have far better schools and poverty stricken regions have terrible schools.
- notriddle 6y ago
  Anybody who wants greater social mobility can recognize why that’s a bad thing.
- nradov 6y ago
  That really depends on the state. Some states redistribute tax money across school districts.
  - Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
    Note, for instance, that the whole of New York City is one school district.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > Public education in the US is funded by neighborhood Sometimes, usually not. It's often (but not always) funded by “school district”, which is often much larger than a neighborhood and may be a large metro area, and often with statewide funding mechanisms that reduce disparity between districts to less than it would be on its own.
  - jhbadger 6y ago
    But even within a single school district there are "good schools" and "bad schools" and not terribly surprisingly, rents and home prices are more expensive in the neighborhoods with the higher rated schools. Many people move within the same city in order to get their kids in them.
    - dragonwriter 6y ago
      > But even within a single school district there are "good schools" and "bad schools" and not terribly surprisingly, rents and home prices are more expensive in the neighborhoods with the higher rated schools. Yes, that’s true, but it's not a product of funding by neighborhood, because that's not how the schools in that case are funded. It's been fairly strongly argued that that's actually because the schools themselves make almost no difference at all on average, and school outcomes are pretty much determined by socioeconomic background and other personal traits of the student with ransome variation, and the “good schools” are just the ones attended by the students with the traits that would produce, on average, good outcomes independent of what school they attend.
closeparen 6y ago
West Virginians with masters degrees make about twice as much as those with high school diplomas. Either things are not so bad for people with humanities degrees, or they're not as large a share of education as you think. https://www.wvhepc.edu/resources/data-and-publication-center/workforce-data/ https://www.wvhepc.edu/resources/data-and-publication-center...
bfrog 6y ago
When the teachers in certain areas are on welfare programs because the wages are below poverty levels, what sort of education do you expect people to receive? Who do you expect teaches? Education here is a glorified daycare, not an attempt to instill critical thought on how we might attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Like voting for politicians who implemented policies to send our jobs and basic goods factories over seas.
ImprovedSilence 6y ago
I would argue that while it may not help rural West Virginia, the location, it can (and does, just not for everyone!) benefit some subset of that WV population who does manage to become educated and leave for a better prospects in a city or some other part of the country.
- curryst 6y ago
  Which further perpetuates the cycle because anyone who makes enough to pay taxes to support public programs leaves. I don't blame them, but it sucks for some of these communities.
bob_doggo 6y ago
Well, maybe they can learn that there are other alternatives besides the american political system during those studies, and actually do something to change your broken system...

eloff 6y ago

Public education in the US is awful and lags nearly the entire developed world. Humanities degrees are not terribly useful, but boiling all education down to humanities degrees is a blatant strawman that signals a lot about your willingness to have a nuanced discussion. I think it's fairly self evident that investment in the future is what improves the future and education is probably the most important and significant such investment.

inglor_cz 6y ago
Good education system does not neatly translate to, say, economic success. Italy has top-class university system, much older than Columbus, and yet the country seems to be stuck in stagnation for last 20 years and the talented fresh graduates of those top schools move abroad.
- eloff 6y ago
  I would say it's one very important factor among others. Ray Dalio outlines many of the factors involved in nations rising and falling, including education in a freely available online book. I've found it an interesting read, although he takes a while to get to the point.[1] [1] https://www.principles.com/the-changing-world-order/ https://www.principles.com/the-changing-world-order/
- j0ba 6y ago
  > Good education system does not neatly translate to, say, economic success. If you think anyone said that, you should probably talk less and read more. Because it doesn't appear you're competent in either. Education is necessary but not sufficient.
  - eloff 6y ago
    That's a bit harsh. The OP has a good point, and he's not mischaracterizing anyone's argument. Please re-read the HN guidelines about being civil.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- ImprovedSilence 6y ago
  You still need a government that can get out of it's own way, legislatively, while still providing an environment (or the right incentives for one) where business can and does get done.
  - eloff 6y ago
    Among many things. Recent governments in the US have been very ineffective. Legislators are more interested in making each other look bad than actually doing their job.
AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
I'm not entirely clear on how many nations are able to be compared with the US within the developed world. Given its size, configuration, and geopolitical contexts, the US has few comparable nations against which we can test. I guess we can say Russia is closest, followed by Canada & Mexico, then the entire EU and the CCP. India maybe? > boiling all education down to humanities degrees is a blatant strawman No, it isn't. The other nations I just listed by comparison churn out very few humanities degrees. What people choose to do with their privilege of going to college is a relevant data point, which feeds back into the quality of the education system overall. > signals a lot about your willingness to have a nuanced discussion. Let's not go around insinuating such things when you yourself started this conversation off failing to address the nuances of comparing the US against other "developed world" countries.
- eloff 6y ago
  Are you the OP posting under a different account? > Given its size, configuration, and geopolitical contexts, the US has few comparable nations against which we can test. Why does country size affect academic performance of students? Russia, China, India, and Mexico are not developed nations. I wouldn't compare their educational results with the US. I'd be more interested in Canada, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the European nations. The USA compares near the bottom of this list. > No, it isn't. The other nations I just listed by comparison churn out very few humanities degrees. You used humanities degrees as a strawman argument in the OP. You asserting you did not do that is just a waste of effort. Perhaps you need to look up what a strawman argument is?
  - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
    > Are you the OP posting under a different account? No... are you? That's easily the strangest question I have ever been asked on HN.
tamaharbor 6y ago
Stupid people of every race, color, or party are the major problem. And covid lockdowns have made education just more ineffective.

klyrs 6y ago

Bush II's "No Child Left Behind" was replaced by Obama's "Race to the Top" was followed by DeVos's "invisible hand." The common thread in all of these education policies is that schools that are doing well get rewarded; schools that are underperforming get the same, or reduced funding, or get closed. To get better educated voters, you need better education for poorest performing students -- not more investment in the high performers. Additionally, poor kids can't focus on school for various reasons ranging from malnutrition to working multiple part-time jobs to keep their family afloat. Addressing poverty on a systemic level will be necessary to raise our baseline of education.

anewaccount2021 6y ago
Once again - the best educated voter still only has two choices, and neither of these represent the poor. Do people on HN really think the very rich or the very poor were at all bothered by the Capitol riots? Government is irrelevant to both groups, in different ways.
- thatguy0900 6y ago
  Judging by the unanimous and immediate technocrat and media response to the capitol riot I would wager the rich are very concerned about it. I agree noone wealthy seemed all that concerned about the riots before that
  - Dma54rhs 6y ago
    There was no way to spin it off as marketing either, why would they be concerned.
- kaitai 6y ago
  The best educated voter -- any voter in fact -- can also run for office and transform the party. I dislike the rhetoric you're using that implies the parties are outside and beyond the reach of "normal" citizens. Of course they are institutions with substantial inertia and aims of their own. But as the elections of people as diverse as Cori Bush and Madison Cawthorne and Marjorie Taylor Greene show, it is certainly still possible to make your way from citizen to elected official.

CyberDildonics 6y ago

Public education in the US is funded by neighborhood, so wealthy neighborhoods have far better schools and poverty stricken regions have terrible schools.

notriddle 6y ago
Anybody who wants greater social mobility can recognize why that’s a bad thing.
nradov 6y ago
That really depends on the state. Some states redistribute tax money across school districts.
- Ichthypresbyter 6y ago
  Note, for instance, that the whole of New York City is one school district.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> Public education in the US is funded by neighborhood Sometimes, usually not. It's often (but not always) funded by “school district”, which is often much larger than a neighborhood and may be a large metro area, and often with statewide funding mechanisms that reduce disparity between districts to less than it would be on its own.
- jhbadger 6y ago
  But even within a single school district there are "good schools" and "bad schools" and not terribly surprisingly, rents and home prices are more expensive in the neighborhoods with the higher rated schools. Many people move within the same city in order to get their kids in them.
  - dragonwriter 6y ago
    > But even within a single school district there are "good schools" and "bad schools" and not terribly surprisingly, rents and home prices are more expensive in the neighborhoods with the higher rated schools. Yes, that’s true, but it's not a product of funding by neighborhood, because that's not how the schools in that case are funded. It's been fairly strongly argued that that's actually because the schools themselves make almost no difference at all on average, and school outcomes are pretty much determined by socioeconomic background and other personal traits of the student with ransome variation, and the “good schools” are just the ones attended by the students with the traits that would produce, on average, good outcomes independent of what school they attend.

closeparen 6y ago

West Virginians with masters degrees make about twice as much as those with high school diplomas. Either things are not so bad for people with humanities degrees, or they're not as large a share of education as you think. https://www.wvhepc.edu/resources/data-and-publication-center/workforce-data/ https://www.wvhepc.edu/resources/data-and-publication-center...

bfrog 6y ago

When the teachers in certain areas are on welfare programs because the wages are below poverty levels, what sort of education do you expect people to receive? Who do you expect teaches? Education here is a glorified daycare, not an attempt to instill critical thought on how we might attempt to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. Like voting for politicians who implemented policies to send our jobs and basic goods factories over seas.

ImprovedSilence 6y ago

I would argue that while it may not help rural West Virginia, the location, it can (and does, just not for everyone!) benefit some subset of that WV population who does manage to become educated and leave for a better prospects in a city or some other part of the country.

curryst 6y ago
Which further perpetuates the cycle because anyone who makes enough to pay taxes to support public programs leaves. I don't blame them, but it sucks for some of these communities.

bob_doggo 6y ago

Well, maybe they can learn that there are other alternatives besides the american political system during those studies, and actually do something to change your broken system...