7 ms·

Profit-driven schools don't cater to gifted kids. They cater to kids with rich and highly educated parents. The goal is to do less, to extract more profit.

by yoelo 6y ago

Grustaf 6y ago
Neither. Parents don't pay for schools in Sweden, so profit driven schools are just as free as other schools. Also, they are not elite schools in any sense, they are just slightly better organised and attract students that care enough about their education to select a different school than the default. Sweden is not the US, it's quite different.
- yoelo 6y ago
  What you're saying, especially the part about "slightly better organised and attract students that care enough about their education" is talking point rhethoric and not anything substantiated in fact. The schools get a fixed amount of money per student from the state. If you have students with high socio-economic status, you can get away with having fewer teachers per student, as well has having teachers that aren't properly educated. One of the more prominent for-profit charter schools is the "International English School" (IES). They aren't only "English" for marketing purposes (because being an "English" school means you can do more marketing about teaching with "higher discipline"), they are also "English" because that allows them to get away with recruiting more teachers from abroad. This is what for-profit charter schools are about. You can't "optimize" what's essentially a service institution. You can only cut to better your margins. Or cheat, which they do. Not only by having fewer authorized teachers, but also by straight up inveting better grades for students, which is something that helps with marketing (see a pattern here?).
  - Grustaf 6y ago
    In the Swedish system, all schools cost the same: 0. So there is no reason to target specifically wealthy students, all students are worth the same to you as school owner. In fact, they can't even accept students based on grades, there are only 4 criteria they are allowed to use when selecting students: location, time in queue, siblings in the school and whether you went to pre-school there. So what you end up with are students with parents that have enough forethought to put your name down early on. > You can't "optimize" what's essentially a service institution. I'm not sure what you mean by this, obviously you could in theory most definitely optimise the education. That is what private schools here in Denmark tend to do.
    - bjoli 6y ago
      Yes, but no: - The schools get a fixed amount of money per student. - The single largest predictor of school success is education level of the parents. - most for profit schools are in areas with higher education.
      - Grustaf 6y ago
        I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against here. I agree with all these points. But it is still the case that a lot of the students will not be local, and the majority of the local kids will not go to the school, they will go to the local public school.* The main reason these schools have better students is that you need to make an active choice to go there, and you need to do that a long time in advance. If you don't, you end up in a public school. This of course means that students from more motivated households go to these schools. Not wealthier students or even necessarily smarter students. * There have been cases recently where it seems that the private school has bribed the public school system to close the local school, but in general the public school will remain and most of the local kids will go there.
- bjoli 6y ago
  Now go and have a look where the schools are located. For-profit schools are more often located in areas where education level is higher. Less money spent on educating kids means more profit ina system where each student gets a fixed amount.
  - Grustaf 6y ago
    I'm not sure what your point is. Putting a school in a middle class area rather than a ghetto doesn't make it "elite". Especially when any kid can go there, regardless of where they live.
    - bjoli 6y ago
      Not in theory. In practice however it is different: https://www.lararforbundet.se/bloggar/lararforbundets-utredarblogg/vilka-elever-gaar-i-friskolor https://www.lararforbundet.se/bloggar/lararforbundets-utreda...
      - Grustaf 6y ago
        I'm still not sure what your point is. I am not saying that the demographics in free schools are the same as in public schools, or that there is no correlation between where the students in a given free school live. I'm sure they tend to skew locally, if that is your point, but in any case they skew much less locally than the local public school. So the reason a given free school has better grades than the public school down the street is not its location.
        bjoli 6y ago
        What I am saying is that free schools end up with the easy students. It is not as easy as "anyone can go there" since we have the principle of proximity (närhetsprincipen). People living close to the school will have a higher probability of getting a place. In which areas are the schools of Engelska Skolan? Academedia? Kunskapsskolan? Look in areas above the 80th socioeconomic percentile. In a system where each school gets a fixed amount of money per student, this puts public schools at a disadvantage, yet the results do not reflect this. We have a school system that leads to more segregation, more costs (like the recent debacle about cities having to compensate free schools for rather inane things) - but we get very little for it. The equivalence ("likvärdigheten") of the Swedish school system is at an all time low, and it has been getting constantly worse since the early 80s. The free school reform has done nothing but accelerate the problem. I don't mind free schools at all. I don't even mind that they are making money from it. What I do mind is that none of the promises of the free school reform has been delivered on. I am old enough to remember the promises of less segregation. Better schools driven by passionate teachers (these do exist). Schools where gifted students flourish. This seems to never have been evaluated. None of these things have happened.

Profit-driven schools don't cater to gifted kids. They cater to kids with rich and highly educated parents. The goal is to do less, to extract more profit.

by yoelo 6y ago

Profit-driven schools don't cater to gifted kids. They cater to kids with rich and highly educated parents. The goal is to do less, to extract more profit.

Grustaf 6y ago

Neither. Parents don't pay for schools in Sweden, so profit driven schools are just as free as other schools. Also, they are not elite schools in any sense, they are just slightly better organised and attract students that care enough about their education to select a different school than the default. Sweden is not the US, it's quite different.

yoelo 6y ago
What you're saying, especially the part about "slightly better organised and attract students that care enough about their education" is talking point rhethoric and not anything substantiated in fact. The schools get a fixed amount of money per student from the state. If you have students with high socio-economic status, you can get away with having fewer teachers per student, as well has having teachers that aren't properly educated. One of the more prominent for-profit charter schools is the "International English School" (IES). They aren't only "English" for marketing purposes (because being an "English" school means you can do more marketing about teaching with "higher discipline"), they are also "English" because that allows them to get away with recruiting more teachers from abroad. This is what for-profit charter schools are about. You can't "optimize" what's essentially a service institution. You can only cut to better your margins. Or cheat, which they do. Not only by having fewer authorized teachers, but also by straight up inveting better grades for students, which is something that helps with marketing (see a pattern here?).
- Grustaf 6y ago
  In the Swedish system, all schools cost the same: 0. So there is no reason to target specifically wealthy students, all students are worth the same to you as school owner. In fact, they can't even accept students based on grades, there are only 4 criteria they are allowed to use when selecting students: location, time in queue, siblings in the school and whether you went to pre-school there. So what you end up with are students with parents that have enough forethought to put your name down early on. > You can't "optimize" what's essentially a service institution. I'm not sure what you mean by this, obviously you could in theory most definitely optimise the education. That is what private schools here in Denmark tend to do.
  - bjoli 6y ago
    Yes, but no: - The schools get a fixed amount of money per student. - The single largest predictor of school success is education level of the parents. - most for profit schools are in areas with higher education.
    - Grustaf 6y ago
      I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against here. I agree with all these points. But it is still the case that a lot of the students will not be local, and the majority of the local kids will not go to the school, they will go to the local public school.* The main reason these schools have better students is that you need to make an active choice to go there, and you need to do that a long time in advance. If you don't, you end up in a public school. This of course means that students from more motivated households go to these schools. Not wealthier students or even necessarily smarter students. * There have been cases recently where it seems that the private school has bribed the public school system to close the local school, but in general the public school will remain and most of the local kids will go there.
bjoli 6y ago
Now go and have a look where the schools are located. For-profit schools are more often located in areas where education level is higher. Less money spent on educating kids means more profit ina system where each student gets a fixed amount.
- Grustaf 6y ago
  I'm not sure what your point is. Putting a school in a middle class area rather than a ghetto doesn't make it "elite". Especially when any kid can go there, regardless of where they live.
  - bjoli 6y ago
    Not in theory. In practice however it is different: https://www.lararforbundet.se/bloggar/lararforbundets-utredarblogg/vilka-elever-gaar-i-friskolor https://www.lararforbundet.se/bloggar/lararforbundets-utreda...
    - Grustaf 6y ago
      I'm still not sure what your point is. I am not saying that the demographics in free schools are the same as in public schools, or that there is no correlation between where the students in a given free school live. I'm sure they tend to skew locally, if that is your point, but in any case they skew much less locally than the local public school. So the reason a given free school has better grades than the public school down the street is not its location.
      - bjoli 6y ago
        What I am saying is that free schools end up with the easy students. It is not as easy as "anyone can go there" since we have the principle of proximity (närhetsprincipen). People living close to the school will have a higher probability of getting a place. In which areas are the schools of Engelska Skolan? Academedia? Kunskapsskolan? Look in areas above the 80th socioeconomic percentile. In a system where each school gets a fixed amount of money per student, this puts public schools at a disadvantage, yet the results do not reflect this. We have a school system that leads to more segregation, more costs (like the recent debacle about cities having to compensate free schools for rather inane things) - but we get very little for it. The equivalence ("likvärdigheten") of the Swedish school system is at an all time low, and it has been getting constantly worse since the early 80s. The free school reform has done nothing but accelerate the problem. I don't mind free schools at all. I don't even mind that they are making money from it. What I do mind is that none of the promises of the free school reform has been delivered on. I am old enough to remember the promises of less segregation. Better schools driven by passionate teachers (these do exist). Schools where gifted students flourish. This seems to never have been evaluated. None of these things have happened.