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> I would have thought that the most significant form of gaming the system would be discreet student selection. This is very common in the private, for-profit

by occz 6y ago

> I would have thought that the most significant form of gaming the system would be discreet student selection. This is very common in the private, for-profit schools in Sweden. The general procedure goes as follows: 1. Spend heavily on marketing to attract 'good students' 2. Avoid selecting 'bad students' 3. Automatically use the scores that follow from this selection to create a feedback loop that keeps bringing in good students 4. Cut as much spending as you can - you're getting paid a set amount of money per student from the government, after all 5. Pocket the difference Meanwhile, the public schools are not allowed to engage in the same sort of filtering and are hence required to accept the 'bad students', which constrains their resources and creating the opposite feedback loop to what the private for-profit schools have. Kind of sickening, to be honest.

sjg007 6y ago
US charter schools do this extensively. It's the whole point of an entrance exam.
ArkanExplorer 6y ago
It occurs at a higher level than that due to neighborhood gentrification and school zoning. This effect is already seen heavily in suburbs of Australia, where Asian (particularly Chinese) migrants will buy into suburbs with good schools - pushing out poorer families due to increased pricing. The fundamental problem is that we need to treat poor behaviour in the same way we treat serious autism - with special schools for those students. The problem is that those schools will get filled with minorities, the whole thing will be attacked as 'racist', and we'll be back to square one.
- fma 6y ago
  Happens in the US too. It's similar to what's known as "white flight". White people leave an area due to minorities coming. The new area property value increases... More tax money, resources for schools, better teachers get attracted to schools and districts with more resources. Also a part of my wonders how much influence schools even have on the kids. Families with more resources can pay to get outside help, like enrolling their kids in Kumon...or getting a private SAT tutor.
  - treis 6y ago
    >White people leave an area due to minorities coming. The new area property value increases... More tax money, resources for schools, better teachers get attracted to schools and districts with more resources. This is a commonly held myth but it's not backed up by the data. Inner city districts are usually near the top of their state for per pupil spending. What they lack in residential tax base they usually make up for in commercial buildings. All of those high rise office buildings pay lots of property tax and don't send any kids to school.
    - ArkanExplorer 6y ago
      Schooling has little impact on final outcomes generally. The biggest factors are genetics, and parenting. The problem is that acknowledging this leads to politically incorrect conclusions, so we continue to throw money at education and certain schools. We'd achieve better outcomes by reducing air and plastic pollution which are shown to have substantial negative potential impacts on intelligence and personality.
      - wizzwizz4 6y ago
        > The biggest factors are genetics, and parenting. How are you distinguishing the two? Show us the evidence, not your conclusions.
    - gruez 6y ago
      > Inner city districts are usually near the top of their state for per pupil spending does this include donations and other sources of revenue (eg. bake sales)?
      - treis 6y ago
        I've not seen numbers for that but the difference is usually quite large. For example, Atlanta Public Schools is 14k per pupil while the Georgia state average is 10k.
    - fma 6y ago
danielscrubs 6y ago
Why is it sickening? And why have good students in quotes? Students that for example try to rank high in status by using violence in class or bullying will also always exist. They are extremely costly and teachers are not allowed to incentivize good behavior. What I mean is that private schools quickly understand just how much damage a student can do and the teacher board / politicians really don’t, they think everything is sunshine and unicorns and put systems in place that are extremely naive. The system in place only highlights the problem, but it’s not the root cause.
- anon_tor_12345 6y ago
  >Students that for example try to rank high in status by using violence in class or bullying will also always exist. i don't understand this position. violence will always exist but we should blame the politicians? >the teacher board / politicians really don’t ... are extremely naive where you're mistaken is that >the root cause is exactly these kinds of practices that divide people/create inequality.
  - Spivak 6y ago
    > I don't understand this position. violence will always exist but we should blame the politicians? Yes! Sure, violence will always exist but that doesn’t mean that kids should have to be subjected to it. I was bullied in the “dragged outside of a teachers view and then beaten until I couldn’t move” sense and you know what happened to them… fucking nothing. Like actually literally nothing. Everyone in the school knew all the times it happened including the teachers and administrators but nobody had the power to remove them from school. One of my teachers took pity on me and offered to give me “detention” whenever I needed it. That’s what they could do. My parents fought for years to do something with no avail and then moved me to a private school. So yeah these practices create inequality because anyone lucky enough to have the means to get out does. As an individual family my parents couldn’t fix my local public school so they did what they could. Therapy was more expensive than the private school tuition.
- superflit 6y ago
  "What I mean is that private schools quickly understand just how much damage a student can do and the teacher board / politicians really don’t, they think everything is sunshine and unicorns and put systems in place that are extremely naive." The politician Really understand the problem that is the reason their kids are on the private school or them likely live in the ""same district"" then.
memling 6y ago
> Kind of sickening, to be honest. This kind of sorting could actually be a good thing if resources were adequately devoted toward helping problem students find better outcomes. I wonder, for example, if trades education would be better suited for many of the problem students—allowing of course that there are manifold causes for bad classroom behaviors and poor outcomes. Education is difficult, and I've snipped a rather lengthy comment that would probably be a waste of time to read. In sum, I think differentiation with strong socio-economic support (i.e., a social respect for all lines work and economic support for them) is probably a better solution than dumping people into classrooms who obviously don't belong there (at least not right now). But this is obviously hard to do (or else we'd probably have done it already).
spoonjim 6y ago
I feel like it is only the worst 5% of kids who ruin public school for everyone else, but it’s those students who the school devotes the most resources to “fixing” or “helping” which rarely work. If the bottom 5% were sent to a different school system where the objective was just to keep them away from the other 95% and prepare them for a life of beating their wives and robbing liquor stores, the other kids would do much better.
- madpata 6y ago
  Let's just create an explicit class system, assign people to those classes using some weird metrics and then decide their whole life for them using those classes! What a perfect solution! /s
  - spoonjim 6y ago
    We already do: the upper class is the kids whose parents either by home prices or private school tuition can get their kids the hell away from the losers.
- Viliam1234 6y ago
  > I feel like it is only the worst 5% of kids who ruin public school for everyone else Can confirm, as a former teacher. There were days when that 1 kid was sick, and the entire class worked completely differently. Suddenly it was possible to teach, the other kids learned, and some of them even said they preferred it that way. Then that 1 kid returned. In teachers' room, 95% of time spent talking about students, is usually about the same 5 kids.
- confidantlake 6y ago
  I agree with this. I spent most of my time in the AP classes so I never saw any of this until I took a photography elective my senior year. Just 2 people out of 30 ruined the class. They were loud, disruptive, making it impossible to concentrate. The teacher was forced to spend all her time dealing with those two. Everyone would have been better off if they weren't there.

by occz 6y ago

sjg007 6y ago

US charter schools do this extensively. It's the whole point of an entrance exam.

ArkanExplorer 6y ago

It occurs at a higher level than that due to neighborhood gentrification and school zoning. This effect is already seen heavily in suburbs of Australia, where Asian (particularly Chinese) migrants will buy into suburbs with good schools - pushing out poorer families due to increased pricing. The fundamental problem is that we need to treat poor behaviour in the same way we treat serious autism - with special schools for those students. The problem is that those schools will get filled with minorities, the whole thing will be attacked as 'racist', and we'll be back to square one.

fma 6y ago
Happens in the US too. It's similar to what's known as "white flight". White people leave an area due to minorities coming. The new area property value increases... More tax money, resources for schools, better teachers get attracted to schools and districts with more resources. Also a part of my wonders how much influence schools even have on the kids. Families with more resources can pay to get outside help, like enrolling their kids in Kumon...or getting a private SAT tutor.
- treis 6y ago
  >White people leave an area due to minorities coming. The new area property value increases... More tax money, resources for schools, better teachers get attracted to schools and districts with more resources. This is a commonly held myth but it's not backed up by the data. Inner city districts are usually near the top of their state for per pupil spending. What they lack in residential tax base they usually make up for in commercial buildings. All of those high rise office buildings pay lots of property tax and don't send any kids to school.
  - ArkanExplorer 6y ago
    Schooling has little impact on final outcomes generally. The biggest factors are genetics, and parenting. The problem is that acknowledging this leads to politically incorrect conclusions, so we continue to throw money at education and certain schools. We'd achieve better outcomes by reducing air and plastic pollution which are shown to have substantial negative potential impacts on intelligence and personality.
    - wizzwizz4 6y ago
      > The biggest factors are genetics, and parenting. How are you distinguishing the two? Show us the evidence, not your conclusions.
  - gruez 6y ago
    > Inner city districts are usually near the top of their state for per pupil spending does this include donations and other sources of revenue (eg. bake sales)?
    - treis 6y ago
      I've not seen numbers for that but the difference is usually quite large. For example, Atlanta Public Schools is 14k per pupil while the Georgia state average is 10k.
  - fma 6y ago

danielscrubs 6y ago

Why is it sickening? And why have good students in quotes? Students that for example try to rank high in status by using violence in class or bullying will also always exist. They are extremely costly and teachers are not allowed to incentivize good behavior. What I mean is that private schools quickly understand just how much damage a student can do and the teacher board / politicians really don’t, they think everything is sunshine and unicorns and put systems in place that are extremely naive. The system in place only highlights the problem, but it’s not the root cause.

anon_tor_12345 6y ago
>Students that for example try to rank high in status by using violence in class or bullying will also always exist. i don't understand this position. violence will always exist but we should blame the politicians? >the teacher board / politicians really don’t ... are extremely naive where you're mistaken is that >the root cause is exactly these kinds of practices that divide people/create inequality.
- Spivak 6y ago
  > I don't understand this position. violence will always exist but we should blame the politicians? Yes! Sure, violence will always exist but that doesn’t mean that kids should have to be subjected to it. I was bullied in the “dragged outside of a teachers view and then beaten until I couldn’t move” sense and you know what happened to them… fucking nothing. Like actually literally nothing. Everyone in the school knew all the times it happened including the teachers and administrators but nobody had the power to remove them from school. One of my teachers took pity on me and offered to give me “detention” whenever I needed it. That’s what they could do. My parents fought for years to do something with no avail and then moved me to a private school. So yeah these practices create inequality because anyone lucky enough to have the means to get out does. As an individual family my parents couldn’t fix my local public school so they did what they could. Therapy was more expensive than the private school tuition.
superflit 6y ago
"What I mean is that private schools quickly understand just how much damage a student can do and the teacher board / politicians really don’t, they think everything is sunshine and unicorns and put systems in place that are extremely naive." The politician Really understand the problem that is the reason their kids are on the private school or them likely live in the ""same district"" then.

memling 6y ago

> Kind of sickening, to be honest. This kind of sorting could actually be a good thing if resources were adequately devoted toward helping problem students find better outcomes. I wonder, for example, if trades education would be better suited for many of the problem students—allowing of course that there are manifold causes for bad classroom behaviors and poor outcomes. Education is difficult, and I've snipped a rather lengthy comment that would probably be a waste of time to read. In sum, I think differentiation with strong socio-economic support (i.e., a social respect for all lines work and economic support for them) is probably a better solution than dumping people into classrooms who obviously don't belong there (at least not right now). But this is obviously hard to do (or else we'd probably have done it already).

spoonjim 6y ago

I feel like it is only the worst 5% of kids who ruin public school for everyone else, but it’s those students who the school devotes the most resources to “fixing” or “helping” which rarely work. If the bottom 5% were sent to a different school system where the objective was just to keep them away from the other 95% and prepare them for a life of beating their wives and robbing liquor stores, the other kids would do much better.

madpata 6y ago
Let's just create an explicit class system, assign people to those classes using some weird metrics and then decide their whole life for them using those classes! What a perfect solution! /s
- spoonjim 6y ago
  We already do: the upper class is the kids whose parents either by home prices or private school tuition can get their kids the hell away from the losers.
Viliam1234 6y ago
> I feel like it is only the worst 5% of kids who ruin public school for everyone else Can confirm, as a former teacher. There were days when that 1 kid was sick, and the entire class worked completely differently. Suddenly it was possible to teach, the other kids learned, and some of them even said they preferred it that way. Then that 1 kid returned. In teachers' room, 95% of time spent talking about students, is usually about the same 5 kids.
confidantlake 6y ago
I agree with this. I spent most of my time in the AP classes so I never saw any of this until I took a photography elective my senior year. Just 2 people out of 30 ruined the class. They were loud, disruptive, making it impossible to concentrate. The teacher was forced to spend all her time dealing with those two. Everyone would have been better off if they weren't there.