4 ms·

I claim it's positive sum for society. To be concrete, suppose that moving the troublemakingest 5% out of a school lets the remaining 95% of kids learn 20% more

by tlb 6y ago

I claim it's positive sum for society. To be concrete, suppose that moving the troublemakingest 5% out of a school lets the remaining 95% of kids learn 20% more. And the 5% learn about the same. So overall society is up 20% * 95% = 19%. It depends on the numbers, of course. If the 95% of kids only learned 1% more, it wouldn't be worth it. It's notoriously hard to measure those numbers because everything is confounded by everything else and experiments take decades to run. But I think 20% is plausible and 1% isn't.

taeric 6y ago
Aren't you talking past the accusation? It isn't just troublemakers that were pushed out. Low scoring students will be, too.
verall 6y ago
Those numbers are made up to support your assumptions. I claim the troublemakingest 5% have an increased chance of having an outsized negative effect on overall society, and by tossing them by their ears, we double their chances of behaviors that have serious (10X) negative effects: perpetrating fraud, abuse, or violence. Depending on assumptions, it is easy to argue that money is best spent accelerating our brightest minds and giving extra support for the most at-risk, letting the middle atrophy. Or it is best to treat everyone equally, which certainly leaves the top underfulfilled and the bottom underprepared. It's just spitballing.
sdenton4 6y ago
Are we talking about trouble making kids, or kids who aren't going to ace their exams? Your numbers are all invented whole cloth; please don't try to math with them. More precisely: Why should I believe that the remaining kids learn more? In my experience, everyone learns more when they teach, as it forces them to shore up their assumptions. (When you learn something yourself, you learn one wrong way to do it. When you teach, you learn thirty wrong ways.) Having kids who think differently around for peer exchange is then a good thing overall. The struggling kids have stronger peers around to teach them, and the stronger kids have more chances to teach.
strken 6y ago
You're only looking at the gained education for the 95% and the lost education for the 5%, not at the social cost of some of the already disengaged 5% ending up in jail for armed robbery or murder. Again, it all depends on where the 5% end up. You're not allowed to take them out back and shoot them like an aggressive dog, so are you going to look after them and give them some kind of a future, or are you going to throw kids out onto the street to grow up into career criminals?

by tlb 6y ago

taeric 6y ago

Aren't you talking past the accusation? It isn't just troublemakers that were pushed out. Low scoring students will be, too.

verall 6y ago

Those numbers are made up to support your assumptions. I claim the troublemakingest 5% have an increased chance of having an outsized negative effect on overall society, and by tossing them by their ears, we double their chances of behaviors that have serious (10X) negative effects: perpetrating fraud, abuse, or violence. Depending on assumptions, it is easy to argue that money is best spent accelerating our brightest minds and giving extra support for the most at-risk, letting the middle atrophy. Or it is best to treat everyone equally, which certainly leaves the top underfulfilled and the bottom underprepared. It's just spitballing.

sdenton4 6y ago

Are we talking about trouble making kids, or kids who aren't going to ace their exams? Your numbers are all invented whole cloth; please don't try to math with them. More precisely: Why should I believe that the remaining kids learn more? In my experience, everyone learns more when they teach, as it forces them to shore up their assumptions. (When you learn something yourself, you learn one wrong way to do it. When you teach, you learn thirty wrong ways.) Having kids who think differently around for peer exchange is then a good thing overall. The struggling kids have stronger peers around to teach them, and the stronger kids have more chances to teach.

strken 6y ago

You're only looking at the gained education for the 95% and the lost education for the 5%, not at the social cost of some of the already disengaged 5% ending up in jail for armed robbery or murder. Again, it all depends on where the 5% end up. You're not allowed to take them out back and shoot them like an aggressive dog, so are you going to look after them and give them some kind of a future, or are you going to throw kids out onto the street to grow up into career criminals?