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I hadn't seen greaterwrong.com, and was hoping that it would offer counterarguments to articles on lesswrong.com, but it's just a summary of it. I get frustrat

I hadn't seen greaterwrong.com, and was hoping that it would offer counterarguments to articles on lesswrong.com, but it's just a summary of it. I get frustrated by articles like this because they focus on second-order causes instead of first-order. I don't know how it works overseas, but the main problem in the US is that schools are funded by property taxes from state and local governments instead of the federal government (which only accounts for less than 10% of funding): https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html https://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/fed/10facts/index.html Which means that public schools are a magnifying glass for issues like discrimination and wealth inequality that the whole country is wrestling with. Want to know why schools in the south side of Chicago are doing worse than schools in Beverly Hills? There's your answer. Full stop. Until we fix that nationally, expect more of the same. What's the solution? To me it's very simple, but unfortunately we need some kind of consensus on this, and that's not going to happen until people start reaching similar conclusions when presented with the same facts. But we're more polarized than ever.. so.. let me offer an analogy instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_Babel America is quite strong in certain areas (finance, the military, etc) but so weak in others (education, health and human services, etc) that we've become vulnerable. Look at Texas right now: the fossil fuel energy capital of America (maybe the world?) unable to keep the lights on as its citizens slowly freeze to death. Look at the US response to COVID-19 as hundreds of thousands of people die unnecessary deaths because we weren't brave enough to quarantine long enough. If that stuff isn't biblical, I don't know what is. No, these problems are not due to failings at the personal or local level. They're systemic, national and cultural.

thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Want to know why schools in the south side of Chicago are doing worse than schools in Beverly Hills? There's your answer. Full stop. This analysis completely fails; the correlation between student performance and per-student spending in US schools is negative.
- bsanr2 6y ago
  Those figures never weigh parental wealth, income, and credit access.
  - thaumasiotes 6y ago
    What adjustment are you thinking of making? If you want to bump up the Beverly Hills per-student spending by assuming parents in Beverly Hills spend money on their students that doesn't show up in the school budgets, you still have to give up on the idea that "funding from local property taxes is the reason schools in the south side of Chicago are doing worse than schools in Beverly Hills, full stop". Unless, of course, you're proposing to prohibit parents from spending money on their own children, as some people in the US actually have. The analysis would fail anyway, though; spending on students (by parents) is also negatively correlated with student performance within families. Parents seek to bring low-performing children up to the level of high-performing children more than they seek to boost their high-performing children further.
CincinnatiMan 6y ago
Do you have per-student spending figures for those schools you're comparing? The schools in the cities I'm familiar with, federal supplemental funding actually makes it so the poorer areas are able to spend more per student than the wealthier areas, and the poorer area schools still perform way worse. IMO money plays some role, but it's not directly the property taxes that matter.
pjscott 6y ago
FYI, greaterwrong.com is an alternate front-end for lesswrong.com. The content is identical, but with different UI.

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> Want to know why schools in the south side of Chicago are doing worse than schools in Beverly Hills? There's your answer. Full stop. This analysis completely fails; the correlation between student performance and per-student spending in US schools is negative.

bsanr2 6y ago
Those figures never weigh parental wealth, income, and credit access.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago
  What adjustment are you thinking of making? If you want to bump up the Beverly Hills per-student spending by assuming parents in Beverly Hills spend money on their students that doesn't show up in the school budgets, you still have to give up on the idea that "funding from local property taxes is the reason schools in the south side of Chicago are doing worse than schools in Beverly Hills, full stop". Unless, of course, you're proposing to prohibit parents from spending money on their own children, as some people in the US actually have. The analysis would fail anyway, though; spending on students (by parents) is also negatively correlated with student performance within families. Parents seek to bring low-performing children up to the level of high-performing children more than they seek to boost their high-performing children further.

CincinnatiMan 6y ago

Do you have per-student spending figures for those schools you're comparing? The schools in the cities I'm familiar with, federal supplemental funding actually makes it so the poorer areas are able to spend more per student than the wealthier areas, and the poorer area schools still perform way worse. IMO money plays some role, but it's not directly the property taxes that matter.

pjscott 6y ago

FYI, greaterwrong.com is an alternate front-end for lesswrong.com. The content is identical, but with different UI.