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Well, as someone deeply involved in education, these statements combined together highlight exactly the problem with America's educational system. Like many Ame

Well, as someone deeply involved in education, these statements combined together highlight exactly the problem with America's educational system. Like many American institutions, it is extremely diverse in its methods and primarily focused on providing services to the wealthy. The parent comment here is correct in highlighting a problem that exists at the highest levels in our school system and the topic article is highlighting a problem that exists at the lowest levels. They are very different problems. However, they have the same root cause. What would actually solve this is a systemic shift in America's education system to a more centralized approach that promotes well researched methodologies and systems to be used across the country. We have phenomenal teachers and phenomenal schools that operate at extremely high efficiency. The problem is that this quality is extremely poorly distributed. This would be very unpopular with the wealthier members of society though, as it would make access to academic silo schools much less of a given for their children. And access to education, and the societal benefits that this access brings, is one of the primary motivators for wealthier Americans. You don't have to look farther than Hacker News. How often do you see titles here like "MIT students launch the Facebook of toilet paper", where MIT student is seen as a meaningful signal. Your child doesn't get the opportunity to be the beneficiary of that headline without first being purchased a top rate education at America's best high schools.

anewaccount2021 6y ago
You're being too high-minded. This is about absent parents and a school board that has already given up on students before they even enroll. This is not a "systemic" national issue...its an issue for inner city schools where the students are poor and brown.
SubuSS 6y ago
So in the world you describe, if a parent wants better education for their child (than what the government provides uniformly across the country) - is the only recourse private schools? So I come from India where the above model is in place - very few government funded schools are considered top ranking. Parents live closer to good private schools and fund the same when possible. But usually this means hours of transit for the child. At least from my perspective, the US model seemed better. Here you can choose to live in a nice neighborhood if you can and get a lot more benefits than just good schools. These things seem to go together (safety / general wealth of the neighborhood / public services / good schools / accessibility to job locations and so on). I am curious to see why someone would not want this. If the overall push is that the whole country should grow only at a uniform rate and we should penalize folks who work hard to get these benefits in lieu of folks who can't (or won't), that doesn't sound very American, at least not the American dream I was sold when I moved :).
- ascar 6y ago
  I live in Germany and private schools are the absolute exception. I'm not a parent yet, but from my experience as a student you just send your kid to the closest school and school reputation isn't really a thing. There are some "rich kid" schools, especially bording schools, but they are really rare and graduates don't really have a lot of benefit when it comes to university applications (German universities operate by taking in many students and make the weak performers drop out or switch to a subject better fitting their skills) To promote higher achieving students we split kids into three different tiers based on their performance in their 4th school year (around age 10/11). Each tier is actually a completely separate school (location, building, curriculula, even different qualifications for teachers). Students that do exceptionally well/bad can still move between tiers every year. There is a world where the state provides education and thinking about private schools isn't an important consideration for parents. I would expect it's similar in many other EU countries. So it's not one or the other like you fear.
  - readflaggedcomm 6y ago
    Germany prohibits homeschooling, which to me distorts the situation.
    - ascar 6y ago
      I'm don't really follow how the possiblity of homeschooling and public school quality correlate? What is your argument here?
- earthscienceman 6y ago
  I mean. I'll let my political colors fly a little bit here and tell you what I see to be as plain fact: the American dream you were sold when you moved here is a scam. The American dream, as it stands today, is a dead ideological notion that the wealthy in this country use to justify stepping on the backs of the poor in order to attain more, and more, and more. Saying something like "choose to live in a nice neighborhood" is analogous to saying "if you're poor you won't be given access to good schooling" because poor people can't choose to live in a nice neighborhood, no matter how hard they are willing to work. Not to mention poor children. And you're presenting a false dichotomy here. We don't have to choose between rewarding people who work hard and providing good education to everyone. We are absolutely capable of doing both, we just choose not to because the system in place has clear benefits to the people who are creating/perpetuating that system. Much like the caste system in India. I'm absolutely, in very clear terms, not proposing we implement the Indian education system. That should be obvious. What you're defining as American is very dangerous. You're saying quite literally "to be American is to have the individual right succeed no matter the expense to others". While that's a very Hacker New mentality, and quite obviously how America operates, I wouldn't call it particularly equal or meritocratic. If hard work was rewarded, the hard working lower class Americans who have three jobs would be given access to these neighborhoods and school-systems. But this is transparently not the case. You seem to be someone who believes you should seek the rewards of your hard work, and I agree with you 100%. However, what you're missing is that the rewards system in the US is not designed to reward those who are putting in the most effort. Nor is it designed to reward the children who are driven and likely to be successful. The rewards and incentives in the US currently favor anyone who already has money, no matter what they are actually providing to society. And it certainly provides no opportunities to promising young children who happen to be from lower-class backgrounds... but at this point I'm just stating facts.

anewaccount2021 6y ago

You're being too high-minded. This is about absent parents and a school board that has already given up on students before they even enroll. This is not a "systemic" national issue...its an issue for inner city schools where the students are poor and brown.

SubuSS 6y ago

So in the world you describe, if a parent wants better education for their child (than what the government provides uniformly across the country) - is the only recourse private schools? So I come from India where the above model is in place - very few government funded schools are considered top ranking. Parents live closer to good private schools and fund the same when possible. But usually this means hours of transit for the child. At least from my perspective, the US model seemed better. Here you can choose to live in a nice neighborhood if you can and get a lot more benefits than just good schools. These things seem to go together (safety / general wealth of the neighborhood / public services / good schools / accessibility to job locations and so on). I am curious to see why someone would not want this. If the overall push is that the whole country should grow only at a uniform rate and we should penalize folks who work hard to get these benefits in lieu of folks who can't (or won't), that doesn't sound very American, at least not the American dream I was sold when I moved :).

ascar 6y ago
I live in Germany and private schools are the absolute exception. I'm not a parent yet, but from my experience as a student you just send your kid to the closest school and school reputation isn't really a thing. There are some "rich kid" schools, especially bording schools, but they are really rare and graduates don't really have a lot of benefit when it comes to university applications (German universities operate by taking in many students and make the weak performers drop out or switch to a subject better fitting their skills) To promote higher achieving students we split kids into three different tiers based on their performance in their 4th school year (around age 10/11). Each tier is actually a completely separate school (location, building, curriculula, even different qualifications for teachers). Students that do exceptionally well/bad can still move between tiers every year. There is a world where the state provides education and thinking about private schools isn't an important consideration for parents. I would expect it's similar in many other EU countries. So it's not one or the other like you fear.
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago
  Germany prohibits homeschooling, which to me distorts the situation.
  - ascar 6y ago
    I'm don't really follow how the possiblity of homeschooling and public school quality correlate? What is your argument here?
earthscienceman 6y ago
I mean. I'll let my political colors fly a little bit here and tell you what I see to be as plain fact: the American dream you were sold when you moved here is a scam. The American dream, as it stands today, is a dead ideological notion that the wealthy in this country use to justify stepping on the backs of the poor in order to attain more, and more, and more. Saying something like "choose to live in a nice neighborhood" is analogous to saying "if you're poor you won't be given access to good schooling" because poor people can't choose to live in a nice neighborhood, no matter how hard they are willing to work. Not to mention poor children. And you're presenting a false dichotomy here. We don't have to choose between rewarding people who work hard and providing good education to everyone. We are absolutely capable of doing both, we just choose not to because the system in place has clear benefits to the people who are creating/perpetuating that system. Much like the caste system in India. I'm absolutely, in very clear terms, not proposing we implement the Indian education system. That should be obvious. What you're defining as American is very dangerous. You're saying quite literally "to be American is to have the individual right succeed no matter the expense to others". While that's a very Hacker New mentality, and quite obviously how America operates, I wouldn't call it particularly equal or meritocratic. If hard work was rewarded, the hard working lower class Americans who have three jobs would be given access to these neighborhoods and school-systems. But this is transparently not the case. You seem to be someone who believes you should seek the rewards of your hard work, and I agree with you 100%. However, what you're missing is that the rewards system in the US is not designed to reward those who are putting in the most effort. Nor is it designed to reward the children who are driven and likely to be successful. The rewards and incentives in the US currently favor anyone who already has money, no matter what they are actually providing to society. And it certainly provides no opportunities to promising young children who happen to be from lower-class backgrounds... but at this point I'm just stating facts.