8 ms·

> “Meritocracy!”, I hear you cry. “They pick from the most talented students. The ones that worked the hardest to get into the most elite schools. The black stu

by xroche 6y ago

> “Meritocracy!”, I hear you cry. “They pick from the most talented students. The ones that worked the hardest to get into the most elite schools. The black students should have just worked harder” Crazy idea: if companies that do virtue signaling on inclusivity were paying their taxes, decent schools could be funded and we would not have so many of those issues. But instead, those companies are actively lobbying to avoid any taxes, and as a result, poor kids will never have any chance of getting a decent education: * The IRS Decided to Get Tough Against Microsoft. Microsoft Got Tougher. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-tough-against-microsoft-microsoft-got-tougher https://www.propublica.org/article/the-irs-decided-to-get-to... * Facebook, Google and Microsoft 'avoiding $3bn in tax in poorer nations' https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54691572 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54691572 I am baffled by the naivety of people in our IT industry who swallow the hypocrite "inclusivity" discourse of those big tech giants. They don't care about inclusivity, they only care about money folks.

heyoo 6y ago
This should get more attention (& upvotes).
eyko 6y ago
Whilst I agree that they should pay their taxes, let's not get confused here: no matter how much the budget is increased, education will not be properly funded because it's not a political priority. Most countries with better education systems don't really invest _that much_ more than the USA, but it's the attitude towards education that counts.
- runarberg 6y ago
  Looking at absolute funding is a bit simplistic in this instance. The problem OP is pointing towards is that some schools are disproportionately bad. In an unequal society where distribution is racially biased, an education system might be superbly funded, while still leaving several district underfunded, yielding the racial bias OP was taking about.
simonw 6y ago
I don't think companies paying their taxes - in the USA at least - would help much on the education side of things, because much of the USA has a stunningly bad system of using property taxes to pay for schools. So schools in rich areas get more money than schools in poor areas. Charging companies taxes and simultaneously reforming how schools are funded could work? I imagine changing the funding mechanism would be extremely politically unpopular with homeowners who's property values are attached to the quality of their local schools. It's such a gross system.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  Only about half of the funding comes from local sources. > On average, 8% of revenues are federal, 47% from the state, and 45% locally sourced. And this varies widely from state to state.
- moduspol 6y ago
  Does evidence show more school funding would fix underperforming public schools?
  - jaywalk 6y ago
    You can find studies that support either side of that argument. So I guess the answer is: it's more complicated than that.
    - moduspol 6y ago
      Are there records of any US public schools that were underperforming, were given notably more funding, and saw a corresponding increase in test scores or other objective metrics? EDIT: I guess I'm looking for the success stories. "Here's an inner-city school and the outcomes were bad. Then we increased funding and now their outcomes are comparable to good schools."
      - jaywalk 6y ago
        None that I'm aware of. I live outside of Detroit, so I'm very familiar with the example of how the absolute bottom-tier Detroit Public Schools spend more per student than some of the richest (and highest performing) school districts in the suburbs.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
varispeed 6y ago
It's always when government screams around elections that they will increase taxes for the rich, the middle class and small to medium business cry. I am yet to see the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Google pay their fair share. Meanwhile small and medium businesses have hard time to compete because of the increasing burden bestowed upon them. The big corporations work hard to gatekeep their wealth garden, so no outsider could ever join them. I will vote for any government that will promise to partition those companies, make them pay the tax they ought to pay had they not used accounting tricks and finally to ban selling personal data for advertising purposes.
douglaswlance 6y ago
The USA spends more per capita than anyone else and we get worse results. More money isn't going to fix it. We need to break up the teacher's unions and put competition into the education marketplace by supporting students not schools. If we gave every student a stipend that their parent's could use to pick the school they wanted, then our education system would have competition and actually get better.
- CivBase 6y ago
  > More money isn't going to fix it. Bingo. My wife teaches for an urban school district. They get plenty of money. We see where it all goes, and it isn't into supporting education.
  - brandmeyer 6y ago
    Rather than rely on innuendo, can you provide specifics and cite the district's budget to support them?
    - CivBase 6y ago
      I'm not prepared to write an entire article on the subject and I'm not sure it would be wise for me to publicly criticize my wife's employer. But I can at least elaborate on how I feel the funding is being mismanaged. The biggest problem I see is a bloated administration. As is the case with most large organizations, power gravitates towards the top. The admin at the top get overwhelmed with responsibility and end up hiring more admin beneath them to handle things, but the power just gravitates back towards the top and the cycle continues until you have a highly-bureaucratic, admin-heavy organization. The salaries for all those admin has to come from somewhere. Meanwhile, teachers are treated as warm bodies to fill positions. Their performance is evaluated by admin who have little-to-no actual education experience, so grade inflation and brown-nosing are the most effective ways to keep a teaching position. This ensures the school keeps wasting money on bad teachers while the bloated admin retains support from the rest of the organization. Many teachers get shuffled around from school-to-school, and in some cases subject-to-subject, so they are constantly adjusting instead of refining their craft. Admin's solution to this is to take the burden of course development away from teachers by purchasing bundles of course materials/frameworks from third parties and pushing (sometimes requiring) teachers to teach according to them. So much of the material ends up being useless that teachers end up having to spend just as much time/effort anyways adjusting the material and sorting the wheat from the chaff. Going into a little more specifics, my wife works with special needs children at a high school level. This is getting especially frustrating because admin and other non-education staff lazily put any kids who misbehave or just don't do their work on special development plans. These plans involve a lot of costly bureaucracy and are very difficult to get rid of once created. Meanwhile, my wife has to put less and less of her attention on kids who legitimately need the extra help as an increasing portion of the student body gets put on these plans. Naturally, many of the kids don't like getting put on special development plans and separated from their peers. Admin's solution is to abandon self-contained classes for kids with special needs in favor of co-taught classes where two or more teachers manage an oversized class of mixed-needs students. This results in classes which are less effective for both groups of students while costing more as teachers now have to spend extra time and effort on coordination. These are just examples that are fresh in my mind based on recently discussions with my wife. Unfortunately, a lot of this isn't made evident by budgets.
xkiq 6y ago
Please avoid using "virtue signaling" and other thought-terminating clichés
- nailer 6y ago
  How does stating that a position is being taken due to optics rather than effectiveness 'terminate thought'?
  - xkiq 6y ago
    Not sure, I never said that. I said "virtue signaling" is a thought-terminating cliché, like "fake news." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A... Maybe this was done for optics and as a good-faith effort. Maybe efforts to increase inclusivity can happen alongside paying your taxes. Maybe all black people don't agree with the author. Please leave them on reddit, and discuss things with nuance here.
    - nailer 6y ago
      > Not sure, I never said that. I said "virtue signaling" is a thought-terminating cliché, like "fake news." Evidently you think the phrase, rather than its actual meaning, is the issue. OK. > it's (using the term 'virtue signaling') only function is to stop an argument from proceeding further, in other words "end the debate with a cliché... not a point. I personally don't think stating you believe a position is taken due to optics ends the debate. Likewise pointing out that information is being manipulated by those that seek to report it. The short term for these is 'virtue signaling' and 'fake news'. I'm not sure if you have ever lived in the US but in the current political climate it likely does the exact opposite of stopping arguments proceeding further. The concept of 'thought terminating cliches' - that these concerns somehow aren't valid points - seems itself to terminate thought. Please lets actually consider arguments here, rather than dismissing them because they're considered popular.
      - xkiq 6y ago
sumedh 6y ago
> decent schools could be funded or you could use that money to invade a foreign country and drop more bombs on them.
warmwaffles 6y ago
> companies that do virtue signaling on inclusivity were paying their taxes, decent schools could be funded and we would not have so many of those issues. So the biggest issue I have with this is that the US government is really good a pissing away money on useless stuff. Take a look at the latest round of "stimulus" and the breakdown of where everything is going.
ggggtez 6y ago
You seem to imply that every tech worker is pro-tax breaks (they are not). In fact, it's perfectly possible to disagree with your company's policy on taxes, and agree with their policy on inclusivity! In fact, these tech workers have almost no control over the taxes their company pays or doesn't pay! I think many people here would agree with me: I'd be happy if tax laws were changes to make big companies pay more! I would never expect anyone to quit their jobs because they disagreed with how their company filed their tax return. That's just a kind of insane way to think about the world. A worker only has one bargaining chip: they can quit. That's an unreasonable ask.

by xroche 6y ago

heyoo 6y ago

This should get more attention (& upvotes).

eyko 6y ago

Whilst I agree that they should pay their taxes, let's not get confused here: no matter how much the budget is increased, education will not be properly funded because it's not a political priority. Most countries with better education systems don't really invest _that much_ more than the USA, but it's the attitude towards education that counts.

runarberg 6y ago
Looking at absolute funding is a bit simplistic in this instance. The problem OP is pointing towards is that some schools are disproportionately bad. In an unequal society where distribution is racially biased, an education system might be superbly funded, while still leaving several district underfunded, yielding the racial bias OP was taking about.

simonw 6y ago

I don't think companies paying their taxes - in the USA at least - would help much on the education side of things, because much of the USA has a stunningly bad system of using property taxes to pay for schools. So schools in rich areas get more money than schools in poor areas. Charging companies taxes and simultaneously reforming how schools are funded could work? I imagine changing the funding mechanism would be extremely politically unpopular with homeowners who's property values are attached to the quality of their local schools. It's such a gross system.

systemvoltage 6y ago
Only about half of the funding comes from local sources. > On average, 8% of revenues are federal, 47% from the state, and 45% locally sourced. And this varies widely from state to state.
moduspol 6y ago
Does evidence show more school funding would fix underperforming public schools?
- jaywalk 6y ago
  You can find studies that support either side of that argument. So I guess the answer is: it's more complicated than that.
  - moduspol 6y ago
    Are there records of any US public schools that were underperforming, were given notably more funding, and saw a corresponding increase in test scores or other objective metrics? EDIT: I guess I'm looking for the success stories. "Here's an inner-city school and the outcomes were bad. Then we increased funding and now their outcomes are comparable to good schools."
    - jaywalk 6y ago
      None that I'm aware of. I live outside of Detroit, so I'm very familiar with the example of how the absolute bottom-tier Detroit Public Schools spend more per student than some of the richest (and highest performing) school districts in the suburbs.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

varispeed 6y ago

It's always when government screams around elections that they will increase taxes for the rich, the middle class and small to medium business cry. I am yet to see the likes of Amazon, Facebook, Google pay their fair share. Meanwhile small and medium businesses have hard time to compete because of the increasing burden bestowed upon them. The big corporations work hard to gatekeep their wealth garden, so no outsider could ever join them. I will vote for any government that will promise to partition those companies, make them pay the tax they ought to pay had they not used accounting tricks and finally to ban selling personal data for advertising purposes.

douglaswlance 6y ago

The USA spends more per capita than anyone else and we get worse results. More money isn't going to fix it. We need to break up the teacher's unions and put competition into the education marketplace by supporting students not schools. If we gave every student a stipend that their parent's could use to pick the school they wanted, then our education system would have competition and actually get better.

CivBase 6y ago
> More money isn't going to fix it. Bingo. My wife teaches for an urban school district. They get plenty of money. We see where it all goes, and it isn't into supporting education.
- brandmeyer 6y ago
  Rather than rely on innuendo, can you provide specifics and cite the district's budget to support them?
  - CivBase 6y ago
    I'm not prepared to write an entire article on the subject and I'm not sure it would be wise for me to publicly criticize my wife's employer. But I can at least elaborate on how I feel the funding is being mismanaged. The biggest problem I see is a bloated administration. As is the case with most large organizations, power gravitates towards the top. The admin at the top get overwhelmed with responsibility and end up hiring more admin beneath them to handle things, but the power just gravitates back towards the top and the cycle continues until you have a highly-bureaucratic, admin-heavy organization. The salaries for all those admin has to come from somewhere. Meanwhile, teachers are treated as warm bodies to fill positions. Their performance is evaluated by admin who have little-to-no actual education experience, so grade inflation and brown-nosing are the most effective ways to keep a teaching position. This ensures the school keeps wasting money on bad teachers while the bloated admin retains support from the rest of the organization. Many teachers get shuffled around from school-to-school, and in some cases subject-to-subject, so they are constantly adjusting instead of refining their craft. Admin's solution to this is to take the burden of course development away from teachers by purchasing bundles of course materials/frameworks from third parties and pushing (sometimes requiring) teachers to teach according to them. So much of the material ends up being useless that teachers end up having to spend just as much time/effort anyways adjusting the material and sorting the wheat from the chaff. Going into a little more specifics, my wife works with special needs children at a high school level. This is getting especially frustrating because admin and other non-education staff lazily put any kids who misbehave or just don't do their work on special development plans. These plans involve a lot of costly bureaucracy and are very difficult to get rid of once created. Meanwhile, my wife has to put less and less of her attention on kids who legitimately need the extra help as an increasing portion of the student body gets put on these plans. Naturally, many of the kids don't like getting put on special development plans and separated from their peers. Admin's solution is to abandon self-contained classes for kids with special needs in favor of co-taught classes where two or more teachers manage an oversized class of mixed-needs students. This results in classes which are less effective for both groups of students while costing more as teachers now have to spend extra time and effort on coordination. These are just examples that are fresh in my mind based on recently discussions with my wife. Unfortunately, a lot of this isn't made evident by budgets.

xkiq 6y ago

Please avoid using "virtue signaling" and other thought-terminating clichés

nailer 6y ago
How does stating that a position is being taken due to optics rather than effectiveness 'terminate thought'?
- xkiq 6y ago
  Not sure, I never said that. I said "virtue signaling" is a thought-terminating cliché, like "fake news." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A... Maybe this was done for optics and as a good-faith effort. Maybe efforts to increase inclusivity can happen alongside paying your taxes. Maybe all black people don't agree with the author. Please leave them on reddit, and discuss things with nuance here.
  - nailer 6y ago
    > Not sure, I never said that. I said "virtue signaling" is a thought-terminating cliché, like "fake news." Evidently you think the phrase, rather than its actual meaning, is the issue. OK. > it's (using the term 'virtue signaling') only function is to stop an argument from proceeding further, in other words "end the debate with a cliché... not a point. I personally don't think stating you believe a position is taken due to optics ends the debate. Likewise pointing out that information is being manipulated by those that seek to report it. The short term for these is 'virtue signaling' and 'fake news'. I'm not sure if you have ever lived in the US but in the current political climate it likely does the exact opposite of stopping arguments proceeding further. The concept of 'thought terminating cliches' - that these concerns somehow aren't valid points - seems itself to terminate thought. Please lets actually consider arguments here, rather than dismissing them because they're considered popular.
    - xkiq 6y ago

sumedh 6y ago

> decent schools could be funded or you could use that money to invade a foreign country and drop more bombs on them.

warmwaffles 6y ago

> companies that do virtue signaling on inclusivity were paying their taxes, decent schools could be funded and we would not have so many of those issues. So the biggest issue I have with this is that the US government is really good a pissing away money on useless stuff. Take a look at the latest round of "stimulus" and the breakdown of where everything is going.

ggggtez 6y ago

You seem to imply that every tech worker is pro-tax breaks (they are not). In fact, it's perfectly possible to disagree with your company's policy on taxes, and agree with their policy on inclusivity! In fact, these tech workers have almost no control over the taxes their company pays or doesn't pay! I think many people here would agree with me: I'd be happy if tax laws were changes to make big companies pay more! I would never expect anyone to quit their jobs because they disagreed with how their company filed their tax return. That's just a kind of insane way to think about the world. A worker only has one bargaining chip: they can quit. That's an unreasonable ask.