6 ms·

If I were an American urbanite I would 100% homeschool my children too. Sending well-meaning kids to an inner city school should be considered a form of abuse.

yohannparis 5y ago
I am not an American, nor live in the USA anymore, but this comment made me sad. That the first thought of public school issues is not writing to your representatives and voting for better schooling of future generations; instead, to isolate your children's education. As a Frenchman, I noticed this feeling from USA citizens that the government is against you and there is nothing you can do about it. It was pernicious.
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago
  As an American and a parent, there are two thoughts: To me it's obvious that the first thought should be for my child. I'm personally responsible for them, and I'm going to do what it takes to get them a quality education. The second thought, to write to my representatives and improve education for everyone, is still there. I volunteer at a makerspace downtown that provides computing resources to inner-city kids that don't have anywhere near the same resources as my outlying, high-performing suburban district with our labs and awesome teachers. I have no delusion that a single letter to my representative would fix the underlying systemic issues like racist redlined housing districts, the inequality of property taxes for school funding, and the penalizing of 'underperforming' school districts, and give my child a good education. Can I improve it? Sure! Fix it? Not for everyone, no, so I'll do what I can for my own child.
- simon1ltd 5y ago
  The US government is toxic, and it is openly promoting racist policies and ideologies that are outright offensive. No, it can't be trusted with my kids future and education. It's necessary that it exists, and it can handle the basics (probably), but the government is not, and cannot, be a replacement for caring and involved parents. Any performance based comparison between school performance and life outcomes needs to include stats broken out by the homelife of the child. You could call it "Parental Responsibility" in most cases -- and that figure/statistic will represent most of the issues that everyone wants addressed. The thing is, it's the most impactful to the child, and it can't be meaningfully addressed without massive government control of family life. Parents are responsible for their children's education. Success in anything is a mix of effort, knowledge, ability and luck (I consider timing part of luck). I am going to give my children the best opportunities I can give them, within the bounds of my values and life experiences. It's irrational to believe the outcome of an education should be identical between children. Unless you remove parents and have children raised by institutions, then parental involvement will always have a major impact on academic performance. Strawman: If my child is interested in computers, and spends all their free time reading about and learning to program them, while their contemporaries choose to watch TV and play video games, should they be limited by what the "average" person in their class is able to do? Of course not! It's akin to the school district that noticed that not enough black kids were in a gifted class, so their solution was to get rid of the gifted class. That's insanity. Public schools should provide a solid education to children, and society needs to expect that the outcome of that will be based on the actual performance of the children and their circumstances. A school cannot fix everything that comes from single-parent households and broken families. It can (and should) try and help, but I think it's ridiculous to hold back other students that perform better because they have parental involvement that other children don't.
OldHand2018 5y ago
At least 80% of the best public high schools in the US are urban [1]. You’ll also notice that many of the most urban of them have well over 1000 students while the best of the suburban ones are generally only a few hundred students. The worst schools in urban areas (just like the worst schools in rural and suburban areas) need to be dramatically improved, but you do not help the situation by claiming all urban schools are terrible. EDIT - If you have a California-centric view, it might be a little more understandable. Look at that list and you see that Los Angeles and San Francisco have 1 school each on the list. New York City has 12, Miami-Dade has 6, Chicago has 5, Houston and Dallas 4 each. [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-...
- caeril 5y ago
  The majority of those schools are suburban, not urban. It should also be noted that nearly all of them are "public" in name only. The BASIS schools, for instance, where my kids attend, are Charter schools, where parents are not technically required to, but shamed mercilessly into, "donating" what is effectively slightly discounted private school tuition.
- JackFr 5y ago
  Nearly every one of those nationally ranked urban high schools are magnet schools, which in no way are representative of those school systems in general. As an example in New York annually about 30,000 kids take the specialized high school acceptance test, and about 800-850 are offered admission to Stuyvesant HS, one of the most elite. It is not the same experience of a neighborhood high school in a poor neighborhood.
ninkendo 5y ago
If I were emperor (*), I would ban anyone from homeschooling or private school, with exceptions only for kids with special needs. Every time a parent who cares about their child’s education pulls them out of public school, that’s one less parent who might otherwise be involved enough to improve the public school situation. You end up with public schools containing only the children of parents who are unable to afford the time or money for other options, only the teachers who can’t get jobs at private schools/tutors, etc etc. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for everyone to think “public schools are bad, I’m going to send my kid somewhere else.” I really wish we’d focus that energy towards making public schools better. * It would probably take an emperor to do this, because there’s no way such a law would pass in the US today.
- fullshark 5y ago
  I'd rather just make sure my kid gets a great education than sacrifice their well being and future to your cause, so I'm glad you're not emperor.
  - ninkendo 5y ago
    Education is about more than just your particular children. We all benefit from a society where people are better educated. (A more informed electorate creates a better society.) If the act of pulling your kid from school causes that school to get just a little bit worse, you’re making society just a little bit worse as a result. There’s a similar reason why, in countries that have state-funded health care, you’re not allowed to seek out private doctors or private insurance. The point is to not allow the rich to siphon the best resources away from everyone else. (This is obviously very anti-capitalist, but I think for some institutions like medicine and education, it may make sense.)
    - fullshark 5y ago
      Once you have kids you really don't care about all of that.
      - 5y ago

yohannparis 5y ago

I am not an American, nor live in the USA anymore, but this comment made me sad. That the first thought of public school issues is not writing to your representatives and voting for better schooling of future generations; instead, to isolate your children's education. As a Frenchman, I noticed this feeling from USA citizens that the government is against you and there is nothing you can do about it. It was pernicious.

LeifCarrotson 5y ago
As an American and a parent, there are two thoughts: To me it's obvious that the first thought should be for my child. I'm personally responsible for them, and I'm going to do what it takes to get them a quality education. The second thought, to write to my representatives and improve education for everyone, is still there. I volunteer at a makerspace downtown that provides computing resources to inner-city kids that don't have anywhere near the same resources as my outlying, high-performing suburban district with our labs and awesome teachers. I have no delusion that a single letter to my representative would fix the underlying systemic issues like racist redlined housing districts, the inequality of property taxes for school funding, and the penalizing of 'underperforming' school districts, and give my child a good education. Can I improve it? Sure! Fix it? Not for everyone, no, so I'll do what I can for my own child.
simon1ltd 5y ago
The US government is toxic, and it is openly promoting racist policies and ideologies that are outright offensive. No, it can't be trusted with my kids future and education. It's necessary that it exists, and it can handle the basics (probably), but the government is not, and cannot, be a replacement for caring and involved parents. Any performance based comparison between school performance and life outcomes needs to include stats broken out by the homelife of the child. You could call it "Parental Responsibility" in most cases -- and that figure/statistic will represent most of the issues that everyone wants addressed. The thing is, it's the most impactful to the child, and it can't be meaningfully addressed without massive government control of family life. Parents are responsible for their children's education. Success in anything is a mix of effort, knowledge, ability and luck (I consider timing part of luck). I am going to give my children the best opportunities I can give them, within the bounds of my values and life experiences. It's irrational to believe the outcome of an education should be identical between children. Unless you remove parents and have children raised by institutions, then parental involvement will always have a major impact on academic performance. Strawman: If my child is interested in computers, and spends all their free time reading about and learning to program them, while their contemporaries choose to watch TV and play video games, should they be limited by what the "average" person in their class is able to do? Of course not! It's akin to the school district that noticed that not enough black kids were in a gifted class, so their solution was to get rid of the gifted class. That's insanity. Public schools should provide a solid education to children, and society needs to expect that the outcome of that will be based on the actual performance of the children and their circumstances. A school cannot fix everything that comes from single-parent households and broken families. It can (and should) try and help, but I think it's ridiculous to hold back other students that perform better because they have parental involvement that other children don't.

OldHand2018 5y ago

At least 80% of the best public high schools in the US are urban [1]. You’ll also notice that many of the most urban of them have well over 1000 students while the best of the suburban ones are generally only a few hundred students. The worst schools in urban areas (just like the worst schools in rural and suburban areas) need to be dramatically improved, but you do not help the situation by claiming all urban schools are terrible. EDIT - If you have a California-centric view, it might be a little more understandable. Look at that list and you see that Los Angeles and San Francisco have 1 school each on the list. New York City has 12, Miami-Dade has 6, Chicago has 5, Houston and Dallas 4 each. [1] https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-rankings https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/national-...

caeril 5y ago
The majority of those schools are suburban, not urban. It should also be noted that nearly all of them are "public" in name only. The BASIS schools, for instance, where my kids attend, are Charter schools, where parents are not technically required to, but shamed mercilessly into, "donating" what is effectively slightly discounted private school tuition.
JackFr 5y ago
Nearly every one of those nationally ranked urban high schools are magnet schools, which in no way are representative of those school systems in general. As an example in New York annually about 30,000 kids take the specialized high school acceptance test, and about 800-850 are offered admission to Stuyvesant HS, one of the most elite. It is not the same experience of a neighborhood high school in a poor neighborhood.

ninkendo 5y ago

If I were emperor (*), I would ban anyone from homeschooling or private school, with exceptions only for kids with special needs. Every time a parent who cares about their child’s education pulls them out of public school, that’s one less parent who might otherwise be involved enough to improve the public school situation. You end up with public schools containing only the children of parents who are unable to afford the time or money for other options, only the teachers who can’t get jobs at private schools/tutors, etc etc. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy for everyone to think “public schools are bad, I’m going to send my kid somewhere else.” I really wish we’d focus that energy towards making public schools better. * It would probably take an emperor to do this, because there’s no way such a law would pass in the US today.

fullshark 5y ago
I'd rather just make sure my kid gets a great education than sacrifice their well being and future to your cause, so I'm glad you're not emperor.
- ninkendo 5y ago
  Education is about more than just your particular children. We all benefit from a society where people are better educated. (A more informed electorate creates a better society.) If the act of pulling your kid from school causes that school to get just a little bit worse, you’re making society just a little bit worse as a result. There’s a similar reason why, in countries that have state-funded health care, you’re not allowed to seek out private doctors or private insurance. The point is to not allow the rich to siphon the best resources away from everyone else. (This is obviously very anti-capitalist, but I think for some institutions like medicine and education, it may make sense.)
  - fullshark 5y ago
    Once you have kids you really don't care about all of that.
    - 5y ago