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I realize this advice may be appropriate for some people, but speaking personally as a parent who is both lucky enough and financially fortunate enough to send

by sulam 5y ago

I realize this advice may be appropriate for some people, but speaking personally as a parent who is both lucky enough and financially fortunate enough to send both of my girls to a private school, I think it's misguided for them. The school they go through is K-12, diverse, and the high school portion of it is pretty amazing. I'm personal friends with several of the teachers and I can say with all honesty that the classes they teach are easily the equal of the most interesting college courses I took at a very well regarded university. Obviously I haven't sampled every single class, and I'm sure there are some duds, but I've sampled enough to feel like I have a pretty good feel for it. It would be a huge mistake for my kids to forego the opportunity to learn more about the world with those teachers.

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
What would happen if that kind of education was available to everyone? What would happen if world-lead expert personal tuition was available to everyone? (Obviously impractical, but let's pretend, as a thought experiment.) To what extent are we standing our own feet as a species by prioritising hierarchy and economic discrimination over free access to the best possible education for everyone? Especially for those who want it and can benefit from it?
- sulam 5y ago
  Teaching ability isn't evenly distributed, and teaching doesn't seem to scale up to even the city scale, much less national or global. I'd love for everyone to be able to take Environmental Science from Mr V, but he's only one teacher.
- jkhdigital 5y ago
  A start would be to (mostly) privatize primary education. Every revolution in mass production and delivery of goods and services that used to be the exclusive province of the rich was generated by free enterprise.
  - verve_rat 5y ago
    Not everything is improved by adding a profit motive. Privately run prisons are not exactly renowned for reducing recidivism.
  - elihu 5y ago
    That might work if you can figure out a way to fund private schools proportionally to the quality of the education they provide, but I'm skeptical there's any straightforward way to do that. Also, the portion of money that goes to shareholders is money that isn't spent on education. Governments can be inefficient, but part of the reason for the inefficiency is that they have to provide the same service to everyone and that's hard. They can't cherry-pick their customers. There may be new educational funding models we should be looking at. Maybe a lot of educational YouTube videos should be directly funded by government grants, and ad-free video hosting provided by government infrastructure if they want it.
    - leetcrew 5y ago
      private schools are generally set up as nonprofits. "shareholders" are not really a concern, though sometimes you end up with unreasonably high admin salaries.
  - kazen44 5y ago
    except that education is not only a service, but also a place to learn social skills. Also, i highly doubt your claim, considering that many inventions where made by public universities funded by states around the world, or even state controlled economies with no free market.
    - jkhdigital 5y ago
      Invention != mass production and commercialization
memco 5y ago
> the classes they teach are easily the equal of the most interesting college courses I took at a very well regarded university If they can handle this, then they could take college level classes and get high school credit and college credit at the same time. I went to an alternative high school that met on a community college campus and had 50% of the requirements for HS graduation for junior and senior year served by taking college courses. I was only able to get about half a year of college credit this way, but I was able to get half a year head start on college. In hindsight, I would have liked to start that process a year earlier and skipped as much HS as I could. I don't think that path is for everyone, but if you're capable and motivated I recommend exploring alternative pathways for reducing the traditional HS experience in favor of more profitable uses of time & talent.
- sulam 5y ago
  I don't think college credits are the point, really. The general rule of thumb for people coming out of this school is that they feel like their first or possibly even second year of college is significantly less challenging than their last two years of high school. But as a result they can do extra-curriculars, do independent studies, smell the flowers a bit, etc. That doesn't seem like a bad thing in my view.
- benibela 5y ago
  I took college courses during high school. I had enough credits to finish my bachelor degree within a year after finishing school I thought I was skipping high school, but in reality I was actually skipping college. It is really bad.

by sulam 5y ago

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

What would happen if that kind of education was available to everyone? What would happen if world-lead expert personal tuition was available to everyone? (Obviously impractical, but let's pretend, as a thought experiment.) To what extent are we standing our own feet as a species by prioritising hierarchy and economic discrimination over free access to the best possible education for everyone? Especially for those who want it and can benefit from it?

sulam 5y ago
Teaching ability isn't evenly distributed, and teaching doesn't seem to scale up to even the city scale, much less national or global. I'd love for everyone to be able to take Environmental Science from Mr V, but he's only one teacher.
jkhdigital 5y ago
A start would be to (mostly) privatize primary education. Every revolution in mass production and delivery of goods and services that used to be the exclusive province of the rich was generated by free enterprise.
- verve_rat 5y ago
  Not everything is improved by adding a profit motive. Privately run prisons are not exactly renowned for reducing recidivism.
- elihu 5y ago
  That might work if you can figure out a way to fund private schools proportionally to the quality of the education they provide, but I'm skeptical there's any straightforward way to do that. Also, the portion of money that goes to shareholders is money that isn't spent on education. Governments can be inefficient, but part of the reason for the inefficiency is that they have to provide the same service to everyone and that's hard. They can't cherry-pick their customers. There may be new educational funding models we should be looking at. Maybe a lot of educational YouTube videos should be directly funded by government grants, and ad-free video hosting provided by government infrastructure if they want it.
  - leetcrew 5y ago
    private schools are generally set up as nonprofits. "shareholders" are not really a concern, though sometimes you end up with unreasonably high admin salaries.
- kazen44 5y ago
  except that education is not only a service, but also a place to learn social skills. Also, i highly doubt your claim, considering that many inventions where made by public universities funded by states around the world, or even state controlled economies with no free market.
  - jkhdigital 5y ago
    Invention != mass production and commercialization

memco 5y ago

> the classes they teach are easily the equal of the most interesting college courses I took at a very well regarded university If they can handle this, then they could take college level classes and get high school credit and college credit at the same time. I went to an alternative high school that met on a community college campus and had 50% of the requirements for HS graduation for junior and senior year served by taking college courses. I was only able to get about half a year of college credit this way, but I was able to get half a year head start on college. In hindsight, I would have liked to start that process a year earlier and skipped as much HS as I could. I don't think that path is for everyone, but if you're capable and motivated I recommend exploring alternative pathways for reducing the traditional HS experience in favor of more profitable uses of time & talent.

sulam 5y ago
I don't think college credits are the point, really. The general rule of thumb for people coming out of this school is that they feel like their first or possibly even second year of college is significantly less challenging than their last two years of high school. But as a result they can do extra-curriculars, do independent studies, smell the flowers a bit, etc. That doesn't seem like a bad thing in my view.
benibela 5y ago
I took college courses during high school. I had enough credits to finish my bachelor degree within a year after finishing school I thought I was skipping high school, but in reality I was actually skipping college. It is really bad.