3 ms·

>As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are b

by bsanr 5y ago

>As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are better if for no other reason than they've generally had much more money spent on their education and training, to the tune of over a million dollars compared to lower class peers. This is funny to me, because in most debates about the function and efficacy of public schools, I'm assured by the other side that money isn't the issue.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
It's not the state money. It's all the private money the parents dump on top. The tutoring, the extracurricular, the sports, the summer camp, etc, etc, etc, all the shit that teaches them the norms of white collar society so they can fit in enough to do ok in college and beyond.
Hermitian909 5y ago
They're partly right. The US has some aggressively stupid educational policy such as teaching reading via 3 cueing (which I won't go into here), but they've also fallen for a bit of accounting trick. Most obviously, schools being funded via property tax in most states means rich districts tend to receive more money than schools in poorer districts. Less obvious is that because the US doesn't offer many services generally those that are offered are often routed through the schools and attributed to the education budget e.g. many kinds of therapists and aides are part of school budgets in the US but are part budget under various health department budgets in other countries and thus those countries' total spend on students is undercounted. Similarly, countries that invest in making sure there are enough social services to ensure a good life for even the bottom 20% of society need to spend a lot less fixing the problems that arise from growing up with a bad home life and get more bang for their buck.

by bsanr 5y ago

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

It's not the state money. It's all the private money the parents dump on top. The tutoring, the extracurricular, the sports, the summer camp, etc, etc, etc, all the shit that teaches them the norms of white collar society so they can fit in enough to do ok in college and beyond.

Hermitian909 5y ago

They're partly right. The US has some aggressively stupid educational policy such as teaching reading via 3 cueing (which I won't go into here), but they've also fallen for a bit of accounting trick. Most obviously, schools being funded via property tax in most states means rich districts tend to receive more money than schools in poorer districts. Less obvious is that because the US doesn't offer many services generally those that are offered are often routed through the schools and attributed to the education budget e.g. many kinds of therapists and aides are part of school budgets in the US but are part budget under various health department budgets in other countries and thus those countries' total spend on students is undercounted. Similarly, countries that invest in making sure there are enough social services to ensure a good life for even the bottom 20% of society need to spend a lot less fixing the problems that arise from growing up with a bad home life and get more bang for their buck.