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In my state we're already paying more than Finland per pupil: $13K/yr, with nowhere near the results. It's not the money that's causing this. It's that there ar

by m0zg 5y ago

In my state we're already paying more than Finland per pupil: $13K/yr, with nowhere near the results. It's not the money that's causing this. It's that there are too much "administrative" and "service" staff feeding at the trough, and schools play political / virtue signaling games instead of relentlessly drilling STEM curricula into kids' heads.

acdha 5y ago
These comparisons are also complicated by two other factors: American school systems are expected to provide special needs care. One aide for a child with severe disabilities might cost as much as their teacher. This is one of the most common reasons for charter schools giving the impression of producing higher scores at lower cost – if you don’t have a robust program, the most expensive students won’t enroll. American schools also enroll a very broad range of students with the expectation that they’ll make it all the way through high school. That includes children of recent immigrants who have very limited English proficiency, and the deeper poverty which the U.S. allows without tracking those kids into early graduation or a secondary system. When you compare international test scores among socioeconomic-matched students, the U.S. scores well – not Finland but solidly among our peers.
- m0zg 5y ago
  As an immigrant and a parent myself, I think you meant to say "children of illegal aliens". US _legal_ immigration is means/skill based and requires a paying job, so kids of immigrants mostly are fine economically. Illegal migration is a big problem, but I'd also counter that this problem should be mostly confined to the Southern states and CA.
  - acdha 5y ago
    No, I meant legal immigrants — for example, my son's school has a fair number of children from Central America and Ethiopia and, unsurprisingly, their math scores fare better than their English. Legal immigration is a substantial majority of the total (roughly three quarters): https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/#fb-key-charts-language-education https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s... High-skill immigrants are certainly a great economic contribution but they're far from a majority with less than 20% percent having a Bachelor's degree: https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/#fb-key-charts-language-education https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s... … and even if they were, that doesn't mean that they and their families have high English fluency. Unless they happen to have grown up in a bilingual household or attended a bilingual school, their children are almost certainly going to have to catch up to their peers before they'll be able to understand their teachers and read the coursework no matter how skilled their parents are.
    - m0zg 5y ago
      >> roughly three quarters Those are very outdated, Trump-era numbers. It's much worse now. That having been said, thanks for responding with data. It's uncommon on this site, and great to see.
rp1 5y ago
This stat is largely meaningless without knowing the state. Salaries in certain parts of the U.S. are much higher than in Finland. The average salary in NYC is like 4x the average salary in Helsinki. Not sure why you’d expect the cost per student to be the same?
- m0zg 5y ago
  I believe it's higher than Finland on average, too, as well as in absolute terms in each state. NYC spends even more, for even worse education. You can easily the statistics, and once you do, you'll see that throwing even more money at this problem will only exacerbate it.

by m0zg 5y ago

acdha 5y ago

These comparisons are also complicated by two other factors: American school systems are expected to provide special needs care. One aide for a child with severe disabilities might cost as much as their teacher. This is one of the most common reasons for charter schools giving the impression of producing higher scores at lower cost – if you don’t have a robust program, the most expensive students won’t enroll. American schools also enroll a very broad range of students with the expectation that they’ll make it all the way through high school. That includes children of recent immigrants who have very limited English proficiency, and the deeper poverty which the U.S. allows without tracking those kids into early graduation or a secondary system. When you compare international test scores among socioeconomic-matched students, the U.S. scores well – not Finland but solidly among our peers.

m0zg 5y ago
As an immigrant and a parent myself, I think you meant to say "children of illegal aliens". US _legal_ immigration is means/skill based and requires a paying job, so kids of immigrants mostly are fine economically. Illegal migration is a big problem, but I'd also counter that this problem should be mostly confined to the Southern states and CA.
- acdha 5y ago
  No, I meant legal immigrants — for example, my son's school has a fair number of children from Central America and Ethiopia and, unsurprisingly, their math scores fare better than their English. Legal immigration is a substantial majority of the total (roughly three quarters): https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/#fb-key-charts-language-education https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s... High-skill immigrants are certainly a great economic contribution but they're far from a majority with less than 20% percent having a Bachelor's degree: https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s-immigrants/#fb-key-charts-language-education https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s... … and even if they were, that doesn't mean that they and their families have high English fluency. Unless they happen to have grown up in a bilingual household or attended a bilingual school, their children are almost certainly going to have to catch up to their peers before they'll be able to understand their teachers and read the coursework no matter how skilled their parents are.
  - m0zg 5y ago
    >> roughly three quarters Those are very outdated, Trump-era numbers. It's much worse now. That having been said, thanks for responding with data. It's uncommon on this site, and great to see.

rp1 5y ago

This stat is largely meaningless without knowing the state. Salaries in certain parts of the U.S. are much higher than in Finland. The average salary in NYC is like 4x the average salary in Helsinki. Not sure why you’d expect the cost per student to be the same?

m0zg 5y ago
I believe it's higher than Finland on average, too, as well as in absolute terms in each state. NYC spends even more, for even worse education. You can easily the statistics, and once you do, you'll see that throwing even more money at this problem will only exacerbate it.