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Public education is one of those rare positive externalities. I think it would be a mistake to abandon it. If we wanted to succeed here, we would likely need t

Public education is one of those rare positive externalities. I think it would be a mistake to abandon it. If we wanted to succeed here, we would likely need to invest more money to hire more or superior teachers that could work individually with these students that struggle to meet the requirements. The worst part would be that even with that investment it may not even be enough. Some portion of the students who don't achieve are not interested in excelling, and individual attention may not help much there.

brightball 5y ago
Public education is a net good but the implementation model of that education is what’s such a problem right now. There’s a reason so many more kids are home schooled now than ever before and it’s a complete lack of confidence in public schools. Private school waiting lists are a mile long.
- JPKab 5y ago
  I'm a parent of two kids and I couldn't agree more. I went to mostly black and poor public schools my entire childhood. Back then there were a few teachers who clearly didn't care and were never held accountable. Most of the teachers were pretty good though. It's increasingly shifted towards the opposite. I was blown away by how pathetically run my children's public schools are here in Colorado so I put them both in private school. They get less than half the money per student that the public school system I live in gets, and are vastly more efficient. The operations, the instructors, it's all just run correctly. When my daughter was still in a public elementary school I walked in one day to try to get her iPad fixed when they were doing full remote learning due to the pandemic. There was a large meeting taking place amongst all the staff. None of them had bothered to return my calls which is why I had to go in person. They looked like they were having a party because I didn't see any work getting done. At the end of the day it's a government school. Name a single government agency that is efficient with their money. Name a government agency that's good at hiring, or keeping good talent. We should just do a voucher system and let the private sector deal with this. As a taxpayer I'm deeply resentful of having my money get taken from me and given to unionized teachers who refused to work for a full year and then had the nerve to take summer vacation as if it had been a normal year. These were the same folks who were put at the front of the line for vaccinations independent of their age groups. And then they proceeded to act like they were still in danger and couldn't open schools.
  - pcmoney 5y ago
    Where in CO? I have always heard the schools were pretty good, especially BVSD, Poudre Valley etc. and some in Denver, Cherry Creek etc.
    - JPKab 5y ago
      Compared to other public school districts, they aren't bad. It's just that "other public school districts" isn't exactly a great baseline. The truth is that the school district personnel have very little to do with this, and the average income level of the student body has a ton to do with it. I'm in a wealth school district as well. I live just over the county line from Boulder (I can get to Pearl Street in 13 minutes), and the BVSD is very overrated. They were closed for far longer than other districts were last year. They have a lot of money, but also a ton of wealthy students with overly permissive parents who bring drugs into the schools. (I know the vice principal of Fairview High in Boulder, and the incidence of drug use in the school is mind-blowing, all courtesy of rich kids with rich hippie parents who give them allowances of hundreds a week that they buy drugs with.) One issue prevalent in all public school systems, but particularly bad in BVSD, is the number of students being falsely classified as learning disabled. Many kids with highly inattentive parents, who are essentially babysat by iPads and video games when at home, are labelled as LD/ADHD/etc when the reality is nobody makes them do their homework or study at home. They are then, due to the disability diagnosis, allocated disproportionate resources and staff to try to bring them up to average level. These resources come at the expense of gifted programs which have fewer seats available than they otherwise would for advanced students with good parents. At the end of the day, most public school systems in the US are investing vastly more resources into bringing poor performers to average than helping gifted students reach their actual potential by actually challenging them. I view them as institutions which are, at a functional level, primarily incentivized to serve the needs of their employees over those of their students. They are a massive source of union jobs, and these unions are the largest funders of politicians who then increase the budgets that then fund the unions via wages to members. I'm a huge fan of unions in non-monopolized industries, but like FDR, I vehemently oppose unions for public sector employees for this very reason. I pay these idiots whether I want to or not. And my wife and I were emotionally crushed when we saw the horrific, and frankly sloppy, remote learning that was taking place. The curriculum was terrible, the teachers were not engaged, and it just felt like too many were taking advantage of the WFH to fuck off and indulge their hobbies and personal lives. This was a universal sentiment amongst the parents (and hilariously, the middle school students) in my daughter's school. There was not a single remote learning lesson I witnessed that was remotely as effective as a Khan Academy course. We know this because we ended up supplementing her lessons with Khan, and she was very emphatic that she liked them a million times better. I know many on HN will disagree with my sentiment, but I've noticed that the people in my friend group who don't share my view are disproportionately childless. People with kids in school tend to be pretty frustrated with the structural deficiencies of the fossilized, mid-20th century institutions that are US public schools.
- scruple 5y ago
  > Private school waiting lists are a mile long. And sometimes (many times?) the financial calculus is such that _leaving your job/career_ is the cheaper of the two options. Daycare is already more than our mortgage with 2 and the private school elementary age prices that I've seen in my area are _more_ expensive.
wrycoder 5y ago
We put a ton of money into the schools. It does not get to the right place, and what does is not spent on the traditional basics. In addition, for several reasons, teachers no longer control their classrooms. They have no authority. You can’t let students get ahead, because equity, and you can’t give special help, because it looks like condescension. Everyone’s a winner, everyone graduates.
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  depending on where you are, even the capital bill for improving schools is daunting. NYC, for instance, regularly reports lead paint exposure in schools.
- NegativeLatency 5y ago
  Many school districts have increasingly hired more administrators and the like that aren’t teachers but he payed considerably more.
ipaddr 5y ago
Why would paying more for teachers fix the issue? The best teachers will still prefer private school because kids are more displined. You end up paying more for the same or worse now you attract a new group who are in it for the money. Education starts at home and without a learning culture with displine these children are setup to fail.
- mjevans 5y ago
  Easier to understand: Hogwarts. Harry Potter was pried from that little dusty cupboard closet beneath the stairs and sent to somewhere to reach success. Send kids that don't have a good home life to someplace where the adults care and have the resources to see that they do succeed.
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    Boarding schools aren’t popular in the USA. Where they are used for poverty reasons (eg China), racism is easily involved (Uighur kids are more often shunted to boarding schools than Han kids in xinjiang). We also tried this with Native Americans in the 20th century and that turned out really bad.
    - mjevans 5y ago
      That turned out really bad because only the problem (political problem) kids went there, and they also were often privately run and had very lax oversight.
  - remarkEon 5y ago
    "Hogwarts" reference aside, you are right that extremely structured environments (boarding schools are what I assume you are alluding to) can actually bring out the best in young bright people, especially young men, and it's unfortunate that we've basically done away with that in the United States as a way to educate children.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
    Harry Potter was a "chosen one" who was given special attention by his teachers. I don't think his teachers gave the same attention to other students, who didn't have a thunder-shaped scar in their brow and couldn't speak you-know-who's name without wincing. Rather, I think it was Hermione Granger that embodied the role model of the student from an underprivilged background who works hard to achieve academic success.
scollet 5y ago
That's untrue. I'll bet my life that the population of students uninterested in excelling is around 50 people in the entire US.
- dorchadas 5y ago
  As a teacher, I can name at least 50 that are uninterested in excelling. Mostly because they've been conditioned to be that way, usually by parents/community who see no value in education. You can work with them and get them interested, but it takes a lot to undo that conditioning (along with all the other stuff they've endured through their education years of being told "Well, you're just not an X person", etc.). It's also really hard to work with them and get them over that given the current way things are (seeing 150+ kids an hour a day).
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    It's not the responsibility of and not within the capabilities of the education system to undo the cultural damage that has been done by the worship of sports and crime above all else in popular media. What's needed is a revolution in role models.
    - dorchadas 5y ago
      I wouldn't say it's just those things, though I agree it's not the schools' responsibilities and that we definitely need a revolution in role models and in our culture. Reminds me of the Key & Peele sketch 'If We Treated Teachers Like Pro Athletes' [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYOg8EON29Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYOg8EON29Y
rahimnathwani 5y ago
If a system can't teach kids to read for $20k/student/year (SF) or $30k/student/year (NY), why do you think giving the same administrators even more money is a good idea?

brightball 5y ago

Public education is a net good but the implementation model of that education is what’s such a problem right now. There’s a reason so many more kids are home schooled now than ever before and it’s a complete lack of confidence in public schools. Private school waiting lists are a mile long.

JPKab 5y ago
I'm a parent of two kids and I couldn't agree more. I went to mostly black and poor public schools my entire childhood. Back then there were a few teachers who clearly didn't care and were never held accountable. Most of the teachers were pretty good though. It's increasingly shifted towards the opposite. I was blown away by how pathetically run my children's public schools are here in Colorado so I put them both in private school. They get less than half the money per student that the public school system I live in gets, and are vastly more efficient. The operations, the instructors, it's all just run correctly. When my daughter was still in a public elementary school I walked in one day to try to get her iPad fixed when they were doing full remote learning due to the pandemic. There was a large meeting taking place amongst all the staff. None of them had bothered to return my calls which is why I had to go in person. They looked like they were having a party because I didn't see any work getting done. At the end of the day it's a government school. Name a single government agency that is efficient with their money. Name a government agency that's good at hiring, or keeping good talent. We should just do a voucher system and let the private sector deal with this. As a taxpayer I'm deeply resentful of having my money get taken from me and given to unionized teachers who refused to work for a full year and then had the nerve to take summer vacation as if it had been a normal year. These were the same folks who were put at the front of the line for vaccinations independent of their age groups. And then they proceeded to act like they were still in danger and couldn't open schools.
- pcmoney 5y ago
  Where in CO? I have always heard the schools were pretty good, especially BVSD, Poudre Valley etc. and some in Denver, Cherry Creek etc.
  - JPKab 5y ago
    Compared to other public school districts, they aren't bad. It's just that "other public school districts" isn't exactly a great baseline. The truth is that the school district personnel have very little to do with this, and the average income level of the student body has a ton to do with it. I'm in a wealth school district as well. I live just over the county line from Boulder (I can get to Pearl Street in 13 minutes), and the BVSD is very overrated. They were closed for far longer than other districts were last year. They have a lot of money, but also a ton of wealthy students with overly permissive parents who bring drugs into the schools. (I know the vice principal of Fairview High in Boulder, and the incidence of drug use in the school is mind-blowing, all courtesy of rich kids with rich hippie parents who give them allowances of hundreds a week that they buy drugs with.) One issue prevalent in all public school systems, but particularly bad in BVSD, is the number of students being falsely classified as learning disabled. Many kids with highly inattentive parents, who are essentially babysat by iPads and video games when at home, are labelled as LD/ADHD/etc when the reality is nobody makes them do their homework or study at home. They are then, due to the disability diagnosis, allocated disproportionate resources and staff to try to bring them up to average level. These resources come at the expense of gifted programs which have fewer seats available than they otherwise would for advanced students with good parents. At the end of the day, most public school systems in the US are investing vastly more resources into bringing poor performers to average than helping gifted students reach their actual potential by actually challenging them. I view them as institutions which are, at a functional level, primarily incentivized to serve the needs of their employees over those of their students. They are a massive source of union jobs, and these unions are the largest funders of politicians who then increase the budgets that then fund the unions via wages to members. I'm a huge fan of unions in non-monopolized industries, but like FDR, I vehemently oppose unions for public sector employees for this very reason. I pay these idiots whether I want to or not. And my wife and I were emotionally crushed when we saw the horrific, and frankly sloppy, remote learning that was taking place. The curriculum was terrible, the teachers were not engaged, and it just felt like too many were taking advantage of the WFH to fuck off and indulge their hobbies and personal lives. This was a universal sentiment amongst the parents (and hilariously, the middle school students) in my daughter's school. There was not a single remote learning lesson I witnessed that was remotely as effective as a Khan Academy course. We know this because we ended up supplementing her lessons with Khan, and she was very emphatic that she liked them a million times better. I know many on HN will disagree with my sentiment, but I've noticed that the people in my friend group who don't share my view are disproportionately childless. People with kids in school tend to be pretty frustrated with the structural deficiencies of the fossilized, mid-20th century institutions that are US public schools.
scruple 5y ago
> Private school waiting lists are a mile long. And sometimes (many times?) the financial calculus is such that _leaving your job/career_ is the cheaper of the two options. Daycare is already more than our mortgage with 2 and the private school elementary age prices that I've seen in my area are _more_ expensive.

wrycoder 5y ago

We put a ton of money into the schools. It does not get to the right place, and what does is not spent on the traditional basics. In addition, for several reasons, teachers no longer control their classrooms. They have no authority. You can’t let students get ahead, because equity, and you can’t give special help, because it looks like condescension. Everyone’s a winner, everyone graduates.

bobthepanda 5y ago
depending on where you are, even the capital bill for improving schools is daunting. NYC, for instance, regularly reports lead paint exposure in schools.
NegativeLatency 5y ago
Many school districts have increasingly hired more administrators and the like that aren’t teachers but he payed considerably more.

ipaddr 5y ago

Why would paying more for teachers fix the issue? The best teachers will still prefer private school because kids are more displined. You end up paying more for the same or worse now you attract a new group who are in it for the money. Education starts at home and without a learning culture with displine these children are setup to fail.

mjevans 5y ago
Easier to understand: Hogwarts. Harry Potter was pried from that little dusty cupboard closet beneath the stairs and sent to somewhere to reach success. Send kids that don't have a good home life to someplace where the adults care and have the resources to see that they do succeed.
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  Boarding schools aren’t popular in the USA. Where they are used for poverty reasons (eg China), racism is easily involved (Uighur kids are more often shunted to boarding schools than Han kids in xinjiang). We also tried this with Native Americans in the 20th century and that turned out really bad.
  - mjevans 5y ago
    That turned out really bad because only the problem (political problem) kids went there, and they also were often privately run and had very lax oversight.
- remarkEon 5y ago
  "Hogwarts" reference aside, you are right that extremely structured environments (boarding schools are what I assume you are alluding to) can actually bring out the best in young bright people, especially young men, and it's unfortunate that we've basically done away with that in the United States as a way to educate children.
- YeGoblynQueenne 5y ago
  Harry Potter was a "chosen one" who was given special attention by his teachers. I don't think his teachers gave the same attention to other students, who didn't have a thunder-shaped scar in their brow and couldn't speak you-know-who's name without wincing. Rather, I think it was Hermione Granger that embodied the role model of the student from an underprivilged background who works hard to achieve academic success.

scollet 5y ago

That's untrue. I'll bet my life that the population of students uninterested in excelling is around 50 people in the entire US.

dorchadas 5y ago
As a teacher, I can name at least 50 that are uninterested in excelling. Mostly because they've been conditioned to be that way, usually by parents/community who see no value in education. You can work with them and get them interested, but it takes a lot to undo that conditioning (along with all the other stuff they've endured through their education years of being told "Well, you're just not an X person", etc.). It's also really hard to work with them and get them over that given the current way things are (seeing 150+ kids an hour a day).
- nitrogen 5y ago
  It's not the responsibility of and not within the capabilities of the education system to undo the cultural damage that has been done by the worship of sports and crime above all else in popular media. What's needed is a revolution in role models.
  - dorchadas 5y ago
    I wouldn't say it's just those things, though I agree it's not the schools' responsibilities and that we definitely need a revolution in role models and in our culture. Reminds me of the Key & Peele sketch 'If We Treated Teachers Like Pro Athletes' [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYOg8EON29Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYOg8EON29Y

rahimnathwani 5y ago

If a system can't teach kids to read for $20k/student/year (SF) or $30k/student/year (NY), why do you think giving the same administrators even more money is a good idea?