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In some countries the most elite schools are the public high schools and universities. At those universities in such countries the kids from private schools are

In some countries the most elite schools are the public high schools and universities. At those universities in such countries the kids from private schools are crowded out from the top elite universities (whose entrance is solely exam based and which are public and usually free or almost free). So the private universities which are expensive are mainly full of kids from private schools and the elite students at them are also from public schools who are given full scholarships to raise the student academic profile. Italy, Japan, South Korea and Turkey are examples.

wahern 5y ago
> Italy, Japan, South Korea and Turkey are examples. These are also countries with high prevalence of private, after school tutoring (i.e. so-called shadow education). For example, as of 2013 more than 40% of Italian secondary students attend private lessons. See Table 1 at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2096531119890142 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20965311198901... And in Turkey this figure was nearly 60% in 2003, which may very well be even higher today (or at least # of hours is probably higher). See Figure 4.1 at https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1259703574&disposition=inline https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?acc... Not going to bother posting figures for Japan and South Korea as I don't think anybody disputes the prevalence of tutoring in those or other East Asian countries. If you want to prevent richer (either financially or in parental involvement) kids from getting ahead, you literally need to suppress their ability to capitalize on those assets. Such as China is doing by regulating tutoring companies, or woke school boards are doing in various U.S. cities and universities. Of course, arguably you're merely hiding the underlying inequalities. But I guess this is just Goodhart's law in action, combined with pursuing the path of least resistance. That is, far easier to pursue a metric reflecting a consequence of economic inequality rather than metrics more directly measuring that inequality (e.g. Gini coefficient), let alone addressing the underlying causes themselves.
quartesixte 5y ago
Japan’s public > private dynamic is further fueled by the fact that public high schools are entirely admissions test based, and students may choose which school they attend. It is also non-compulsory (although >90% of students attend high school). You also only get 1 shot at applying to a public high school. So students tend to self-select (with some not-so-subtle nudging by their teachers) on the tier of public school they apply to based on various assessments of their own academic prowess. This creates a competitive environment for the top tier public high schools, which feature heavily subsidized and reduced tuition. Yes. You must pay for high school in Japan. And competitive high-performing high schoolers tend to apply for and get into competitive, top tier universities such as Tokyo Universities. Parents and high performing middle school children understand this acutely. So naturally, an entire industry of cram schools emerges to prepare these precocious 14 year olds to apply to the best high schools in their region so they can go to the nation’s best university so they can work at the nation’s best companies and live a life of middle class comfort. On the other hand, private schools largely will overlook test scores in exchange for the more expensive tuition collected. As far as I can remember, you were also only allowed to apply to one private. Not to say privates are bad, or that kids don’t want to go to them. But the high performers definitely were going for the publics with the private school being their backup. As a result, Japanese middle school students are some of the most stressed out teenagers I’ve ever seen.

wahern 5y ago

> Italy, Japan, South Korea and Turkey are examples. These are also countries with high prevalence of private, after school tutoring (i.e. so-called shadow education). For example, as of 2013 more than 40% of Italian secondary students attend private lessons. See Table 1 at https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2096531119890142 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20965311198901... And in Turkey this figure was nearly 60% in 2003, which may very well be even higher today (or at least # of hours is probably higher). See Figure 4.1 at https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?accession=osu1259703574&disposition=inline https://etd.ohiolink.edu/apexprod/rws_etd/send_file/send?acc... Not going to bother posting figures for Japan and South Korea as I don't think anybody disputes the prevalence of tutoring in those or other East Asian countries. If you want to prevent richer (either financially or in parental involvement) kids from getting ahead, you literally need to suppress their ability to capitalize on those assets. Such as China is doing by regulating tutoring companies, or woke school boards are doing in various U.S. cities and universities. Of course, arguably you're merely hiding the underlying inequalities. But I guess this is just Goodhart's law in action, combined with pursuing the path of least resistance. That is, far easier to pursue a metric reflecting a consequence of economic inequality rather than metrics more directly measuring that inequality (e.g. Gini coefficient), let alone addressing the underlying causes themselves.

quartesixte 5y ago

Japan’s public > private dynamic is further fueled by the fact that public high schools are entirely admissions test based, and students may choose which school they attend. It is also non-compulsory (although >90% of students attend high school). You also only get 1 shot at applying to a public high school. So students tend to self-select (with some not-so-subtle nudging by their teachers) on the tier of public school they apply to based on various assessments of their own academic prowess. This creates a competitive environment for the top tier public high schools, which feature heavily subsidized and reduced tuition. Yes. You must pay for high school in Japan. And competitive high-performing high schoolers tend to apply for and get into competitive, top tier universities such as Tokyo Universities. Parents and high performing middle school children understand this acutely. So naturally, an entire industry of cram schools emerges to prepare these precocious 14 year olds to apply to the best high schools in their region so they can go to the nation’s best university so they can work at the nation’s best companies and live a life of middle class comfort. On the other hand, private schools largely will overlook test scores in exchange for the more expensive tuition collected. As far as I can remember, you were also only allowed to apply to one private. Not to say privates are bad, or that kids don’t want to go to them. But the high performers definitely were going for the publics with the private school being their backup. As a result, Japanese middle school students are some of the most stressed out teenagers I’ve ever seen.