3 ms·

You were the ones alluding they weren't going to work, not I. Saying a child is "stuck" there isn't exactly a glowing review. I just said if they don't work w

You were the ones alluding they weren't going to work, not I. Saying a child is "stuck" there isn't exactly a glowing review. I just said if they don't work we shouldn't be paying for them.

bsder 5y ago
They're "stuck" once the "charter schools" get done sucking up all the "easy to teach" students. This occurs over and over and over. "Hey, this charter school is better than the public school." "Great! Let's randomize students by lottery and send them to charter or public school." "Whoops! The charter school doesn't look so good anymore now that they can't choose their students." Nobody has demonstrated better results than our public system without either filtering students or by spending a lot more money. Which is sad because I do believe that we can do better than the current system. Learning pedagogy is understood MUCH better than it was 100 years ago. However, when you attempt to improve something, look at the backlash that appears (see: Common Core).
- notch656a 5y ago
  >Nobody has demonstrated better results than our public system without either filtering students or by spending a lot more money. Could you produce a citation please? I've been under the impression that several countries are beating US in public education ROI, but since I don't have that source off hand and you've already made the assertion I'll go ahead and let you fill the burden of proof here. Are you basically saying no (similar cost) private school beats the public system because by definition they can pick which student they have so they can't possibly beat a public system without filtering? There has to be some (similar cost) private school out there that could beat the average public school even unfiltered; these seems like a pretty tall claim to make.
  - bsder 5y ago
    Wrong way around. The charter systems all filter--that generally gives them a huge advantage against the public systems in both motivation (the parents are significantly more engaged even if that sometimes brings its own downsides) and cost (the lowest performing students take the most resource to teach). If you force the local charter schools to take the same demographic by lottery as the local public school, the advantage that the charter schools exhibit almost always disappears. One problem with education "solutions" is that they rarely define "success". Everybody want to move the "average", right? Well, the way to do that is to deallocate some resource from the average and overallocate it to the worst. The "measured average" is pretty insensitive to resource allocation, but the worst are quite sensitive to it. Alternatively, you just boot the lowest 10% from your school (generally easy enough since they have various "disciplinary" problems--Houston ISD got caught doing this). These are ways to move the "measured average". They're terrible ideas but are not uncommon when you tie people's jobs and school funding to a "measured average". What needs to be defined is probably closer to "effectiveness." If you start at achievement point X, how much better is your achievement point Y in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. However, if you start defining things like that, the inequity in the system becomes stark, the monetary outlay required on the lowest performers becomes obvious, and the political will completely evaporates.
    - notch656a 5y ago
      You've still ignored citing your claim: >>Nobody has demonstrated better results than our public system without either filtering students or by spending a lot more money. >Could you produce a citation please? I've been under the impression that several countries are beating US in public education ROI, but since I don't have that source off hand and you've already made the assertion I'll go ahead and let you fill the burden of proof here. >The charter systems all filter--that generally gives them a huge advantage If the public schools are working for the students that filter out of them, why would they be leaving? And you make it sound like it isn't working for those who are left after it's filtered either. You make it sound like the public school isn't working for anyone.

You were the ones alluding they weren't going to work, not I. Saying a child is "stuck" there isn't exactly a glowing review. I just said if they don't work we shouldn't be paying for them.

bsder 5y ago

They're "stuck" once the "charter schools" get done sucking up all the "easy to teach" students. This occurs over and over and over. "Hey, this charter school is better than the public school." "Great! Let's randomize students by lottery and send them to charter or public school." "Whoops! The charter school doesn't look so good anymore now that they can't choose their students." Nobody has demonstrated better results than our public system without either filtering students or by spending a lot more money. Which is sad because I do believe that we can do better than the current system. Learning pedagogy is understood MUCH better than it was 100 years ago. However, when you attempt to improve something, look at the backlash that appears (see: Common Core).

notch656a 5y ago
>Nobody has demonstrated better results than our public system without either filtering students or by spending a lot more money. Could you produce a citation please? I've been under the impression that several countries are beating US in public education ROI, but since I don't have that source off hand and you've already made the assertion I'll go ahead and let you fill the burden of proof here. Are you basically saying no (similar cost) private school beats the public system because by definition they can pick which student they have so they can't possibly beat a public system without filtering? There has to be some (similar cost) private school out there that could beat the average public school even unfiltered; these seems like a pretty tall claim to make.
- bsder 5y ago
  Wrong way around. The charter systems all filter--that generally gives them a huge advantage against the public systems in both motivation (the parents are significantly more engaged even if that sometimes brings its own downsides) and cost (the lowest performing students take the most resource to teach). If you force the local charter schools to take the same demographic by lottery as the local public school, the advantage that the charter schools exhibit almost always disappears. One problem with education "solutions" is that they rarely define "success". Everybody want to move the "average", right? Well, the way to do that is to deallocate some resource from the average and overallocate it to the worst. The "measured average" is pretty insensitive to resource allocation, but the worst are quite sensitive to it. Alternatively, you just boot the lowest 10% from your school (generally easy enough since they have various "disciplinary" problems--Houston ISD got caught doing this). These are ways to move the "measured average". They're terrible ideas but are not uncommon when you tie people's jobs and school funding to a "measured average". What needs to be defined is probably closer to "effectiveness." If you start at achievement point X, how much better is your achievement point Y in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years. However, if you start defining things like that, the inequity in the system becomes stark, the monetary outlay required on the lowest performers becomes obvious, and the political will completely evaporates.
  - notch656a 5y ago
    You've still ignored citing your claim: >>Nobody has demonstrated better results than our public system without either filtering students or by spending a lot more money. >Could you produce a citation please? I've been under the impression that several countries are beating US in public education ROI, but since I don't have that source off hand and you've already made the assertion I'll go ahead and let you fill the burden of proof here. >The charter systems all filter--that generally gives them a huge advantage If the public schools are working for the students that filter out of them, why would they be leaving? And you make it sound like it isn't working for those who are left after it's filtered either. You make it sound like the public school isn't working for anyone.