3 ms·

"Anyone who attended public schooling can tell you that our K-12 education system is a dumpster fire." My experience (public schools in Arlington, MA, class of

"Anyone who attended public schooling can tell you that our K-12 education system is a dumpster fire." My experience (public schools in Arlington, MA, class of 92) paints a different picture; I feel I received an excellent education. And though I put my teenage daughters in Montessori kindergarten (a fantastic experience that I believe continues to benefit them today), their public school education in Duxbury, MA has also been very good.

skadamat 5y ago
This is so timely -- Arlington is on our short list of cities to move to within Boston and we've heard the exact same thing about the schools.
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  Cool. Feel free to DM me if you have questions about the Boston area. (Contact info's in my HN profile; I saw you're into dataviz and would be stoked to connect on twitter if you like.)
  - skadamat 5y ago
    Followed you on Twitter, but can't seem to DM hmm!
ryandrake 5y ago
Same. I grew up in suburban-to-rural Pennsylvania, and I think my K-12 schooling was excellent, with the possible exception of year-12 calculus, where our teacher just didn't seem that knowledgeable. Consequently I had to re-take a year of college calculus, not a huge deal. In my view, the worst thing about public education in the US is how inconsistent quality is from district to district. One public district can be excellent, well-funded, full of great teachers, while the district in the next county over is a dumpster fire. I've got a kid now so we played this game when deciding where to move. I could move to one street, which is in a great quality School District, or I can save $300K and move one block to the west, where gangs run the high school and your kid will not learn multiplication. This is a result on the US's obsession with micro-local control (and funding) of education.

3 ms·

"Anyone who attended public schooling can tell you that our K-12 education system is a dumpster fire." My experience (public schools in Arlington, MA, class of

by chrisweekly 5y ago

skadamat 5y ago
This is so timely -- Arlington is on our short list of cities to move to within Boston and we've heard the exact same thing about the schools.
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  Cool. Feel free to DM me if you have questions about the Boston area. (Contact info's in my HN profile; I saw you're into dataviz and would be stoked to connect on twitter if you like.)
  - skadamat 5y ago
    Followed you on Twitter, but can't seem to DM hmm!
ryandrake 5y ago
Same. I grew up in suburban-to-rural Pennsylvania, and I think my K-12 schooling was excellent, with the possible exception of year-12 calculus, where our teacher just didn't seem that knowledgeable. Consequently I had to re-take a year of college calculus, not a huge deal. In my view, the worst thing about public education in the US is how inconsistent quality is from district to district. One public district can be excellent, well-funded, full of great teachers, while the district in the next county over is a dumpster fire. I've got a kid now so we played this game when deciding where to move. I could move to one street, which is in a great quality School District, or I can save $300K and move one block to the west, where gangs run the high school and your kid will not learn multiplication. This is a result on the US's obsession with micro-local control (and funding) of education.