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> > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status > If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. > The greatest source of ad

> > The greatest source of admissions inequity is childhood socioeconomic status > If we are talking about the US, no, I disagree. > The greatest source of admissions inequity are shit K-12 education. You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school districts, sending their kids to private schools, or homeschooling them.

zdragnar 4y ago
That's why so many parents advocate for vouchers and school choice. Kids shouldn't be locked into shit schools just because their parents can't afford to move.
- elgenie 4y ago
  Kids would instead be locked into shit schools because their parents aren't there, don't care, or simply don't have the time to research alternate schools, but (yay!) private and charter schools get to siphon off money from the public school system.
- d3ad1ysp0rk 4y ago
  My anecdotal experience is that none of the ~10 or so pro-Charter School people I know are in the bottom 30% of incomes (even talking about bottom 30% of my network). Most of them reference the curriculum and their objections, whether from religious beliefs, pseudoscience, or similar. Others planned to send their kids to private school anyways and want to save money.
- uni_rule 4y ago
  Vouchers that immediately squander the social mobility provided by public schools by placing them in an opportunity to go into a financial death spiral the moment those who can afford to leave and take the tax money with them while those who don't have the opportunity jump ship to a public school are left high and dry in a local education system bleeding viability. Public schools exist as an egalitarian institution, why deliberately fracture them into pieces for any reason other than to kill the whole idea off? Tangentally the idea is often pushed underhandedly by some evangelical types to shovel taxpayer money into religious schools in a way that isn't currently legal to do outright, but that's a problem adjacent to the idea rather than the main problem with it.
malborodog 4y ago
Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to, and that public schools should be run differently so as to eliminate the advantage of rich people just circumventing them, ya dig?
- davidgay 4y ago
  > Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to, and that public schools should be run differently so as to eliminate the advantage of rich people just circumventing them, ya dig? I'm all for that point, I grew up in Switzerland which on the whole exemplifies that attitude (make sure the schools are good). But "we should fix the schools" is not a counter-argument to the fact that current admission inequity is primarily driven by socio-economic status.
  - robomartin 4y ago
    > current admission inequity is primarily driven by socio-economic status Maybe I didn't make my point clearly enough? If admission is based on testing and our schools are top-of-the-line, kids would not any problem at all passing the test. We need better education before university. Make that happen and admission isn't an issue. Beyond that, the world is wide open now. There are tons of universities anyone can attend remotely and get a degree. Some have very permissive admission policies.
- robomartin 4y ago
  > Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to Precisely correct. Our public schools should be the example the entire world tries to emulate rather than the substandard mess they use as something to avoid. As a kid I had the experience of attending school in other countries due to my parents moving around for work. The best example I have of just how bad things are in K-12 education in the US is that coming back to US schools felt like a vacation, a joke. My level of preparation when compared to US students of the same age almost didn't compare. I could read, write and do math better than anyone in my class. And that's after attending school at a third world country. That says a lot.
robomartin 4y ago
> You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school districts, sending their kids to private schools, or homeschooling them. No, I did not. I stated that our schools are garbage. If we fixed that, it really won't matter what anyone else does with their kids, public schools would be great. Put a different way: There is no justification whatsoever for our public schools should be crap. The only reason this happens is because we do not exercise the kind of control and set the kinds of standards needed to provide every child in the country with the education they deserve. Teaching should be a profession where the standards and performance we demand from teachers are of the highest levels. That implies (and requires) that bad teachers are expunged from the system like a bad infection. Curriculum and teaching standards have to be optimized for top-of-the-world results. This, BTW, also has to include kids who, for whatever reason, are not college-bound. Not everyone needs to or has to go to university. The problem is our schools are so bad that the average high school graduate is good for nothing other than maybe, again, maybe, going to college. The average high school graduate in the US is good for stacking boxes and, with training, making coffee. That is a tragedy and a massive failure of the system. What people with money would not matter at all of our public schools were driven by a merit, performance and results-based system that floated the best teachers, teaching methods, technology and curriculum to the top. This would require up-ending our entire system of education. Which means it is likely just-about impossible.
- mlyle 4y ago
  > That implies (and requires) that bad teachers are expunged from the system like a bad infection. Good luck with this, when the working conditions and compensation are such that staffing education at all is a massive struggle, let alone being selective. (I do think that quality of teachers is sometimes an issue, but I think there are larger systemic issues impeding education than the quality of workers on the front line.) > teaching methods, technology and curriculum Teaching methods and curriculum are important. And educational research is mostly crap: well controlled studies basically don't exist. EdTech, etc, is part of the problem. Occasionally technology is a great support to teaching, but I'm a STEM teacher who teaches the "T" without much technology at all: certainly much less than is trendy in core classrooms (like, no joke, having middle school students write out machine language programs on paper). Edtech is expensive and very often unproven snake oil that allows distractions into your classroom, but it's something administrators love to point to to show they're doing something.

zdragnar 4y ago

That's why so many parents advocate for vouchers and school choice. Kids shouldn't be locked into shit schools just because their parents can't afford to move.

elgenie 4y ago
Kids would instead be locked into shit schools because their parents aren't there, don't care, or simply don't have the time to research alternate schools, but (yay!) private and charter schools get to siphon off money from the public school system.
d3ad1ysp0rk 4y ago
My anecdotal experience is that none of the ~10 or so pro-Charter School people I know are in the bottom 30% of incomes (even talking about bottom 30% of my network). Most of them reference the curriculum and their objections, whether from religious beliefs, pseudoscience, or similar. Others planned to send their kids to private school anyways and want to save money.
uni_rule 4y ago
Vouchers that immediately squander the social mobility provided by public schools by placing them in an opportunity to go into a financial death spiral the moment those who can afford to leave and take the tax money with them while those who don't have the opportunity jump ship to a public school are left high and dry in a local education system bleeding viability. Public schools exist as an egalitarian institution, why deliberately fracture them into pieces for any reason other than to kill the whole idea off? Tangentally the idea is often pushed underhandedly by some evangelical types to shovel taxpayer money into religious schools in a way that isn't currently legal to do outright, but that's a problem adjacent to the idea rather than the main problem with it.

malborodog 4y ago

Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to, and that public schools should be run differently so as to eliminate the advantage of rich people just circumventing them, ya dig?

davidgay 4y ago
> Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to, and that public schools should be run differently so as to eliminate the advantage of rich people just circumventing them, ya dig? I'm all for that point, I grew up in Switzerland which on the whole exemplifies that attitude (make sure the schools are good). But "we should fix the schools" is not a counter-argument to the fact that current admission inequity is primarily driven by socio-economic status.
- robomartin 4y ago
  > current admission inequity is primarily driven by socio-economic status Maybe I didn't make my point clearly enough? If admission is based on testing and our schools are top-of-the-line, kids would not any problem at all passing the test. We need better education before university. Make that happen and admission isn't an issue. Beyond that, the world is wide open now. There are tons of universities anyone can attend remotely and get a degree. Some have very permissive admission policies.
robomartin 4y ago
> Well that's cause his _actual_ point is that they shouldn't have to Precisely correct. Our public schools should be the example the entire world tries to emulate rather than the substandard mess they use as something to avoid. As a kid I had the experience of attending school in other countries due to my parents moving around for work. The best example I have of just how bad things are in K-12 education in the US is that coming back to US schools felt like a vacation, a joke. My level of preparation when compared to US students of the same age almost didn't compare. I could read, write and do math better than anyone in my class. And that's after attending school at a third world country. That says a lot.

robomartin 4y ago

> You've missed the step where the higher socioeconomic classes opt-out of the shit K-12 education by moving to better school districts, sending their kids to private schools, or homeschooling them. No, I did not. I stated that our schools are garbage. If we fixed that, it really won't matter what anyone else does with their kids, public schools would be great. Put a different way: There is no justification whatsoever for our public schools should be crap. The only reason this happens is because we do not exercise the kind of control and set the kinds of standards needed to provide every child in the country with the education they deserve. Teaching should be a profession where the standards and performance we demand from teachers are of the highest levels. That implies (and requires) that bad teachers are expunged from the system like a bad infection. Curriculum and teaching standards have to be optimized for top-of-the-world results. This, BTW, also has to include kids who, for whatever reason, are not college-bound. Not everyone needs to or has to go to university. The problem is our schools are so bad that the average high school graduate is good for nothing other than maybe, again, maybe, going to college. The average high school graduate in the US is good for stacking boxes and, with training, making coffee. That is a tragedy and a massive failure of the system. What people with money would not matter at all of our public schools were driven by a merit, performance and results-based system that floated the best teachers, teaching methods, technology and curriculum to the top. This would require up-ending our entire system of education. Which means it is likely just-about impossible.

mlyle 4y ago
> That implies (and requires) that bad teachers are expunged from the system like a bad infection. Good luck with this, when the working conditions and compensation are such that staffing education at all is a massive struggle, let alone being selective. (I do think that quality of teachers is sometimes an issue, but I think there are larger systemic issues impeding education than the quality of workers on the front line.) > teaching methods, technology and curriculum Teaching methods and curriculum are important. And educational research is mostly crap: well controlled studies basically don't exist. EdTech, etc, is part of the problem. Occasionally technology is a great support to teaching, but I'm a STEM teacher who teaches the "T" without much technology at all: certainly much less than is trendy in core classrooms (like, no joke, having middle school students write out machine language programs on paper). Edtech is expensive and very often unproven snake oil that allows distractions into your classroom, but it's something administrators love to point to to show they're doing something.