7 ms·

I think the idea is that if it’s important to rich parents, they will grudgingly fund education for everyone. But as long as they have these outlets where they

by sp332 4y ago

I think the idea is that if it’s important to rich parents, they will grudgingly fund education for everyone. But as long as they have these outlets where they can just educate their own kids and leave everyone else behind, they will.

CoastalCoder 4y ago
I'm not sure that's a fair generalization. I suspect many parents have the resources to improve their own kids' educations, but not the time/energy to try changing the school system politics / bureaucracy / laws / budgets in time for their kids.
bendbro 4y ago
Some students need to be left behind
- kelseyfrog 4y ago
  Which ones are those again?
  - stametseater 4y ago
    Those who can't keep up with the rest. The only alternative is to hold everybody back to the level of the dimwits, and that's atrocious.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      Who gets to decide that?
      - rlt 4y ago
        Test scores?
        kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Test scores aren't decision making agents. Are you thinking of a person?
        alex_sf 4y ago
        You're being intentionally obtuse. If you have the capacity to have an accelerated program for 1,000 students in a district, then you rank by test scores and bring in the top 1,000.
        kelseyfrog 4y ago
        My intentions aren't epistemologically accessible to you. What parents commenters are doing is laundering agency through a testing regime. It's part of the process of the absolution of responsibility of consequence. As an aside, it's clear that parent commenters aren't mature enough to be approached socratically. I regret their schools taught them to read and write. They clearly don't want to learn.
        alex_sf 4y ago
        No, your intentions are very clear (and naive), you're just wrong.
        kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Since we're clearly able to read each other's intentions, yours are to disrupt the legitimate line of questioning with a temper tantrum. I hope you see where assuming people's intentions ends up. I know you can do better than that.
        dang 4y ago
        You broke the site guidelines badly here. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of how provocative other comments were or you feel they were. Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of this (at least not from a quick look at the account's recent posts in other threads), so this should be easy to fix. If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to using HN as intended, we'd appreciate it.
      - keeganpoppen 4y ago
        [flagged]
  - bobsmooth 4y ago
    The dumb ones so that smart kids can actually learn.
  - Der_Einzige 4y ago
    Kids who are disruptive/discipline problems. Teachers should not be removing slow students who do not cause issues in the classroom. Teachers should remove disruptive students. Disruptive students lose their learning pass, and all would benefit from such a situation. Teachers becoming disciplinarians is where they become authoritarian, exploitive arbiters of ones future earning potential.
    - kelseyfrog 4y ago
      I'd encourage you to think critically about the design and implementation of such a system, the incentives it would generate and the moral hazards of enacting it. It's not like labeling kids as "unworthy of learning" could be abused.
  - dang 4y ago
    Could you please not take HN threads further into flamewar? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- ChainOfFools 4y ago
  A callous way to put it, but it could also be stated that setting people up for modest success is a much kinder position than setting them up for exceptional failure.
- nobody9999 4y ago
  >Some students need to be left behind Definitely. Let's start stack ranking[0] in kindergarten and expel (and make that stick nationwide!) the bottom 10% every year.[1] By the time students get to high school, we'll have best schools in the world! Those who have been expelled had already reached their intellectual peak, especially those in primary school. amirite? /s [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve [1] Please use this is a "clear indicator of intent to parody" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
- dang 4y ago
  Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
elzbardico 4y ago
The rich will always have those outlets, and nobody is going to take them away from them, because they have the power. Now, with the disappearing middle class, "just call them the rich, and make them pay for it" has been the default for a long time.
- diordiderot 4y ago
  > The rich will always have those outlets The Nordic countries have the best schools in the world. Private schools are banned. Well except for Sweden. They introduced vouchers in the 90s and as soon as they did, their rankings started rolling like dung down a hill.
  - Erwin 4y ago
    Denmark has had a private school system for decades, and 15% of students go into the private schools (as a parent you pay a portion of the costs so it is not necessarily extremely expensive). "Private" mostly means that you still have to teach specific basics, but you can do it in your way like Montessori. One advantage of the private schools is they can kick out students they cannot manage easily, while the public schools have to keep everyone. Some recent strutural changes in the public shools are said to have declined their quality, enough so that many government ministers, even of the left wing, are sending their children to the private schools. I guess it's one of those Nordic myths -- like high minimum wage (there is none in Denmark).
    - redeeman 4y ago
      > Some recent strutural changes in the public shools are said to have declined their quality, enough so that many government ministers, even of the left wing, are sending their children to the private schools. they did that before too :) couldnt possibly expect the politicians to send their kids to the same filthy schools as the plebs now could we? :)
  - alex_sf 4y ago
    This is often repeated when talking about education, and it is absolutely wrong. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland all have private schools.
sigstoat 4y ago
> I think the idea is that if it’s important to rich parents, they will grudgingly fund education for everyone. it doesn't cost more for a teacher to open up an algebra book and teach from that instead of from the pre-algebra book. unless there are scheduling difficulties which somehow prevent one classroom's worth of students from being crammed into the same room in the same slot, the imagined lack of money isn't going to impact the contents of the curriculum. this isn't like when we thought we needed to cram schools full of computers and they were going to cost money. one math class is an expensive as another to teach. we don't even need new textbooks. hell, we probably don't even need textbooks, just have them do exercises online or something.
- firstlink 4y ago
  > one math class is an expensive as another to teach On the contrary, I'm sure that a teacher who understands algebra well enough to teach it competently costs much more than the other kind, on account of being so rare.
colonCapitalDee 4y ago
> But as long as they have these outlets where they can just educate their own kids and leave everyone else behind, they will. Education is a collective action problem. Parents care more about their own child's education than the education of other children. This should not be surprising, and it cannot be changed.

by sp332 4y ago

CoastalCoder 4y ago

I'm not sure that's a fair generalization. I suspect many parents have the resources to improve their own kids' educations, but not the time/energy to try changing the school system politics / bureaucracy / laws / budgets in time for their kids.

bendbro 4y ago

Some students need to be left behind

kelseyfrog 4y ago
Which ones are those again?
- stametseater 4y ago
  Those who can't keep up with the rest. The only alternative is to hold everybody back to the level of the dimwits, and that's atrocious.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    Who gets to decide that?
    - rlt 4y ago
      Test scores?
      - kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Test scores aren't decision making agents. Are you thinking of a person?
        alex_sf 4y ago
        You're being intentionally obtuse. If you have the capacity to have an accelerated program for 1,000 students in a district, then you rank by test scores and bring in the top 1,000.
        kelseyfrog 4y ago
        My intentions aren't epistemologically accessible to you. What parents commenters are doing is laundering agency through a testing regime. It's part of the process of the absolution of responsibility of consequence. As an aside, it's clear that parent commenters aren't mature enough to be approached socratically. I regret their schools taught them to read and write. They clearly don't want to learn.
        alex_sf 4y ago
        No, your intentions are very clear (and naive), you're just wrong.
        kelseyfrog 4y ago
        Since we're clearly able to read each other's intentions, yours are to disrupt the legitimate line of questioning with a temper tantrum. I hope you see where assuming people's intentions ends up. I know you can do better than that.
        dang 4y ago
        You broke the site guidelines badly here. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of how provocative other comments were or you feel they were. Fortunately it doesn't look like you've been making a habit of this (at least not from a quick look at the account's recent posts in other threads), so this should be easy to fix. If you'd review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to using HN as intended, we'd appreciate it.
    - keeganpoppen 4y ago
      [flagged]
- bobsmooth 4y ago
  The dumb ones so that smart kids can actually learn.
- Der_Einzige 4y ago
  Kids who are disruptive/discipline problems. Teachers should not be removing slow students who do not cause issues in the classroom. Teachers should remove disruptive students. Disruptive students lose their learning pass, and all would benefit from such a situation. Teachers becoming disciplinarians is where they become authoritarian, exploitive arbiters of ones future earning potential.
  - kelseyfrog 4y ago
    I'd encourage you to think critically about the design and implementation of such a system, the incentives it would generate and the moral hazards of enacting it. It's not like labeling kids as "unworthy of learning" could be abused.
- dang 4y ago
  Could you please not take HN threads further into flamewar? It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
ChainOfFools 4y ago
A callous way to put it, but it could also be stated that setting people up for modest success is a much kinder position than setting them up for exceptional failure.
nobody9999 4y ago
>Some students need to be left behind Definitely. Let's start stack ranking[0] in kindergarten and expel (and make that stick nationwide!) the bottom 10% every year.[1] By the time students get to high school, we'll have best schools in the world! Those who have been expelled had already reached their intellectual peak, especially those in primary school. amirite? /s [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitality_curve [1] Please use this is a "clear indicator of intent to parody" -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
dang 4y ago
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments and flamebait? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

elzbardico 4y ago

The rich will always have those outlets, and nobody is going to take them away from them, because they have the power. Now, with the disappearing middle class, "just call them the rich, and make them pay for it" has been the default for a long time.

diordiderot 4y ago
> The rich will always have those outlets The Nordic countries have the best schools in the world. Private schools are banned. Well except for Sweden. They introduced vouchers in the 90s and as soon as they did, their rankings started rolling like dung down a hill.
- Erwin 4y ago
  Denmark has had a private school system for decades, and 15% of students go into the private schools (as a parent you pay a portion of the costs so it is not necessarily extremely expensive). "Private" mostly means that you still have to teach specific basics, but you can do it in your way like Montessori. One advantage of the private schools is they can kick out students they cannot manage easily, while the public schools have to keep everyone. Some recent strutural changes in the public shools are said to have declined their quality, enough so that many government ministers, even of the left wing, are sending their children to the private schools. I guess it's one of those Nordic myths -- like high minimum wage (there is none in Denmark).
  - redeeman 4y ago
    > Some recent strutural changes in the public shools are said to have declined their quality, enough so that many government ministers, even of the left wing, are sending their children to the private schools. they did that before too :) couldnt possibly expect the politicians to send their kids to the same filthy schools as the plebs now could we? :)
- alex_sf 4y ago
  This is often repeated when talking about education, and it is absolutely wrong. Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland all have private schools.

sigstoat 4y ago

> I think the idea is that if it’s important to rich parents, they will grudgingly fund education for everyone. it doesn't cost more for a teacher to open up an algebra book and teach from that instead of from the pre-algebra book. unless there are scheduling difficulties which somehow prevent one classroom's worth of students from being crammed into the same room in the same slot, the imagined lack of money isn't going to impact the contents of the curriculum. this isn't like when we thought we needed to cram schools full of computers and they were going to cost money. one math class is an expensive as another to teach. we don't even need new textbooks. hell, we probably don't even need textbooks, just have them do exercises online or something.

firstlink 4y ago
> one math class is an expensive as another to teach On the contrary, I'm sure that a teacher who understands algebra well enough to teach it competently costs much more than the other kind, on account of being so rare.

colonCapitalDee 4y ago

> But as long as they have these outlets where they can just educate their own kids and leave everyone else behind, they will. Education is a collective action problem. Parents care more about their own child's education than the education of other children. This should not be surprising, and it cannot be changed.