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It’s ironic to have this on the HN home page as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36417252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36417252 Pretty sure cogniti

It’s ironic to have this on the HN home page as https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36417252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36417252 Pretty sure cognitive reasoning is declining too. School choice is the way to go. This does two things (1) forces parents to at least be involved enough to make a decision and (2) incentivizes schools to improve As a parent of quite a few kiddos, I’ve noticed a massive lack of involvement with most parents. It shows

misiti3780 3y ago
I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted.
- irrational 3y ago
  Maybe parents feeling guilty about their lack of involvement are downvoting.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    I didn't downvote, but I suspect some of it could be because "school choice" probably doesn't solve the problems it claims to solve. After all, school choice already exists - just move to the district you prefer. Vouchers might allow a student to travel to a better school, but outside the densest urban areas, that means a lot of time spent on a bus (or parents driving even more than they do today) - not always feasible.
  - MrMan 3y ago
    [dead]
- sixothree 3y ago
  I think “school choice” in most places is just a front for a movement to shut down public schools or at least kill funding for them. That’s my guess why he’s being downvoted.
  - karamanolev 3y ago
    For me, it might be a way to give richer parents access to further away nicer schools and limit choices for poorer parents by way of economics, therefore increasing inequality. And HN considers, AFAIK, inequality bad.
  - AnimalMuppet 3y ago
    I think “school choice” in most places is perceived to be just a front for a movement to shut down public schools or at least kill funding for them. But if you're a parent who wants decent schools for your kids, and your current schools are lousy, and you aren't a big enough fish to move the school board, and you can't afford private school... what else are you going to try to do other than push for school choice? (You could homeschool, I guess, but not everybody feels like they're cut out for that.)
- mahathu 3y ago
  Because being able to choose schools is an incredibly privileged position many well-meaning parents and their kids aren't in.
  - adamwong246 3y ago
    And betrays how little those parents care for the children without which they share DNA. When the rich pull their kids and taxes away from the common good of public schools, it degrades that common good all the faster.
    - speakfreely 3y ago
      You're saying you prioritize the well being of strangers above your own family? That's not how the human brain works. We are tribal primates. In a zero sum game, you're going to pick your in-group over the out-group. Any insistence otherwise just virtue signaling with no credibility. The better question is why the US education system has become a zero sum game. But don't blame affluent parents for following the incentives the system has forced on them.
      - adamwong246 3y ago
        In some sense, can virtue signal all I want, because I have no children. It's very much in my interest that education be distributed evenly, rather than hoarded by a minority of monied families.
        JohnClark1337 3y ago
        [dead]
        speakfreely 3y ago
        > In some sense, can virtue signal all I want, because I have no children. Well, you're admitting there's no personal cost to your advocacy, which makes sense and I can't really argue you're not entitled to feel that way. Like in criminal justice reform, homelessness advocacy, etc. everyone is a liberal until the first time they get robbed, the first time someone smashes their car window, etc. Personal cost has a way to delivering reality to people who are disconnected from it. > It's very much in my interest that education be distributed evenly If there was no cost to the high performing students to keep everyone in public schools, I would actually 100% agree with you. But limiting the upper percentiles' outcomes to deliver almost negligible changes to the bottom percentile doesn't seem fair, either.
- tastyfreeze 3y ago
  School choice is unfortunately the enemy of the teachers union. There is a horde of folks that believe school choice will be detrimental to schools.
- MisterBastahrd 3y ago
  Because "school choice" is a euphemism for defunding public schools in favor of segregated parochial schools.
  - yieldcrv 3y ago
    So the specific term is the problem, but the verbatim plain reading is not? fascinating. isn't that we all do for higher education? some community colleges are free for nearby residents now, everyone that is privileged enough to go to a university is secretly into segregation!
- nathan_compton 3y ago
  School choice is controversial because it is associated with right wing attempts to undermine public schools and, among other things, teacher's unions. In fact, the school choice movement as we know it goes back to desegregation in the south: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/27/school-choice-developed-way-protect-segregation-abolish-public-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/27/school-cho.... That is just one article about it, but someone close to me was involved in the original litigation on the subject. It was not uncommon in the south for districts to close public schools and almost literally give public land and equipment from those schools to private schools which could more easily remain segregated. There are other dimensions to school choice as well. In particular, some parents would prefer to "insulate" their children from information about sexuality or uncomfortable truths about american history. And, I admit, public schools often are struggling to teach, so its not entirely black and white. But school choice is politically fraught. But many people see it as the standard republican strategy: first, starve public services of funding, then claim that they are bad, and then get rid of them.
  - clnq 3y ago
    I come from a Nordic country, where many things are different from the US. When I was a kid, I could choose what public school I wanted to go to. I'm trying to understand the situation you describe better. First of all, are kids not free to choose which public school they will attend in the US? If so, is that by law? Do any US states allow a choice of public schools? If not, why not? Also, school curriculums were standardized where I was a kid, so there wasn't ever the problem of creating siloed "thought" schools. Isn't school curriculum standardized in the US? This was such a non-problem in my experience, I am honestly a bit surprised how controversial it is. It would be great if anyone gave more context, as that article relies on quite a lot of US life experience.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      America funds public education locally, so you are limited to public schools that you can attend by what schools are being funded by your property taxes. Some districts setup public choice schools in their districts, especially if the districts are large (e.g. Seattle, my son goes to an area choice school). Some states will also provide more equity to school districts (Washington state shifts education funding to east of the mountains from much richer Seattle area school districts), but in general you still aren't allowed to attend schools outside of your district without some kind of exception. Education is also governed largely locally with a few state/federal standards in the background that are often not seen as a good thing (e.g. Bush's No Child Left Behind).
jhedwards 3y ago
> incentivizes schools to improve. Doesn't school choice divert funds away from public schools, depriving them of the means to improve?
- wbronitsky 3y ago
  Yes, it absolutely does. It also uses public funds for private religious institutions, which I personally believe goes against the separation of church and state.
- HDThoreaun 3y ago
  Not if families choose the public school. I think private school choice is unequivocally bad, but charters might be good depending on the situation. Charters have quickly risen to serve 1/4 of the highschoolers in my district because the public options available to poor families are legitimately violent, as in students being shot on campus. The school district was counting on poor families having no other choice so they allowed those schools to languish while they invested in the schools in wealthier areas in order to keep middle+ class families from fleeing for the suburbs. The charter schools have forced the district to at least attempt to serve the poor students.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Posted this in another response. Oklahoma is testing the waters with publicly-funded parochial charters. The end-game for many proponents of school choice, vouchers, and charters is absolutely a parochial education for everybody. Or at least parochial education for their family and friends, and everybody else can get fucked. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/05/oklahoma-approves-public-religious-charter-school-00100269 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/05/oklahoma-approves-p...
- bitshiftfaced 3y ago
  > with school choice programs, public schools get to keep almost all of the federal and local tax dollars and usually a portion of the state funds allocated for each child https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/faqs/how-does-school-choice-affect-public-schools-funding-and-resources/ https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/faqs/how-does-school-... Since the fixed costs of running a public school are effectively covered, the public school saves the marginal cost of educating the student that has diverted their funds. The school then has the same means to improve on a per student basis. Also keep in mind that "improving" often means replacing costly and ineffective process with better ones.
jalk 3y ago
How about letting kids earn screen time points through learning apps. The current time based blocking in iOS doesn’t mean the kids will do homework when device is locked.
bamfly 3y ago
> (2) incentivizes schools to improve The largest factor in good v bad schools is already selection bias. Turning up the temperature on that (if you will) is not gonna help a thing, except the people itching like a goddamn meth addict at the prospect of getting a piece of those sweet, sweet public dollars. They'll benefit.

misiti3780 3y ago

I'm not sure why you are getting downvoted.

irrational 3y ago
Maybe parents feeling guilty about their lack of involvement are downvoting.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  I didn't downvote, but I suspect some of it could be because "school choice" probably doesn't solve the problems it claims to solve. After all, school choice already exists - just move to the district you prefer. Vouchers might allow a student to travel to a better school, but outside the densest urban areas, that means a lot of time spent on a bus (or parents driving even more than they do today) - not always feasible.
- MrMan 3y ago
  [dead]
sixothree 3y ago
I think “school choice” in most places is just a front for a movement to shut down public schools or at least kill funding for them. That’s my guess why he’s being downvoted.
- karamanolev 3y ago
  For me, it might be a way to give richer parents access to further away nicer schools and limit choices for poorer parents by way of economics, therefore increasing inequality. And HN considers, AFAIK, inequality bad.
- AnimalMuppet 3y ago
  I think “school choice” in most places is perceived to be just a front for a movement to shut down public schools or at least kill funding for them. But if you're a parent who wants decent schools for your kids, and your current schools are lousy, and you aren't a big enough fish to move the school board, and you can't afford private school... what else are you going to try to do other than push for school choice? (You could homeschool, I guess, but not everybody feels like they're cut out for that.)
mahathu 3y ago
Because being able to choose schools is an incredibly privileged position many well-meaning parents and their kids aren't in.
- adamwong246 3y ago
  And betrays how little those parents care for the children without which they share DNA. When the rich pull their kids and taxes away from the common good of public schools, it degrades that common good all the faster.
  - speakfreely 3y ago
    You're saying you prioritize the well being of strangers above your own family? That's not how the human brain works. We are tribal primates. In a zero sum game, you're going to pick your in-group over the out-group. Any insistence otherwise just virtue signaling with no credibility. The better question is why the US education system has become a zero sum game. But don't blame affluent parents for following the incentives the system has forced on them.
    - adamwong246 3y ago
      In some sense, can virtue signal all I want, because I have no children. It's very much in my interest that education be distributed evenly, rather than hoarded by a minority of monied families.
      - JohnClark1337 3y ago
        [dead]
      - speakfreely 3y ago
        > In some sense, can virtue signal all I want, because I have no children. Well, you're admitting there's no personal cost to your advocacy, which makes sense and I can't really argue you're not entitled to feel that way. Like in criminal justice reform, homelessness advocacy, etc. everyone is a liberal until the first time they get robbed, the first time someone smashes their car window, etc. Personal cost has a way to delivering reality to people who are disconnected from it. > It's very much in my interest that education be distributed evenly If there was no cost to the high performing students to keep everyone in public schools, I would actually 100% agree with you. But limiting the upper percentiles' outcomes to deliver almost negligible changes to the bottom percentile doesn't seem fair, either.
tastyfreeze 3y ago
School choice is unfortunately the enemy of the teachers union. There is a horde of folks that believe school choice will be detrimental to schools.
MisterBastahrd 3y ago
Because "school choice" is a euphemism for defunding public schools in favor of segregated parochial schools.
- yieldcrv 3y ago
  So the specific term is the problem, but the verbatim plain reading is not? fascinating. isn't that we all do for higher education? some community colleges are free for nearby residents now, everyone that is privileged enough to go to a university is secretly into segregation!
nathan_compton 3y ago
School choice is controversial because it is associated with right wing attempts to undermine public schools and, among other things, teacher's unions. In fact, the school choice movement as we know it goes back to desegregation in the south: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/27/school-choice-developed-way-protect-segregation-abolish-public-schools/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/27/school-cho.... That is just one article about it, but someone close to me was involved in the original litigation on the subject. It was not uncommon in the south for districts to close public schools and almost literally give public land and equipment from those schools to private schools which could more easily remain segregated. There are other dimensions to school choice as well. In particular, some parents would prefer to "insulate" their children from information about sexuality or uncomfortable truths about american history. And, I admit, public schools often are struggling to teach, so its not entirely black and white. But school choice is politically fraught. But many people see it as the standard republican strategy: first, starve public services of funding, then claim that they are bad, and then get rid of them.
- clnq 3y ago
  I come from a Nordic country, where many things are different from the US. When I was a kid, I could choose what public school I wanted to go to. I'm trying to understand the situation you describe better. First of all, are kids not free to choose which public school they will attend in the US? If so, is that by law? Do any US states allow a choice of public schools? If not, why not? Also, school curriculums were standardized where I was a kid, so there wasn't ever the problem of creating siloed "thought" schools. Isn't school curriculum standardized in the US? This was such a non-problem in my experience, I am honestly a bit surprised how controversial it is. It would be great if anyone gave more context, as that article relies on quite a lot of US life experience.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    America funds public education locally, so you are limited to public schools that you can attend by what schools are being funded by your property taxes. Some districts setup public choice schools in their districts, especially if the districts are large (e.g. Seattle, my son goes to an area choice school). Some states will also provide more equity to school districts (Washington state shifts education funding to east of the mountains from much richer Seattle area school districts), but in general you still aren't allowed to attend schools outside of your district without some kind of exception. Education is also governed largely locally with a few state/federal standards in the background that are often not seen as a good thing (e.g. Bush's No Child Left Behind).

jhedwards 3y ago

> incentivizes schools to improve. Doesn't school choice divert funds away from public schools, depriving them of the means to improve?

wbronitsky 3y ago
Yes, it absolutely does. It also uses public funds for private religious institutions, which I personally believe goes against the separation of church and state.
HDThoreaun 3y ago
Not if families choose the public school. I think private school choice is unequivocally bad, but charters might be good depending on the situation. Charters have quickly risen to serve 1/4 of the highschoolers in my district because the public options available to poor families are legitimately violent, as in students being shot on campus. The school district was counting on poor families having no other choice so they allowed those schools to languish while they invested in the schools in wealthier areas in order to keep middle+ class families from fleeing for the suburbs. The charter schools have forced the district to at least attempt to serve the poor students.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Posted this in another response. Oklahoma is testing the waters with publicly-funded parochial charters. The end-game for many proponents of school choice, vouchers, and charters is absolutely a parochial education for everybody. Or at least parochial education for their family and friends, and everybody else can get fucked. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/05/oklahoma-approves-public-religious-charter-school-00100269 https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/05/oklahoma-approves-p...
bitshiftfaced 3y ago
> with school choice programs, public schools get to keep almost all of the federal and local tax dollars and usually a portion of the state funds allocated for each child https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/faqs/how-does-school-choice-affect-public-schools-funding-and-resources/ https://www.edchoice.org/school-choice/faqs/how-does-school-... Since the fixed costs of running a public school are effectively covered, the public school saves the marginal cost of educating the student that has diverted their funds. The school then has the same means to improve on a per student basis. Also keep in mind that "improving" often means replacing costly and ineffective process with better ones.

jalk 3y ago

How about letting kids earn screen time points through learning apps. The current time based blocking in iOS doesn’t mean the kids will do homework when device is locked.

bamfly 3y ago

> (2) incentivizes schools to improve The largest factor in good v bad schools is already selection bias. Turning up the temperature on that (if you will) is not gonna help a thing, except the people itching like a goddamn meth addict at the prospect of getting a piece of those sweet, sweet public dollars. They'll benefit.