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This is giving me the worst of vibes: - options for people who don't want to expose their children to out-of-family ideas, to perpetuate family biases - a com

This is giving me the worst of vibes: - options for people who don't want to expose their children to out-of-family ideas, to perpetuate family biases - a completely unregulated market for children to go to a "school" with a few other kids, giving them small classrooms, BUT, no teacher with specialization or educational background. Would be extremely hit or miss, with little resource if it isn't working out. - only for those who can afford it. It just feels... it feels like people have completely given up on society and said fuck it, we'll make our own. This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. Edit to those who say "but mah freedum" -- So far evidence shows that societies that force all people into the same system, regardless of income, end up having systemic positive changes because every member of the society is invested into it. Look at Finland, they only set one thing up: rules for how kids are allowed to be selected for schools. Everything else was because all the wealthy people wanted their kids to get benefits, so everyone benefited. In the US school funding is dependent on local municipalities, so some places have excellent education, and everyone who can't afford it is stuck with crap. This is why I dislike it. You either buy your way into a solid life, or you're fucked. The audience here tends to be high earners, at least for middle-class. Most of America cannot afford 10k per year for schooling, much less the significantly higher cost required.

ssivark 3y ago
> The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. But what if there is a fundamental diversity in educational goals, that different sets of parents want to aim in different directions as “better”? How would you accommodate that?
williamtrask 3y ago
> people have completely given up on society and said fuck it, we'll make our own. Fwiw, this type of thinking played a pretty strong role in how America began (and in other social/moral movements). It's not always a bad thing. > This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. I get your point, but just to continue my analogy, King George might have said something similar in the late 1700s. A good general counter-narrative to this line of thinking is James Scott's "Seeing like a state" which documents the degree to which governments regiment society in ways that reduce social welfare.
- Justsignedup 3y ago
  I don't see it as social welfare, I see it as more "ensure everyone, ESPECIALLY the elite, are bought into the system". Otherwise we get conversations like we do today where "do we defund the education system" is a real convo. If those same people would have no choice but to send their kids to a defunded education system... we'll see change. To add a bit more incentive, I'd say the children of any senator / congressman / local state legislature / governor / mayor / etc must attend school of that state. This will again ensure that people who make decisions and influence decisions are actually committed to the solution. Again, not thinking about "how to rely on the government" but more along the lines of, "how do we make sure those in power / influence are as bought into the system and the solution of the system as the rest of us"
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    If everyone was forced to attend the same types of shitty public schools then it would just increase the market for private tutoring and supplemental education. The trend tends to be lowering the education standards to match the lower students instead of making standards more rigorous. This is why my kids attend charter schools.
    - Justsignedup 3y ago
      I agree. This is why in Finland they made it law that nobody can not go to public education (a slight oversimplification). For exactly this reason. And they continue to diligently deny any attempts to game the system via strict court rulings. It even got to a point where kids wanted to swap schools due to them having less travel time, but the court said that this has the potential to lead to the wealthy using these exact arguments to send their kids to a local school which would be superior to other schools and thus defeat the entire point of the system. It is a lot of diligence but it is done for _exactly_ the reason you stated. What I found interesting, is people look at the finnish education system and say "oh, if we did away with tests" or whatever... but the answer is, it has nothing to do with tests. It has everything to do with the thousands of small details that only get taken care of because the entire society is committed to making it work because _everyone_ is in it, so everyone has to fight for it, including the politicians who set policy and the elites.
cpursley 3y ago
[flagged]
- dang 3y ago
  Please don't break the site guidelines like this, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is or you feel it is. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
  - cpursley 3y ago
    Noted, thanks.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
TacticalCoder 3y ago
> This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. People are free to homeschool. And some decide to do it. But I understand that freedom is a word statists do not like: so even the freedom to homeschool should be taken away. > This is sad. What is really sad to me is the followers in the religion of the almighty state and their endless pursuit in taking away every little freedom that we have left.
dotnet00 3y ago
>This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. Not everyone's sole goal in life is to be an activist. Hell, I left my home country because I didn't want to waste my life pursuing activism when I could just leave for a more ideologically agreeable place. I'd sooner just leave for yet another place than be told that I'm not allowed to avoid some problem without being an activist.
christophilus 3y ago
> The real solution is ... to force ALL kids... As a general rule, I've found that forcing anything is rarely a good solution. Sometimes it is. But not usually.
tbrownaw 3y ago
Problem: nobody wants what I'm selling. Solution: do some market research and improve my stuff? Nah, just make all the alternatives illegal. . Also, um, "force people to be activists and help fix things" probably requires actually listening to those people. As opposed to doing things like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Boards_Association#Patriot_Act_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Boards_Assoc...
- Justsignedup 3y ago
  Nono, I do not advocate for a national association for schooling, similar to what we have today. I only advocate to force all people regardless of income, and living area, to have no choice in what school their child is sent to. That could mean distance, that could mean a lot of things. But basically we need to prevent rich kids from going to rich kids schools, and poor kids from going to poor kids schools. EVERYTHING ELSE will correct itself quickly, because when the rich want shit done, it gets done.
  - lotsoweiners 3y ago
    Nope. You’ll just have more private tutoring and other supplemental education.
    - Justsignedup 3y ago
      The point is not to allow that.
hdhusiu_2 3y ago
Hmm. But why? Why do we need to have one system for everyone to make em into one acceptable mold. Why can't people pick on their own? Why is the idea that 'system is fucked so I might as well do what is best for my family' not an acceptable one?
- Justsignedup 3y ago
  Because that's how we got the shit we have today. Look at our healthcare system. The wealthier you are, the more you can go "fuck it, I'll buy a wing in a hospital and never have to worry" meanwhile middle america has giant chunks of population who suffer with chronic pain for decades. Obamacare was the first time that half of america was able to even go to a doctor to figure out wtf is wrong with them. The point is that what you're saying IS ideal if you can afford it, but the second you cannot, you're stuck in the worst situation available. The goal is NOT to create 1 education system, the goal is to force everyone to use the same system, and then variance occurs not because of rich vs poor, but because of intentional choice.
  - hdhusiu_2 3y ago
    I kinda agree with the idea in abstract ( make things miserable for everyone and things will improve ), but it never really works like that in practice. Humans always find a way to fuck with ecisting system. It is a nice idea and maybe a way to scare some people into thinking a chunk of population had had enough. Me? I am not gonna sacrifice my kid to make a point. I don't want to enter the argument with healthcare analogy.
    - Justsignedup 3y ago
      I mean the same can be said of anything. This is why the fight for for liberty never ends, because every day is a day some jackass can get into power and start claiming elections are rigged.
      - BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
        >"This is why the fight for for liberty never ends” I find it odd that you’re invoking Liberty when your proposals involve forcing everyone into the same system.
supazek 3y ago
Why should anyone else’s kids be any of my concern? The metropolitan areas (who have no answers for their own kids and therefore have not increased any socioeconomic situations) are now pushing into my district students who simply don’t care about education and have immediately pushed all perceived “weird” (not lower class urban culture) kids down the hierarchy via bullying. My district won’t even acknowledge this is explicitly a planned phenomena (the districts all come to an agreement) and so certainly won’t do anything to remedy the situation. They run their “everyone is the same and happy and everything is awesome” programs and people get pats on the back but come Monday the teacher is too busy trying to get these kids to not be disruptive to even get to the introductory curriculum much less an excellent lecture. If every single actor in the bureaucracy is actively working against my interests and the interests of my immediate neighbors (who largely share my opinions) then why should I participate? They’re going to tax me anyway, how is that not enough for you? It’s my kid and I’ll do as I damn well please since I have the motivation to ensure their success and the school definitely doesn’t. People that want sweeping “force everyone to do this, see here’s a news article about Finland” are psychologically malformed in my opinion.

ssivark 3y ago

> The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. But what if there is a fundamental diversity in educational goals, that different sets of parents want to aim in different directions as “better”? How would you accommodate that?

williamtrask 3y ago

> people have completely given up on society and said fuck it, we'll make our own. Fwiw, this type of thinking played a pretty strong role in how America began (and in other social/moral movements). It's not always a bad thing. > This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. I get your point, but just to continue my analogy, King George might have said something similar in the late 1700s. A good general counter-narrative to this line of thinking is James Scott's "Seeing like a state" which documents the degree to which governments regiment society in ways that reduce social welfare.

Justsignedup 3y ago
I don't see it as social welfare, I see it as more "ensure everyone, ESPECIALLY the elite, are bought into the system". Otherwise we get conversations like we do today where "do we defund the education system" is a real convo. If those same people would have no choice but to send their kids to a defunded education system... we'll see change. To add a bit more incentive, I'd say the children of any senator / congressman / local state legislature / governor / mayor / etc must attend school of that state. This will again ensure that people who make decisions and influence decisions are actually committed to the solution. Again, not thinking about "how to rely on the government" but more along the lines of, "how do we make sure those in power / influence are as bought into the system and the solution of the system as the rest of us"
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  If everyone was forced to attend the same types of shitty public schools then it would just increase the market for private tutoring and supplemental education. The trend tends to be lowering the education standards to match the lower students instead of making standards more rigorous. This is why my kids attend charter schools.
  - Justsignedup 3y ago
    I agree. This is why in Finland they made it law that nobody can not go to public education (a slight oversimplification). For exactly this reason. And they continue to diligently deny any attempts to game the system via strict court rulings. It even got to a point where kids wanted to swap schools due to them having less travel time, but the court said that this has the potential to lead to the wealthy using these exact arguments to send their kids to a local school which would be superior to other schools and thus defeat the entire point of the system. It is a lot of diligence but it is done for _exactly_ the reason you stated. What I found interesting, is people look at the finnish education system and say "oh, if we did away with tests" or whatever... but the answer is, it has nothing to do with tests. It has everything to do with the thousands of small details that only get taken care of because the entire society is committed to making it work because _everyone_ is in it, so everyone has to fight for it, including the politicians who set policy and the elites.

cpursley 3y ago

[flagged]

dang 3y ago
Please don't break the site guidelines like this, regardless of how wrong or provocative another comment is or you feel it is. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.
- cpursley 3y ago
  Noted, thanks.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

TacticalCoder 3y ago

> This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. People are free to homeschool. And some decide to do it. But I understand that freedom is a word statists do not like: so even the freedom to homeschool should be taken away. > This is sad. What is really sad to me is the followers in the religion of the almighty state and their endless pursuit in taking away every little freedom that we have left.

dotnet00 3y ago

>This is sad. The real solution is not to homeschool. It is to force ALL kids, regardless of age, location, and income to be forced into the same school system. Want to improve things? gotta make it better for everyone. Not everyone's sole goal in life is to be an activist. Hell, I left my home country because I didn't want to waste my life pursuing activism when I could just leave for a more ideologically agreeable place. I'd sooner just leave for yet another place than be told that I'm not allowed to avoid some problem without being an activist.

christophilus 3y ago

> The real solution is ... to force ALL kids... As a general rule, I've found that forcing anything is rarely a good solution. Sometimes it is. But not usually.

tbrownaw 3y ago

Problem: nobody wants what I'm selling. Solution: do some market research and improve my stuff? Nah, just make all the alternatives illegal. . Also, um, "force people to be activists and help fix things" probably requires actually listening to those people. As opposed to doing things like https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Boards_Association#Patriot_Act_letter https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_School_Boards_Assoc...

Justsignedup 3y ago
Nono, I do not advocate for a national association for schooling, similar to what we have today. I only advocate to force all people regardless of income, and living area, to have no choice in what school their child is sent to. That could mean distance, that could mean a lot of things. But basically we need to prevent rich kids from going to rich kids schools, and poor kids from going to poor kids schools. EVERYTHING ELSE will correct itself quickly, because when the rich want shit done, it gets done.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Nope. You’ll just have more private tutoring and other supplemental education.
  - Justsignedup 3y ago
    The point is not to allow that.

hdhusiu_2 3y ago

Hmm. But why? Why do we need to have one system for everyone to make em into one acceptable mold. Why can't people pick on their own? Why is the idea that 'system is fucked so I might as well do what is best for my family' not an acceptable one?

Justsignedup 3y ago
Because that's how we got the shit we have today. Look at our healthcare system. The wealthier you are, the more you can go "fuck it, I'll buy a wing in a hospital and never have to worry" meanwhile middle america has giant chunks of population who suffer with chronic pain for decades. Obamacare was the first time that half of america was able to even go to a doctor to figure out wtf is wrong with them. The point is that what you're saying IS ideal if you can afford it, but the second you cannot, you're stuck in the worst situation available. The goal is NOT to create 1 education system, the goal is to force everyone to use the same system, and then variance occurs not because of rich vs poor, but because of intentional choice.
- hdhusiu_2 3y ago
  I kinda agree with the idea in abstract ( make things miserable for everyone and things will improve ), but it never really works like that in practice. Humans always find a way to fuck with ecisting system. It is a nice idea and maybe a way to scare some people into thinking a chunk of population had had enough. Me? I am not gonna sacrifice my kid to make a point. I don't want to enter the argument with healthcare analogy.
  - Justsignedup 3y ago
    I mean the same can be said of anything. This is why the fight for for liberty never ends, because every day is a day some jackass can get into power and start claiming elections are rigged.
    - BuyMyBitcoins 3y ago
      >"This is why the fight for for liberty never ends” I find it odd that you’re invoking Liberty when your proposals involve forcing everyone into the same system.

supazek 3y ago

Why should anyone else’s kids be any of my concern? The metropolitan areas (who have no answers for their own kids and therefore have not increased any socioeconomic situations) are now pushing into my district students who simply don’t care about education and have immediately pushed all perceived “weird” (not lower class urban culture) kids down the hierarchy via bullying. My district won’t even acknowledge this is explicitly a planned phenomena (the districts all come to an agreement) and so certainly won’t do anything to remedy the situation. They run their “everyone is the same and happy and everything is awesome” programs and people get pats on the back but come Monday the teacher is too busy trying to get these kids to not be disruptive to even get to the introductory curriculum much less an excellent lecture. If every single actor in the bureaucracy is actively working against my interests and the interests of my immediate neighbors (who largely share my opinions) then why should I participate? They’re going to tax me anyway, how is that not enough for you? It’s my kid and I’ll do as I damn well please since I have the motivation to ensure their success and the school definitely doesn’t. People that want sweeping “force everyone to do this, see here’s a news article about Finland” are psychologically malformed in my opinion.