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Hilarious that the people that are the problem think they can solve the problems. But that is impossible since they don't realize they are the problem. Educati

Hilarious that the people that are the problem think they can solve the problems. But that is impossible since they don't realize they are the problem. Education can easily be fixed by giving students vouchers and let them decide where they get the best education,i.e, probably Khan Academy. The market knows best. Isn't the California cost per student per year is like 20k or something ridiculous where each kid can get a private tutor?

jmye 3y ago
This is nuts. You don’t “easily” fix education by telling over-burdened parents that now they have to both evaluate every school they can find, hope that the voucher covers the education and that the act of providing it doesn’t shut down every neighborhood school, figure out how they’re going to get their child to it, and require them to do that every single year for 14-17 years. Especially given competing education standards, especially given the insanity of trying to find childcare at all. And advocating online-only education is a great way to ensure another generation grows up incapable of interacting with anyone. But this kind of thinking is what happens when we let people who know literally nothing whatsoever about education feel like their opinion matters as much as an expert’s.
- TimTheTinker 3y ago
  Not all parents have to be unburdened enough to motivate public schools to improve. Even if there's only a tiny minority of parents who are able to research and move their kids to a better school, their experience will motivate others, word will spread and the public schools will feel the pressure to improve their environment and outcomes. Even the threat of competition can be motivating. I dare to believe that the majority of parents across the US do care about their kids and are willing to drive their kids to a different school if doing so means they'll achieve significantly better success in life.
  - PhasmaFelis 3y ago
    Quite a lot of parents have to choose between driving their kids to school every day and working to keep their kids fed and sheltered. There's a real problem there, but it's not that they don't care about their kids.
  - jmye 3y ago
    But if I have no idea which school to pick, I’m left with the choice of either my now-failing public school, or a random pick of for-profit schools that may or may not educate my child. You’re giving poor families appalling choices for no net benefit. And again, you’re assuming all parents can drive their child across town to that one school that took them with no additional fees and had space leftover. That’s just not reality for a lot of people in this country who depend on the country at least trying to provide equitable education instead of finding new ways to lower the income burden on rich people. When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, then sure, let’s talk about vouchers. Until then the only reason to advocate for them is to facilitate and speed up the creation of a permanent societal underclass.
    - TimTheTinker 3y ago
      > my now-failing public school You're asserting vouchers would bankrupt public schools. How do you figure that? Maybe you're assuming that parents will move their kids to a better school, resulting in dwindling enrollment? If so, good! A public school that's not doing a great job should lose students. Let them feel the pain until they work to do better. > When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, let’s talk about vouchers. Your goalposts are unreasonable. Of course access and information will never be perfect. But they don't need to be. When I started school, my parents were very poor. When they went on a date, they split a Taco Bell bean burrito (seriously). They had to sell a lot of stuff on the front lawn one month to make ends meet. My dad had to ride the bus to work for a while, and had to borrow money from his brother. But they still somehow managed to send me to private school (probably with tuition assistance), because they believed doing so was the right thing. I understand a lot has changed since then; minimum wage is not a living wage anymore; many parents depend on free meals from public schools to make ends meet. But that doesn't mean the availability of other options is a bad thing or would be harmful.
      - TimTheTinker 3y ago
        My underlying assumption here is that public schools fail to educate kids primarily because they never feel the consequences of failure. If a private school fails, its attendance dwindles, funding drops, heads roll, and it closes if the problem isn't fixed. Not so for public schools -- the money just keeps on rolling in.
- IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
  one reason supermarkets keep their prices low is because of a motivated 8-10% that are avid coupon and price sensitive shoppers. They keep the supermarkets honest for the rest of us. A 8-10% swing in topline revenue for the supermarket is a lot. Supermarkets can't afford to scare away those shoppers. We all benefit from that positive externality
  - jmye 3y ago
    Supermarkets aren’t judged on their ability to sell meat that has expired, or stale bread, or other suboptimal products. Public schools are required to educate everyone. This is a bad comparison and another example of why “free market education” is nonsense.
acchow 3y ago
In my teenage years? I would've just played video games all day every day.
mwbajor 3y ago
If you give parents vouchers then all schools are just going to turn into IMG Academy because American parents only care about things like football. Inner city parents, football. Suburban parents, football. Its the only thing that unites the country actually; the farfetched notion that their kids will be pro football players. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_Academy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_Academy
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  This is just complete nonsense, "American" parents care about a lot of things clearly. Why are so many students enrolled in Kumon and whatever after-school prep is popular these days? Are kids just shuttling themselves to all sorts of activities just because they want to? Sure some parents care about sports too. Maybe because their kid is athletically gifted. Not every kid needs to go into STEM. Why shouldn't they be able to enroll in a school that focuses on sports?

jmye 3y ago

This is nuts. You don’t “easily” fix education by telling over-burdened parents that now they have to both evaluate every school they can find, hope that the voucher covers the education and that the act of providing it doesn’t shut down every neighborhood school, figure out how they’re going to get their child to it, and require them to do that every single year for 14-17 years. Especially given competing education standards, especially given the insanity of trying to find childcare at all. And advocating online-only education is a great way to ensure another generation grows up incapable of interacting with anyone. But this kind of thinking is what happens when we let people who know literally nothing whatsoever about education feel like their opinion matters as much as an expert’s.

TimTheTinker 3y ago
Not all parents have to be unburdened enough to motivate public schools to improve. Even if there's only a tiny minority of parents who are able to research and move their kids to a better school, their experience will motivate others, word will spread and the public schools will feel the pressure to improve their environment and outcomes. Even the threat of competition can be motivating. I dare to believe that the majority of parents across the US do care about their kids and are willing to drive their kids to a different school if doing so means they'll achieve significantly better success in life.
- PhasmaFelis 3y ago
  Quite a lot of parents have to choose between driving their kids to school every day and working to keep their kids fed and sheltered. There's a real problem there, but it's not that they don't care about their kids.
- jmye 3y ago
  But if I have no idea which school to pick, I’m left with the choice of either my now-failing public school, or a random pick of for-profit schools that may or may not educate my child. You’re giving poor families appalling choices for no net benefit. And again, you’re assuming all parents can drive their child across town to that one school that took them with no additional fees and had space leftover. That’s just not reality for a lot of people in this country who depend on the country at least trying to provide equitable education instead of finding new ways to lower the income burden on rich people. When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, then sure, let’s talk about vouchers. Until then the only reason to advocate for them is to facilitate and speed up the creation of a permanent societal underclass.
  - TimTheTinker 3y ago
    > my now-failing public school You're asserting vouchers would bankrupt public schools. How do you figure that? Maybe you're assuming that parents will move their kids to a better school, resulting in dwindling enrollment? If so, good! A public school that's not doing a great job should lose students. Let them feel the pain until they work to do better. > When you can guarantee perfect access and perfect information, let’s talk about vouchers. Your goalposts are unreasonable. Of course access and information will never be perfect. But they don't need to be. When I started school, my parents were very poor. When they went on a date, they split a Taco Bell bean burrito (seriously). They had to sell a lot of stuff on the front lawn one month to make ends meet. My dad had to ride the bus to work for a while, and had to borrow money from his brother. But they still somehow managed to send me to private school (probably with tuition assistance), because they believed doing so was the right thing. I understand a lot has changed since then; minimum wage is not a living wage anymore; many parents depend on free meals from public schools to make ends meet. But that doesn't mean the availability of other options is a bad thing or would be harmful.
    - TimTheTinker 3y ago
      My underlying assumption here is that public schools fail to educate kids primarily because they never feel the consequences of failure. If a private school fails, its attendance dwindles, funding drops, heads roll, and it closes if the problem isn't fixed. Not so for public schools -- the money just keeps on rolling in.
IG_Semmelweiss 3y ago
one reason supermarkets keep their prices low is because of a motivated 8-10% that are avid coupon and price sensitive shoppers. They keep the supermarkets honest for the rest of us. A 8-10% swing in topline revenue for the supermarket is a lot. Supermarkets can't afford to scare away those shoppers. We all benefit from that positive externality
- jmye 3y ago
  Supermarkets aren’t judged on their ability to sell meat that has expired, or stale bread, or other suboptimal products. Public schools are required to educate everyone. This is a bad comparison and another example of why “free market education” is nonsense.

acchow 3y ago

In my teenage years? I would've just played video games all day every day.

mwbajor 3y ago

If you give parents vouchers then all schools are just going to turn into IMG Academy because American parents only care about things like football. Inner city parents, football. Suburban parents, football. Its the only thing that unites the country actually; the farfetched notion that their kids will be pro football players. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_Academy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMG_Academy

syndicatedjelly 3y ago
This is just complete nonsense, "American" parents care about a lot of things clearly. Why are so many students enrolled in Kumon and whatever after-school prep is popular these days? Are kids just shuttling themselves to all sorts of activities just because they want to? Sure some parents care about sports too. Maybe because their kid is athletically gifted. Not every kid needs to go into STEM. Why shouldn't they be able to enroll in a school that focuses on sports?