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Could we reproduce the effects of tutoring by getting rid of all the government contracts for school paraphernalia like smart boards and hiring lots of teachers

Could we reproduce the effects of tutoring by getting rid of all the government contracts for school paraphernalia like smart boards and hiring lots of teachers while giving them reliable access to basic necessities?

Waterluvian 3y ago
Sometimes teachers actually want non-basic necessities like smart boards. We just need to give them what they want, not prescribe to them yet a different approach. I mentor a robotics team that’s attached to a set of high school courses. One of the best things I’ve seen when it comes to bureaucracy is that the three teachers who basically run those courses were handed a budget and bought exactly what they needed. A mitre saw, 3D printers, a plasma cutter, etc.
jpollock 3y ago
No? A smart board is $3000. Another teacher is $66,397. You can buy 20 boards per year for the _salary_ (ignoring benefits and other non-payroll costs) of a single teacher. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-12-education/public-school-teacher-salary-average/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- smeagull 3y ago
  And? One has a negative effect, and the other a positive one.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  Also interesting that $100m would have bought 1,506 teacher years. It makes me think that philanthropy doesn't work as well as some would make out. This is another example of rich people wasting money on things they know nothing about. If it had been paid in tax it could have been spent on more teachers by people who do know what they are doing. This would have had a real benefit for kids even with some degree of inefficiency and waste.
  - ahupp 3y ago
    The closest large city to me is Oakland, which spent $750m on schools last year: https://oaklandside.org/2022/01/12/oakland-schools-are-facing-50m-in-cuts-here-are-some-budget-basics/ https://oaklandside.org/2022/01/12/oakland-schools-are-facin... So this cost 13% of one years spending in a mid-size district.
    - jimnotgym 3y ago
      Presumably there are a number of fixed costs in the $750m. That means the extra money might have disproportionate benefit.
  - vasco 3y ago
    > This is another example of rich people wasting money on things they know nothing about. If it had been paid in tax it could have been spent on more teachers by people who do know what they are doing. On the other hand the rich person has a strong incentive to succeed - avoiding ridicule and getting more recognition. The public employee on the other hand gets no recognition, or ridicule, and is spending someone else's money. If we could combine the incentives of the rich person with the knowledge of the public workers that understand the programs that work, we could have something on our hands.
    - jimnotgym 3y ago
      > On the other hand the rich person has a strong incentive to succeed - avoiding ridicule and getting more recognition. I would argue that Zuckerberg couldn't care less what the world thinks of him. Otherwise he would have been rather embarrassed by the Meta project. I would put Elon Musk and X up as another example of a very rich person who seems unperturbed by ridicule. >The public employee on the other hand gets no recognition, or ridicule, So politicians don't have a need for recognition and to avoid ridicule?
  - smeej 3y ago
    > people who do know what they're doing. What they're doing isn't working. Even they would tell you there's a results crisis. Children aren't learning. They certainly aren't becoming well-prepared for adult life in an efficient manner. They're barely even being supervised and kept out of trouble. The school-to-prison pipeline is getting worse, not better. These people may "know what they're doing," but they also know what they're doing isn't accomplishing the goals they have for it. Knowing how to do something that isn't working isn't a benefit, and is certainly not a reason to give them money.
fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago
Where are we going to manifest more teachers from? In the current labor market, there are a lot more openings than job-seekers. You can always get more people into a specific job by raising wages, but that mostly that’s just a bidding war that redistributes the labor shortage to whoever can afford the least. It can raise labor force participation, but there is not so much juice to squeeze there. Kind of like how higher home prices don’t fix a housing shortage. Historically the main way that labor productivity has been improved was through technology. Without that you get Baumol’s cost disease.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  You could use the people that are currently wasting their time on Zuckerberg's project, since he is laying them off anyway. In fact you could tax the money off Zuckerberg and then he would have to give up on other ridiculous personal projects like the multi- billion dollar metaverse shambles. That would free up loads of people who have wasted years of their lives as a billionaires play thing
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Lower gatekeeping requirements would solve it. Higher wages would solve the problem locally. Keeping gatekeeping requirements and increasing supply by paying for training and creating more training spaces. A % of education budget could be allotted to this yearly.
  - nradov 3y ago
    Many school districts with teacher shortages have already eliminated gatekeeping requirements. They will hire new teachers with just a relevant Bachelor's degree, then pay them while they obtain a proper teaching credential.
csa 3y ago
> Could we reproduce the effects of tutoring by getting rid of all the government contracts for school paraphernalia like smart boards and hiring lots of teachers while giving them reliable access to basic necessities? Very unlikely. We are short of good teachers as it is. Adding more teachers basically means you’re pulling from the bottom of the barrel, so overall instruction quality will decrease. Plus, lots of people don’t actually want to be educated, so no sense in broadly spending money on those folks (large percentage of the population).
- neilv 3y ago
  > Adding more teachers basically means you’re pulling from the bottom of the barrel, Ask the good teachers what would make the job more attractive to them. I can make wild guesses... * Better pay. (Seems 100% obvious to a techbro forum.) * Better administrations. * Better career flexibility. * No colleagues of the crappy variety. * Less curricula mandated by politicians. * Students taught well in prerequisite classes. * Families helped with difficulties that translate to behavior problems. * Covid sensitivity (e.g., no forbidding mask use in a classroom of germ factories during a pandemic). ...but you really have to ask the good teachers, not guess.
  - mehlmao 3y ago
    I would quit my job in an instant to become a high school teacher if the pay was better. But more than I want to teach, I want to be able to support my family. I save most of what I make in my tech job, and I'll look at becoming a teacher 20 years from now after the kids are on their own.
    - klipt 3y ago
      > I'll look at becoming a teacher 20 years from now after the kids are on their own. If you're leaning towards being a teacher, wouldn't it benefit your kids more to teach them now, while they're still young?
      - xp84 3y ago
__MatrixMan__ 3y ago
If you're looking reduce class sizes by hiring more teachers, you'll get further by scrutinizing the admin headcount and salaries.
- jimnotgym 3y ago
  I would like to see a citation, because that sounds like right wing propaganda to me.
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    All I can cite is my wife's boss, a teacher and very left wing, who nearly got fired for talking about it. I've been talking with him about maybe gathering the necessary data (it's available upon request but the district records people aren't exactly a sane API, you get PDF's with hundreds of pages). If I do that analysis to confirm his claim, I'll send you a link to it. But even without the budget information, we can just look at headcount. What ratio of teachers to admin would you consider unhealthy? How many assistants to the vice principal do there need to be before it starts to look like a retirement program for people who can't be bothered to teach anymore?
lacrimacida 3y ago
Can anyone explain how smartboards work, who creates the software, etc. My kid is in pre-k and he likes smart boards but i suspect that’s because of very limited screen time at home. Are smartbords detrimental in any way having that they’re not excessively used? I wish I could see them myself but am not allowed in the school.

Waterluvian 3y ago

Sometimes teachers actually want non-basic necessities like smart boards. We just need to give them what they want, not prescribe to them yet a different approach. I mentor a robotics team that’s attached to a set of high school courses. One of the best things I’ve seen when it comes to bureaucracy is that the three teachers who basically run those courses were handed a budget and bought exactly what they needed. A mitre saw, 3D printers, a plasma cutter, etc.

jpollock 3y ago

No? A smart board is $3000. Another teacher is $66,397. You can buy 20 boards per year for the _salary_ (ignoring benefits and other non-payroll costs) of a single teacher. https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-12-education/public-school-teacher-salary-average/ https://usafacts.org/data/topics/people-society/education/k-...

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
smeagull 3y ago
And? One has a negative effect, and the other a positive one.
jimnotgym 3y ago
Also interesting that $100m would have bought 1,506 teacher years. It makes me think that philanthropy doesn't work as well as some would make out. This is another example of rich people wasting money on things they know nothing about. If it had been paid in tax it could have been spent on more teachers by people who do know what they are doing. This would have had a real benefit for kids even with some degree of inefficiency and waste.
- ahupp 3y ago
  The closest large city to me is Oakland, which spent $750m on schools last year: https://oaklandside.org/2022/01/12/oakland-schools-are-facing-50m-in-cuts-here-are-some-budget-basics/ https://oaklandside.org/2022/01/12/oakland-schools-are-facin... So this cost 13% of one years spending in a mid-size district.
  - jimnotgym 3y ago
    Presumably there are a number of fixed costs in the $750m. That means the extra money might have disproportionate benefit.
- vasco 3y ago
  > This is another example of rich people wasting money on things they know nothing about. If it had been paid in tax it could have been spent on more teachers by people who do know what they are doing. On the other hand the rich person has a strong incentive to succeed - avoiding ridicule and getting more recognition. The public employee on the other hand gets no recognition, or ridicule, and is spending someone else's money. If we could combine the incentives of the rich person with the knowledge of the public workers that understand the programs that work, we could have something on our hands.
  - jimnotgym 3y ago
    > On the other hand the rich person has a strong incentive to succeed - avoiding ridicule and getting more recognition. I would argue that Zuckerberg couldn't care less what the world thinks of him. Otherwise he would have been rather embarrassed by the Meta project. I would put Elon Musk and X up as another example of a very rich person who seems unperturbed by ridicule. >The public employee on the other hand gets no recognition, or ridicule, So politicians don't have a need for recognition and to avoid ridicule?
- smeej 3y ago
  > people who do know what they're doing. What they're doing isn't working. Even they would tell you there's a results crisis. Children aren't learning. They certainly aren't becoming well-prepared for adult life in an efficient manner. They're barely even being supervised and kept out of trouble. The school-to-prison pipeline is getting worse, not better. These people may "know what they're doing," but they also know what they're doing isn't accomplishing the goals they have for it. Knowing how to do something that isn't working isn't a benefit, and is certainly not a reason to give them money.

fshbbdssbbgdd 3y ago

Where are we going to manifest more teachers from? In the current labor market, there are a lot more openings than job-seekers. You can always get more people into a specific job by raising wages, but that mostly that’s just a bidding war that redistributes the labor shortage to whoever can afford the least. It can raise labor force participation, but there is not so much juice to squeeze there. Kind of like how higher home prices don’t fix a housing shortage. Historically the main way that labor productivity has been improved was through technology. Without that you get Baumol’s cost disease.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jimnotgym 3y ago
You could use the people that are currently wasting their time on Zuckerberg's project, since he is laying them off anyway. In fact you could tax the money off Zuckerberg and then he would have to give up on other ridiculous personal projects like the multi- billion dollar metaverse shambles. That would free up loads of people who have wasted years of their lives as a billionaires play thing
ipaddr 3y ago
Lower gatekeeping requirements would solve it. Higher wages would solve the problem locally. Keeping gatekeeping requirements and increasing supply by paying for training and creating more training spaces. A % of education budget could be allotted to this yearly.
- nradov 3y ago
  Many school districts with teacher shortages have already eliminated gatekeeping requirements. They will hire new teachers with just a relevant Bachelor's degree, then pay them while they obtain a proper teaching credential.

csa 3y ago

> Could we reproduce the effects of tutoring by getting rid of all the government contracts for school paraphernalia like smart boards and hiring lots of teachers while giving them reliable access to basic necessities? Very unlikely. We are short of good teachers as it is. Adding more teachers basically means you’re pulling from the bottom of the barrel, so overall instruction quality will decrease. Plus, lots of people don’t actually want to be educated, so no sense in broadly spending money on those folks (large percentage of the population).

neilv 3y ago
> Adding more teachers basically means you’re pulling from the bottom of the barrel, Ask the good teachers what would make the job more attractive to them. I can make wild guesses... * Better pay. (Seems 100% obvious to a techbro forum.) * Better administrations. * Better career flexibility. * No colleagues of the crappy variety. * Less curricula mandated by politicians. * Students taught well in prerequisite classes. * Families helped with difficulties that translate to behavior problems. * Covid sensitivity (e.g., no forbidding mask use in a classroom of germ factories during a pandemic). ...but you really have to ask the good teachers, not guess.
- mehlmao 3y ago
  I would quit my job in an instant to become a high school teacher if the pay was better. But more than I want to teach, I want to be able to support my family. I save most of what I make in my tech job, and I'll look at becoming a teacher 20 years from now after the kids are on their own.
  - klipt 3y ago
    > I'll look at becoming a teacher 20 years from now after the kids are on their own. If you're leaning towards being a teacher, wouldn't it benefit your kids more to teach them now, while they're still young?
    - xp84 3y ago

__MatrixMan__ 3y ago

If you're looking reduce class sizes by hiring more teachers, you'll get further by scrutinizing the admin headcount and salaries.

jimnotgym 3y ago
I would like to see a citation, because that sounds like right wing propaganda to me.
- __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
  All I can cite is my wife's boss, a teacher and very left wing, who nearly got fired for talking about it. I've been talking with him about maybe gathering the necessary data (it's available upon request but the district records people aren't exactly a sane API, you get PDF's with hundreds of pages). If I do that analysis to confirm his claim, I'll send you a link to it. But even without the budget information, we can just look at headcount. What ratio of teachers to admin would you consider unhealthy? How many assistants to the vice principal do there need to be before it starts to look like a retirement program for people who can't be bothered to teach anymore?

lacrimacida 3y ago

Can anyone explain how smartboards work, who creates the software, etc. My kid is in pre-k and he likes smart boards but i suspect that’s because of very limited screen time at home. Are smartbords detrimental in any way having that they’re not excessively used? I wish I could see them myself but am not allowed in the school.