3 ms·

> If a private company was given the same 38k per student with the mandate “fix the graduation issue or you’re fired” the graduation rate would absolutely chang

by acdha 3y ago

> If a private company was given the same 38k per student with the mandate “fix the graduation issue or you’re fired” the graduation rate would absolutely change. Perhaps, but the better question is _how_ it would change. As we can see from the history of charter schools, typically that would happen by trying to cherry pick the least expensive, best performing students while excluding the most expensive. As a simple example, one thing which makes large school district costs higher is that public schools are required to have expensive staff to care for students’ health, mental health, and special needs. If you are running a private school, you immediately see a cost advantage if you can find a way to discourage students who need those services from enrolling. It’s illegal to say “no special needs kids” but if you’re careful you can effectively approach the same outcome without a high likelihood of being sued successfully.

AnthonyMouse 3y ago
So stop trying to pay the same amount for every student and instead explicitly allocate more money to students who are legally required to be provided with more services. If you're paying for it either way you might as well have an accurate line item in the budget and mitigate the perverse incentive.
- nullindividual 3y ago
  That's exactly what happens. Each student that requires special assistance will get additional funds allocated to the school.
  - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
    Then why would the charter schools avoid those students? They'd get more money. This would only not be the case if the funding isn't an accurate accounting of the costs.
    - vundercind 3y ago
      You also gave them a graduation rate mandate, that’s why. A school with half the funding full of healthy children of white collar professionals in the ‘burbs will graduate more kids than a school with full funding teaching kids who speak broken English, whose parents move them around a lot between schools because they’re not housing-secure, who don’t always eat breakfast or dinner, and who are on an IEP for a learning disorder. By far the easiest way to hit a graduation rate target is to try to take as few hard-to-teach kids as possible. The funding to make up the difference in difficulty is… I dunno, astronomical. Maybe pay for their family’s entire living expenses or something.
      - acdha 3y ago
        > The funding to make up the difference in difficulty is… I dunno, astronomical. Maybe pay for their family’s entire living expenses or something. Yeah, these days I lean towards housing as the root of a lot of these problems but that feels kind of that that “now draw the rest of the owl” joke. There’s so much pent up demand for affordable housing and each density improvement takes long enough that the kids affected today will probably be adults by the time we see improvements.
      - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
        > You also gave them a graduation rate mandate, that’s why. If some people take longer to learn things than others, you pretty much have two options. Either you teach them slower, and then accept that they're not going to graduate on time and those students aren't going to get a high school diploma until age 21. Or you teach them less, and relax the graduation requirement so they can graduate on time. Both of these are unpleasant, but you have to pick one or you get the default option where they flunk out and never graduate.
        dgfitz 3y ago
        At least in the US there is the concept of classes as denoted: AP, honors, standard. If I child can’t pass the standard class threshold, then fine, fail them. I imagine most of us remember being in high school and there was always that kid in _every_ class that gave the teacher a hard time, caused distractions, etc. There are, imho, two ways to handle that. Either drop the hammer on the kid, or do a home a visit. Or perhaps, both. If the home visit shows the kid is just a jerk, keep dropping the hammer. If the kid has a shit home life, I imagine that 38k/yr could be spent in much better ways.
- acdha 3y ago
  That would be my preferred option, too, especially if it allowed for things outside of school hours or locations more effectively, but it’d be a big change legally. School lunch is similar: arguably food insecurity should be dealt with separately but that’s a political minefield and so we have schools sending kids home with care packages over holidays because doing it directly is too hard to get through.

by acdha 3y ago

AnthonyMouse 3y ago

So stop trying to pay the same amount for every student and instead explicitly allocate more money to students who are legally required to be provided with more services. If you're paying for it either way you might as well have an accurate line item in the budget and mitigate the perverse incentive.

nullindividual 3y ago
That's exactly what happens. Each student that requires special assistance will get additional funds allocated to the school.
- AnthonyMouse 3y ago
  Then why would the charter schools avoid those students? They'd get more money. This would only not be the case if the funding isn't an accurate accounting of the costs.
  - vundercind 3y ago
    You also gave them a graduation rate mandate, that’s why. A school with half the funding full of healthy children of white collar professionals in the ‘burbs will graduate more kids than a school with full funding teaching kids who speak broken English, whose parents move them around a lot between schools because they’re not housing-secure, who don’t always eat breakfast or dinner, and who are on an IEP for a learning disorder. By far the easiest way to hit a graduation rate target is to try to take as few hard-to-teach kids as possible. The funding to make up the difference in difficulty is… I dunno, astronomical. Maybe pay for their family’s entire living expenses or something.
    - acdha 3y ago
      > The funding to make up the difference in difficulty is… I dunno, astronomical. Maybe pay for their family’s entire living expenses or something. Yeah, these days I lean towards housing as the root of a lot of these problems but that feels kind of that that “now draw the rest of the owl” joke. There’s so much pent up demand for affordable housing and each density improvement takes long enough that the kids affected today will probably be adults by the time we see improvements.
    - AnthonyMouse 3y ago
      > You also gave them a graduation rate mandate, that’s why. If some people take longer to learn things than others, you pretty much have two options. Either you teach them slower, and then accept that they're not going to graduate on time and those students aren't going to get a high school diploma until age 21. Or you teach them less, and relax the graduation requirement so they can graduate on time. Both of these are unpleasant, but you have to pick one or you get the default option where they flunk out and never graduate.
      - dgfitz 3y ago
        At least in the US there is the concept of classes as denoted: AP, honors, standard. If I child can’t pass the standard class threshold, then fine, fail them. I imagine most of us remember being in high school and there was always that kid in _every_ class that gave the teacher a hard time, caused distractions, etc. There are, imho, two ways to handle that. Either drop the hammer on the kid, or do a home a visit. Or perhaps, both. If the home visit shows the kid is just a jerk, keep dropping the hammer. If the kid has a shit home life, I imagine that 38k/yr could be spent in much better ways.
acdha 3y ago
That would be my preferred option, too, especially if it allowed for things outside of school hours or locations more effectively, but it’d be a big change legally. School lunch is similar: arguably food insecurity should be dealt with separately but that’s a political minefield and so we have schools sending kids home with care packages over holidays because doing it directly is too hard to get through.