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Go speak to 10 new teachers at charter schools in poor neighborhoods. Get the fuck out of your own head. The "charter schools" are scamming us for tax dollars.

Go speak to 10 new teachers at charter schools in poor neighborhoods. Get the fuck out of your own head. The "charter schools" are scamming us for tax dollars. They hire fresh grads, tell them to make a lesson plan for the year, and that's about it. The schools often don't last more than a couple years. People are greedy. We don't need to regulate a solution. KISSSSSSS

ndriscoll 2y ago
My sister went to a charter school until around 5th grade until IIRC she became too stressed out with the work load. I remember my mom telling me that when they switched to normal public school, it was essentially like moving 2-3 years back (which is pretty bad when you're only in elementary school), and she pretty much phoned it in from then on. My experience with public k-12 was that AP chemistry was the only time I remember actually having to put in any effort at all, and I took almost all of the honors/AP classes I could. So maybe some charters are a scam. Others are vastly more rigorous than their neighboring public schools. Some public schools offer essentially no education (are the public schools in those same poor neighborhoods any good?). Again, it's not obvious that giving parents some choice means outcomes must be worse. You could still hold charters to the same low bar public schools are held to for standardized tests. Charters also select for more involved parents by nature of not being the default, so you would a priori expect them to outperform just from that.
- whoitwas 2y ago
  i suggested you investigate charter schools in poor neighborhoods. they're the scams.
  - __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
    They're both scams, just targeting different market segments. The ones in rich neighborhoods are trying to create this prestige/competition environment which excludes anybody who is going to be hard to teach. They're acting as a filter for latent talent / parents that are motivated to help teach. Perhaps some growth happens along the way, but that's not the goal. By contrast, if you accept everybody then growth has to be a goal. You can't just push out the challenging students to improve your performance against whatever metrics you selected for yourself.
    - whoitwas 2y ago
      I completely agree, but silver spoon idiots don't get it and need hand holding.
    - ndriscoll 2y ago
      If you filter for kids that are able to learn at a faster pace, and then expect them to perform at a faster pace (as in you actually teach them more), I'm not seeing where the scam is. It sounds like they're serving a group of students that normal schools don't. It's also bizarre to characterize that as "some growth" incidentally happening; the schools challenge their kids more, and the kids grow more. It's very much an explicit reason people choose them. The alternative is those kids with latent talent/supportive parents sit in classes with other kids where they repeat the same material for 8+ years, and the only thing they grow is resentment for their peers and the adults that put them into that situation.
      - whoitwas 2y ago
        You're literally just pulling shit from your ass. There's no data only anecdotes.
        ndriscoll 2y ago
        You literally agreed with the assertion that rich schools "are trying to create this prestige/competition environment which excludes anybody who is going to be hard to teach". That's agreeing factually with what I'm saying; I'm just saying that that (separating out the kids that will learn at a higher pace and teaching them at an appropriate pace) is a totally reasonable thing to do. "You're only able to teach kids more because they're the kids that will actually learn" isn't some gotcha. It's the point. Those kids are otherwise neglected. If public schools were still willing to hold kids to some standard, parents wouldn't be looking for alternatives. And the point of charters or vouchers is to make that more accessible to lower income people, as opposed to today's system where private schools (which in general outperform public in almost every way) exclude most people based on cost rather than aptitude or work ethic. The school my sister went to is in a median-priced neighborhood, for example. Middle class people would like a high-quality education too.
- whoitwas 2y ago
  Consider this: If we try to reinvent it like with charter schools, then we need endless regulations to prevent scams because people are greedy and act in bad faith. Rather than make government huge and try to prevent tax grift, we could just have what's always worked and is proven. Why are we shifting toward private schools? Because of regulatory capture.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    I have to say this is probably the first time I've ever seen someone argue that public schools have always worked and are proven, and that by contrast private schools are prone to have quality issues. The more usual thing you hear is something like [0], which is something I can't personally attest to or anything, but I've seen it expressed on places like /r/teachers as well. If true and at all common, then that sounds to me like public schools have given up entirely. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42389598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42389598
    - whoitwas 2y ago
      I'm dumbfounded. Our country has always primarily educated people in public schools just as our contemporary first world countries do. The problems with public education started with "no child left behind" and the odd system of giving less money to under performing schools.

ndriscoll 2y ago

My sister went to a charter school until around 5th grade until IIRC she became too stressed out with the work load. I remember my mom telling me that when they switched to normal public school, it was essentially like moving 2-3 years back (which is pretty bad when you're only in elementary school), and she pretty much phoned it in from then on. My experience with public k-12 was that AP chemistry was the only time I remember actually having to put in any effort at all, and I took almost all of the honors/AP classes I could. So maybe some charters are a scam. Others are vastly more rigorous than their neighboring public schools. Some public schools offer essentially no education (are the public schools in those same poor neighborhoods any good?). Again, it's not obvious that giving parents some choice means outcomes must be worse. You could still hold charters to the same low bar public schools are held to for standardized tests. Charters also select for more involved parents by nature of not being the default, so you would a priori expect them to outperform just from that.

whoitwas 2y ago
i suggested you investigate charter schools in poor neighborhoods. they're the scams.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y ago
  They're both scams, just targeting different market segments. The ones in rich neighborhoods are trying to create this prestige/competition environment which excludes anybody who is going to be hard to teach. They're acting as a filter for latent talent / parents that are motivated to help teach. Perhaps some growth happens along the way, but that's not the goal. By contrast, if you accept everybody then growth has to be a goal. You can't just push out the challenging students to improve your performance against whatever metrics you selected for yourself.
  - whoitwas 2y ago
    I completely agree, but silver spoon idiots don't get it and need hand holding.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    If you filter for kids that are able to learn at a faster pace, and then expect them to perform at a faster pace (as in you actually teach them more), I'm not seeing where the scam is. It sounds like they're serving a group of students that normal schools don't. It's also bizarre to characterize that as "some growth" incidentally happening; the schools challenge their kids more, and the kids grow more. It's very much an explicit reason people choose them. The alternative is those kids with latent talent/supportive parents sit in classes with other kids where they repeat the same material for 8+ years, and the only thing they grow is resentment for their peers and the adults that put them into that situation.
    - whoitwas 2y ago
      You're literally just pulling shit from your ass. There's no data only anecdotes.
      - ndriscoll 2y ago
        You literally agreed with the assertion that rich schools "are trying to create this prestige/competition environment which excludes anybody who is going to be hard to teach". That's agreeing factually with what I'm saying; I'm just saying that that (separating out the kids that will learn at a higher pace and teaching them at an appropriate pace) is a totally reasonable thing to do. "You're only able to teach kids more because they're the kids that will actually learn" isn't some gotcha. It's the point. Those kids are otherwise neglected. If public schools were still willing to hold kids to some standard, parents wouldn't be looking for alternatives. And the point of charters or vouchers is to make that more accessible to lower income people, as opposed to today's system where private schools (which in general outperform public in almost every way) exclude most people based on cost rather than aptitude or work ethic. The school my sister went to is in a median-priced neighborhood, for example. Middle class people would like a high-quality education too.
whoitwas 2y ago
Consider this: If we try to reinvent it like with charter schools, then we need endless regulations to prevent scams because people are greedy and act in bad faith. Rather than make government huge and try to prevent tax grift, we could just have what's always worked and is proven. Why are we shifting toward private schools? Because of regulatory capture.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  I have to say this is probably the first time I've ever seen someone argue that public schools have always worked and are proven, and that by contrast private schools are prone to have quality issues. The more usual thing you hear is something like [0], which is something I can't personally attest to or anything, but I've seen it expressed on places like /r/teachers as well. If true and at all common, then that sounds to me like public schools have given up entirely. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42389598 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42389598
  - whoitwas 2y ago
    I'm dumbfounded. Our country has always primarily educated people in public schools just as our contemporary first world countries do. The problems with public education started with "no child left behind" and the odd system of giving less money to under performing schools.