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I prefer my kids going to school then being limited by what a single household can teach them. Modern schooling is way better then what conservative attacks on

by watwut 2y ago

I prefer my kids going to school then being limited by what a single household can teach them. Modern schooling is way better then what conservative attacks on it claim. And I would strongly preferred to live in a country with functional public school system then one without it.

theultdev 2y ago
I don't think you need to trust what "conservatives claim" when you see the test scores and literacy rates. American public schooling is and has been broken for awhile.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  There are many reasonable criticisms of modern public schooling, but the claim that's it's completely broken (and needs burnt to the ground, as many conservatives will claim) is hyperbole and unhelpful to making actual productive change. And the notion that private schooling (in general) is better is hard to believe. When we looked at private schools for our son, test scores and college admittance were only marginally higher and much of the gap was simple selection bias (private schools are not legally required to take all students, so don't deal with disabled, disadvantaged, or otherwise non-exceptional students). The only time private was substantially better was hyper-elite, hyper-expensive schools (Sidwell Friends, DC vs Paul VI, Fairfax vs the publics in FCPS).
- watwut 2y ago
  I did checked them. And while it is not perfect, it is not a massive horrible disaster conservatives like to make it. It is just not unfixably broken as it is called. Compared to Europe, it does fine, being above average or around there depending on the test. Also, America do tend to be country of extremes, so it has some very good public schools and some bad ones. Bad ones being in poor place. And it just so happen that the countries doing better tend to have less poverty and less issues related to it.
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Pretty much any teacher will tell you it's because parents aren't involved and treat school like daycare. When Mom and dad come home and veg out on their phones and TV after work, the kids learn that as well. The ones that succeed have parents that are involved with their schooling which is less and less likely these days. Teachers are quitting left and right because of it.
  - theultdev 2y ago
    Of course they would say that. Blaming the parents and kids is just a scapegoat. But yes, the kids that succeed are the ones that the parents are involved, because the teachers are useless. The quality of teachers has gone way down, especially since federal student loans. Anyone can become a teacher, it's a default path, and it shows.
    - bongodongobob 2y ago
      You're part of the problem and know nothing of the shift that these teachers have seen over the last 30 years.
      - theultdev 2y ago
        I've experienced terrible teachers (especially math teachers) and had to teach myself. I've seen good schools crumble due to terrible policies and teachers. You're enabling the problem by apologizing for these poor performing teachers. Literally all of 8th grade was learning how to count to 10 in other languages and some stupid cross-stitching art. In Math!!! Luckily I learned through programming on my own time, but once you're behind from one shitty math teacher, it's hard to catch up.
        bongodongobob 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago
ty6853 2y ago
The main conservative complaint is that without competition for your tax money, public schools are at best a democraticly controlled monopoly with captive consumers. Middle grounds like keeping public schools but let them compete with private ones, using vouchers, for whatever reason reaches this contrived argument of certain interests being scared that a parent may decide another school is a better pick for their child's voucher. If public schools are best parents will be happy to select them, so why not find out?
- MITSardine 2y ago
  "public schools are at best a democraticly controlled monopoly with captive consumers" Public schools are not companies with a monopoly, nor do they have consumers, these are very loaded terms. Do you speak of all infrastructure in this way? Do you say the police have consumers? Or the firefighters a monopoly on putting out fires? Roads a monopoly on letting cars drive over them? This world view that everything relates to money first and foremost, lives on markets, only improves by competition, should justify its existence in some measurable wealth producing way is very dangerous in my opinion, because not everything can work this way. Public service has to be unprofitable in many cases, its first mission is to bring a service to the population, not to compete with the private sector. I once visited Maripasoula, a <10k pop town in the middle of the Amazon only accessible by river or small (10-20 passenger) propeller plane. I was fascinated to see it has: a post office (that doubles as a bank), a modern high school with dorms, firefighters and a police station. No private sector actor is going to provide any such service to this population in these conditions. These services do not improve by competition, because there can be none, yet they exist and work well. Crazy, that. Where there is a mix of private and public, the private sector only services where (be it location or target population wise) it is most profitable and leaves the rest to the public sector to fend with. That does not in itself indicate it functions better, only that it only goes for the lowest hanging fruit by essence of why it exists: to maximize profit. The private sector is not in the business of making its life complicated, the end goal of any company is to provide the least possible for the highest price possible. In the case of schooling, private schools' only merit is being inaccessible to the poorer populations, hence giving kids a network that sits higher on the social ladder. Generalize this and you find that it no longer brings anything worthwhile to the table, except for those with arbitrary educational constraints such as religious ones. Not that this "benefit" is particularly defensible to begin with.
andrepd 2y ago
Exactly. Education has a long long way to improve, but the alternative to mediocre public schooling is better public schooling, not homeschool which is even worse than a mediocre school.
- johngladtj 2y ago
  We have the data. Homeschooling outcomes are better. This isn't up in the air, we know the answer.
  - andrepd 2y ago
    I would love to see "the data" you're alluding to because everything I've read points to the opposite.
cosmic_cheese 2y ago
Yeah as someone who was homeschooled, I don’t know that I would ever attempt it myself. I’m simply not qualified to teach a whole lot beyond the most bare of basics, except in the narrow band representing my experience and interests. To act otherwise would constitute an embarrassing level of hubris on my part. There’s a lot of good in modern schooling. It’s not perfect, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater as is so frequently proposed is not the solution here.

by watwut 2y ago

theultdev 2y ago

I don't think you need to trust what "conservatives claim" when you see the test scores and literacy rates. American public schooling is and has been broken for awhile.

alistairSH 2y ago
There are many reasonable criticisms of modern public schooling, but the claim that's it's completely broken (and needs burnt to the ground, as many conservatives will claim) is hyperbole and unhelpful to making actual productive change. And the notion that private schooling (in general) is better is hard to believe. When we looked at private schools for our son, test scores and college admittance were only marginally higher and much of the gap was simple selection bias (private schools are not legally required to take all students, so don't deal with disabled, disadvantaged, or otherwise non-exceptional students). The only time private was substantially better was hyper-elite, hyper-expensive schools (Sidwell Friends, DC vs Paul VI, Fairfax vs the publics in FCPS).
watwut 2y ago
I did checked them. And while it is not perfect, it is not a massive horrible disaster conservatives like to make it. It is just not unfixably broken as it is called. Compared to Europe, it does fine, being above average or around there depending on the test. Also, America do tend to be country of extremes, so it has some very good public schools and some bad ones. Bad ones being in poor place. And it just so happen that the countries doing better tend to have less poverty and less issues related to it.
bongodongobob 2y ago
Pretty much any teacher will tell you it's because parents aren't involved and treat school like daycare. When Mom and dad come home and veg out on their phones and TV after work, the kids learn that as well. The ones that succeed have parents that are involved with their schooling which is less and less likely these days. Teachers are quitting left and right because of it.
- theultdev 2y ago
  Of course they would say that. Blaming the parents and kids is just a scapegoat. But yes, the kids that succeed are the ones that the parents are involved, because the teachers are useless. The quality of teachers has gone way down, especially since federal student loans. Anyone can become a teacher, it's a default path, and it shows.
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    You're part of the problem and know nothing of the shift that these teachers have seen over the last 30 years.
    - theultdev 2y ago
      I've experienced terrible teachers (especially math teachers) and had to teach myself. I've seen good schools crumble due to terrible policies and teachers. You're enabling the problem by apologizing for these poor performing teachers. Literally all of 8th grade was learning how to count to 10 in other languages and some stupid cross-stitching art. In Math!!! Luckily I learned through programming on my own time, but once you're behind from one shitty math teacher, it's hard to catch up.
      - bongodongobob 2y ago
        [flagged]
        2y ago

ty6853 2y ago

The main conservative complaint is that without competition for your tax money, public schools are at best a democraticly controlled monopoly with captive consumers. Middle grounds like keeping public schools but let them compete with private ones, using vouchers, for whatever reason reaches this contrived argument of certain interests being scared that a parent may decide another school is a better pick for their child's voucher. If public schools are best parents will be happy to select them, so why not find out?

MITSardine 2y ago
"public schools are at best a democraticly controlled monopoly with captive consumers" Public schools are not companies with a monopoly, nor do they have consumers, these are very loaded terms. Do you speak of all infrastructure in this way? Do you say the police have consumers? Or the firefighters a monopoly on putting out fires? Roads a monopoly on letting cars drive over them? This world view that everything relates to money first and foremost, lives on markets, only improves by competition, should justify its existence in some measurable wealth producing way is very dangerous in my opinion, because not everything can work this way. Public service has to be unprofitable in many cases, its first mission is to bring a service to the population, not to compete with the private sector. I once visited Maripasoula, a <10k pop town in the middle of the Amazon only accessible by river or small (10-20 passenger) propeller plane. I was fascinated to see it has: a post office (that doubles as a bank), a modern high school with dorms, firefighters and a police station. No private sector actor is going to provide any such service to this population in these conditions. These services do not improve by competition, because there can be none, yet they exist and work well. Crazy, that. Where there is a mix of private and public, the private sector only services where (be it location or target population wise) it is most profitable and leaves the rest to the public sector to fend with. That does not in itself indicate it functions better, only that it only goes for the lowest hanging fruit by essence of why it exists: to maximize profit. The private sector is not in the business of making its life complicated, the end goal of any company is to provide the least possible for the highest price possible. In the case of schooling, private schools' only merit is being inaccessible to the poorer populations, hence giving kids a network that sits higher on the social ladder. Generalize this and you find that it no longer brings anything worthwhile to the table, except for those with arbitrary educational constraints such as religious ones. Not that this "benefit" is particularly defensible to begin with.

andrepd 2y ago

Exactly. Education has a long long way to improve, but the alternative to mediocre public schooling is better public schooling, not homeschool which is even worse than a mediocre school.

johngladtj 2y ago
We have the data. Homeschooling outcomes are better. This isn't up in the air, we know the answer.
- andrepd 2y ago
  I would love to see "the data" you're alluding to because everything I've read points to the opposite.

cosmic_cheese 2y ago

Yeah as someone who was homeschooled, I don’t know that I would ever attempt it myself. I’m simply not qualified to teach a whole lot beyond the most bare of basics, except in the narrow band representing my experience and interests. To act otherwise would constitute an embarrassing level of hubris on my part. There’s a lot of good in modern schooling. It’s not perfect, but throwing out the baby with the bathwater as is so frequently proposed is not the solution here.