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Go look at the education system and standards in Finland, then see if you still hold that view. Also, your use of the word retard as an epithet in this context
by ktizo 14y ago
Go look at the education system and standards in Finland, then see if you still hold that view.
Also, your use of the word retard as an epithet in this context probably means that your views on education policy should be treated with the utmost suspicion, at best.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoIt is my general view that it's crazy to spend 2-3x as much as normal on a kid who will never achieve anything beyond bagger at Walmart. How clever, you caught me. If you want to apply the ad-hominem fallacy on this basis to dismiss an unrelated point, be my guest.
- ktizo 14y agoIt is my general view that it's crazy to spend 2-3x as much as normal on a kid who will never achieve anything beyond bagger at Walmart. So how do you know in advance that a given kid will never achieve anything?
- anthonyb 14y agoEarly education and intervention saves a ton of money in the long term.
- barry-cotter 14y ago(Citation needed) To be slightly less flip at some point you reach the point of duminishing returns where the money could do more good elsewhere. Also, the overwhelming majority of education interventions don't scale.
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoI think the parent made a very obvious point. Correctional facilities (i.e. prisons) are much more expensive than decent public education up front; and this primarily applies to troubled students.
- anthonyb 14y agoOr even just in allowing people to live in the community, and earn a wage (even if it's a subsidised one) rather than needing to be institutionalised or have round the clock care (the original context was yummyfajitas' use of the word 'retard'). And there's the other point - do you really want to live in such a dog-eat-dog society?
- seanmcdirmid 14y agoI totally agree. Actually, I only didn't make that point because the benefits productive/happy members of society are less obvious. So what if some of these kids become baggers at WalMart? That is much better than someone who can't live on their own or hold any job down at all.
- prodigal_erik 14y agoThe next official term will inevitably become another epithet. Moving further along the euphemism treadmill doesn't change whether the underlying idea is right or wrong.
- ktizo 14y agoOk, the underlying idea seems to be that it is highly beneficial to have segregated schools based on ability. However, if we look at the global ratings for education, this does not seem to be the case, otherwise countries such as Denmark and Finland would not be doing so well. That said, I think that the largest effects would seem to be having high educational standards required to be a teacher, coupled to a high degree of autonomy to do their jobs and a massive public budget for resources across all levels of education, from kindergarten, right the way through adulthood. If you have that covered then you can get good results and have streaming based on ability, if you like.
- yummyfajitas 14y agoThe US outperforms Denmark educationally after adjusting for one of the bigger predictors of student quality, by roughly the same margin that Finland outperforms the US. http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-about-pisa-scores-usa.html http://super-economy.blogspot.com/2010/12/amazing-truth-abou... If we want to cherry-pick some more, Germany performs well (marginally better than the US and far better than Denmark) and does segregate schools based on ability.
- ktizo 14y agoI see, so you think the education problem in america is down to people who aren't descended from europeans dragging the side down. You know, you could make exactly the same argument with income if you like and then argue that the figures would be higher if it wasn't for all the poor people.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago