6 ms·

This doesn't surprise me at all. From what I can tell, California's education system has moved from "equality" (which I would define as providing similar oppor

by hedora 5mo ago

This doesn't surprise me at all. From what I can tell, California's education system has moved from "equality" (which I would define as providing similar opportunities to all the kids) to focusing on "equity" (which I think they define as dictating the same outcome for all kids). To get an idea of how off the rails this has gotten, go read up on their statements trying to justify banning high school calculus. They explicitly (in the abstract / introduction of their plan) reject the idea that some kids are more talented at some things than other kids, so if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination benefiting you or something. On a related note, instead of writing some Rust code, today, I think I'll go paint a Banksy or something after I finish my coffee. That plan caused a lot of uproar and was blocked before being implemented. Anecdotally, when I asked our local public school for a copy of the curriculum, the teacher said they just teach common core. If you go to the common core website, somewhere towards the top it makes it clear that it is not a curriculum, and just meant to be a lower bar that gets supplemented. Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district. Those schools would also not be paid unless the students do well in the next phase of their education. This solves the problem of trying to use this as a curriculum back door for climate denial and Islamophobia (or whatever the red states are pushing).

ryandrake 5mo ago
Measuring (and funding) schools based on student outcome is fraught because a student's performance / preparedness for the "next level" is not entirely a function of the school. There are other significant parameters, including parental upbringing, home life stability, neighborhood safety, friends, hunger/nutrition, various trauma and abuse, the list goes on. I'm sure it's been studied, but I'd bet "school quality" is not even close to number 1 on the list of predictors of educational outcome.
- hedora 5mo ago
  This is true. There are safeguards (that are currently failing) that my program would engage: - The state is legally required to provide those kids with an education. - There is funding allocated to help those districts. If "we will not pay you if the kids do not learn" means there are zero schools in those districts then (1) the state government will get sued for not doing its job (because closing 100% of the schools makes the failure objective and obvious) and (2) it will have to update those funding formulas so that it is possible for some school (state run, or private) to break even while providing an education in those areas.
  - gausswho 5mo ago
    With sympathy to your appeal that 100% closures will force us to reckon with the problem, I suspect it'd only lead to missing the forest for the trees. This would come with substantial pains to the community. Potentially ones that knock-on to other pains. You're at the root of why this is a tricky problem to solve. In fact there is no solution, just a wide basket of expensive things we should aspire to do to improve affairs.
    - hedora 5mo ago
      What pain, exactly? - The local public school goes from 80 kids per grade to 40, and a new school opens across the street or just rents an existing building from the existing school district. - Funding stays flat, and academic performance goes up. - Administrators get to decide which teachers to lay off, and they will be de facto fired if they get rid of the high performers while keeping the low performers. - If the union contracts make it impossible to retain the high-performers, then the school eventually shuts down, and teachers that are competitive on the job market get hired by the new school for similar pay / benefits. - Teachers at the new school get evaluated on whether they do their job, and the new administrators have a strong financial incentive to use performance-based evaluation instead of seniority / nepotism / whatever. I see no downside whatsoever.
      - gausswho 5mo ago
MeetingsBrowser 5mo ago
> I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This seems problematic. Students' success isn't entirely up to the school. Some areas genuinely need more resources than others. This system punishes areas that need more resources with by removing resources, likely causing a downward spiral. A generation of kids is left with poor education before the schools eventually close, and then who wants to start a school in an area that has historically struggled when funding depends on them succeeding? Based on happenings in other states, when public schools close the schools that take their place are from well funded groups who care more about spreading ideologies than running successful or profitable schools.
- hedora 5mo ago
  The function isn't "winner takes all". It's a claw back after objective failure. California already spends tons of extra money on stuff like special ed, and struggling districts. I wouldn't touch that. So, if there's a high school in a struggling area and it's graduating kids that can't do 7th grade math, then that opens up funding for charters in that area at 150% state average per student, or whatever the current formula us.
jeffbee 5mo ago
I doubt that you can point to a high school which banned calculus. My guess is that you are referring to a political fight in San Francisco where a very specific racial/ethnic cohort of parents believes that one of the high schools is a Berkeley/Stanford acceptance funnel reserved for them, and they got mad when the government decided to spread the wealth. From my perspective, there has never been any dumber debate than whether 9th grade math is called "Math" or "Algebra". My kids went to high school in Berkeley where Math is just called Math in grades 9-11 and after that you can take AP Calculus or AP Statistics if you want. And this is not Woke 1.0 stuff because the courses have been named that way forever.
- hedora 5mo ago
  They planned to do it state wide. The ban was blocked. It did not happen. However, you can read the proposal if you want to see what sort of reasoning leads to "UC is admitting students to STEM majors, then finding out the students are not prepared for pre-algebra".
- scarmig 5mo ago
  The revisionism here is astounding. Yes, San Francisco eliminated algebra for all 8th graders in public schools. It was not a simple rename. Parents sent their kids to supplementary private classes that taught the same curriculum as the old algebra class did, and it was not a redundant recap of the new not-algebra class. I understand the motivation to deny that San Francisco banned middle school algebra: it's embarrassing, and it was disastrous for student outcomes. But it was a very real thing. (The Lowell debate was a separate thing: should an academic-focused magnet school be able to use a standardized test to determine proficiency? Or should it be a lottery?)
pseudalopex 5mo ago
They defined equity as Fair outcomes, treatment, and opportunities for all students.[1] [1] https://www.cde.ca.gov/qs/ea/ https://www.cde.ca.gov/qs/ea/
- avidiax 5mo ago
  What is a "fair" outcome? Is it easier to hold back talented students with a low bar or push untalented ones to a higher bar?
  - z3c0 5mo ago
    The conundrum of "equality of outcome" vs "equality of opportunity" hinges on that core question. It's weird, and possible contradictory, to see a policy claiming to attempt both. Most would define a "fair" opportunity as everyone getting the same chances to succeed, but a "fair" outcome would segment on merit. If angling towards fair outcomes, there's usually less uproar over lifting the floor (e.g financial aid), versus lowering the ceiling (e.g. limitations on admissions based on ethnic or financial background).
    - hedora 5mo ago
      A much better policy would be to raise the floor and not pay attention to equality of outcome. If the worst school in 2036 California is better than the average school in 2026, then that's an obvious win. (That goal is completely achievable -- only about a third of California students are grade-level proficient right now.)
      - z3c0 5mo ago
        Raising the floor is an equality of outcome. It is arguably equality of oppprtunity too, but only when ignoring intergenerational wealth as a factor. Your kids affordíng school is your outcome, their oppprtúnity.
  - redsocksfan45 5mo ago
    [dead]
mc32 5mo ago
The results were predictable and predicted but politicians, state and local went whole hog on equity. That along with NCLB results on this catastrophe. We’re finally seeing some needed pushback. You can’t just hand out As to everyone and pass everyone as it’s a kindergarten assignment and then expect excellence. You’re teaching people who will become adults and you’re shortchanging them on skills if you don’t require proficiency. It’s also unfair to apt students who put in the time to learn and do well. I can’t believe they actually went so far as to dismantle the little haven for achievement that was Lowell high school in SF by getting rid of GPA and entrance exams for a few years. Eventually furious alumni got that idiocy overturned but it should have never happened. We’re also seeing higher ed address grade inflation by capping As at some institutions of renown.
confidantlake 5mo ago
The most important factor isn't the schools, it is the kids themselves.
- hedora 5mo ago
  California used to have the best schools in the country, and roughly a third of our urban population is Silicon Valley. It's home to the largest economy in the US by a large margin, and is one of the richest states. Yet, somehow, for math: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&st=MN&year=2015R3 https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=... the only states/territories doing worse at math are DC, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Alabama. I'm not sure what Alabama's excuse is, but the other three entries on that list have obvious economic problems (only low income urban, failed power grid, literally blowing away due to climate change).
  - watwut 5mo ago
    Silicon Valley is also the place of serious homeless problem. "The economy" as an abstractions is not what matters - the economy here is some people being super rich while others increasingly outside of good options.
    - hedora 5mo ago
      That's due to unrelated intentional mismanagement by state and local governments. Just build enough market rate housing to house the local population, and the issue will solve itself. "Affordable housing" is a trap for buyers, builders, and policy makers: - If you buy an affordable housing unit, then when you sell it, you have to charge based on a formula that will be way below the normal appreciation in your area. Basically, the money you put into the house was a sunk investment that's guaranteed to under-perform anything else you could have put it into. You're much better off getting a fixer-upper condo, or just renting + putting the money in an ETF.) - If you build an affordable housing unit, then the rest of your development project becomes less profitable. Once the project is approved, you're foolishly tying up capital that could have been used to fund additional developments in other states. Also, the affordable housing approval process is slow and politically fraught. While that happens, you're holding a piece of land (and paying interest on it) that might turn out to be worthless, depending on the outcome of local politics. (If you don't believe me, next time you're driving around Silicon Valley, count "proposed development" signs, and categorize them by "badly weathered" or "brand new". "Badly weathered" means someone has been paying a mortgage on the (probably $10's-100's M) field behind the sign for at least a year. They're not paying home mortgage rates for that. It's probably 7-10% interest. That $700K-10M that could have been used to actually build houses. - If your local government is subsidizing affordable housing, then they're misallocating resources. They could have used that money to expedite permit applications, improve public transit, add bike trails, build parks, increase freeway access or invest in other public goods that make the area more attractive to residents. Those things have a much higher payoff per dollar. Also, the local government has a monopoly on them. By opting to not do them, they are causing economic damage that cannot be routed around by the private sector. Of course, there's also the question of deciding who gets the public funds, and all the corruption and backroom dealing inherent in that process.
deleted 5mo ago
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julianeon 5mo ago
> Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This has the unintended consequence of encouraging schools to eject students who are struggling. For example, if the student has a learning disability, declare that it's too serious for them to handle, and then transfer them to a school that theoretically can. The system gets gamified and the "top" schools are just ones that reject, socioeconomically, every student who can't pay for tutoring or full-time care, which is a very technical form of "excellence".
- daedrdev 5mo ago
  The current situation, where students succeed regardless if they completely failed to learn and do zero work is also pretty bad
- hedora 5mo ago
  Public school districts cannot expel students in California.
  - toshinoriyagi 5mo ago
    No, but they can transfer them, which is what the comment you replied to was worried about. My partner used to be an elementary school teacher and frequently complained about the school she worked at. The district transferred a large percentage of students with IEPs (individualized education program, a plan for special care/resources for students with disabilities, often related to poor behavior) from other schools in the district to hers. Her school did not have adequate resources to handle these students, so they always had multiple students with severe behavioral issues that should have been in a dedicated classroom with a special education trained teacher, but were just in regular teachers' classes. Naturally, the teachers were burnt out from working with too many challenging kids they were not trained to take care of and the other students had worse learning outcomes.
- Bratmon 5mo ago
  I think the answer to this is that schooling/care for people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to succeed in normal school should be a totally different budget with different success criteria than the budget for normal school. There are two different and contradictory goals here- the current dynamic where every gain for one is a loss for the other creates a ton of bad outcomes across the board.
throwaway5752 5mo ago
The people working on this aren't idiots. There are people who see massive business opportunities for enriching themselves in privatizing the education system. Some of there points are reasonable, and sometimes they are frauds. Either way, they lobby hard and have a lot of generally Republican politicians in their pockets. Also, teacher pay is terrible in comparison to the job stress and - reasonably and expected - educational requirements. The education system is trying to deal with a probably that is out of their control, the increasing wealth stratification in the US, while fending off adversaries that with both good and bad intentioned reasons are trying to undermine the institutions of public education. At the same time, we have a totally new societal threat in social media. If you haven't read "Careless People", read it. You seem societies around the world locking social media away from kids on the advice of professional groups of educators, pediatricians, and psychologists. There are hordes of irresponsible and negligent parents whose kids are barely functional, and working their way through the educational pipeline. There is no easy fix here that anyone is missing. In a democracy, this is an existential national crisis, as we are all seeing in real time. edit: don't ask me who is working on this. It just tells me you are unserious and just complaining. Try google. Hundreds of thousands of people are working on this. Please elaborate on your disagreement with teachers groups (NEA, AFT), the prior administration (American Rescue Plan), or the current administration (ECCA). Or disagreements with AmeriCorps or NPSS as private volunteer service groups groups. Or disagreements with private education advocates (CAPE, NAIS). You may not like all the administrators and principals and teachers as individuals working on it in the system, or PTA organizations outside the system. I could go on all day. But these people are all seriously concerned about the problem, even though they may disagree in areas - you are not special in awareness of this issue.
- hedora 5mo ago
  Who's working on this? I think there are some pretty obvious easy fixes, at least for California: Find a library that still has a copy of the educational plan California used back in the 1970's, and do that. At the time, we had the best schools in the country. The state is much richer and has much higher income/sales tax rates now than it did back then. I think that should more than make up for the Prop 13 funding disaster, though it might mean moving some cash around in the state budget.
999900000999 5mo ago
>Those schools would also not be paid unless the students do well in the next phase of their education The teachers would just fill in the tests for the students. This has already happened in some places. The bigger macro economic issues would probably be the collapse of the middle class, rampant housing and food insecurity. Hirerarcy of needs and all that. Anyway with The Republicans going out of their way to restrict student visas it's unclear where our next generation of high achivers is going to come from. We sure aren't raising them here.
- hedora 5mo ago
  > The teachers would just fill in the tests for the students. Fraud is illegal. If the law isn't going to be enforced, then trying to fix the law is useless. I agree about food insecurity. Nationally, it's worse now than it was during COVID. California actually made some good progress on that a few years ago: https://www.cafoodbanks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SB1383_Overview.pdf https://www.cafoodbanks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SB138... I haven't checked food insecurity rates since then, but you may have noticed that food collection barrels have become rare around the holidays. At least for a few years, the food banks in Silicon Valley were truck-constrained, not food-constrained, so those barrels weren't worth the effort.
  - 999900000999 5mo ago
    You’re putting a lot of otherwise good people, teachers of low income students, into a very bad situation. Many would just quit, and among those who stayed what are the options ? Get fired when the school is shutdown for under performing. Fill in tests for students. If we use programming as an example, the best tech manager on earth can’t get a bunch of random people to write production ready code in a month ( maybe JS, but not Rust). Public schools can’t pick and choose students. Charters sorta can. If I ran the school system I’d set up *paid* apprenticeship to job programs in high schools. Actually get these kids real careers. You SHOULD be able to afford an apartment with a high school degree.
kubb 5mo ago
Why do you even need higher education if you can brain drain educated people from India?
- throwaway613746 5mo ago
  [dead]
- alex_suzuki 5mo ago
  Why so complicated? I thought the idea was to rent intelligence from OpenAI.
Catloafdev 5mo ago
This is absurdly problematic. Your solution is basically handicapping the schools with kids that perform worse and then potentially closing them? That doesn't solve the problem, this is just pro-Charter School propaganda that ignores the real-world effects of these positions. You've identified a real issue with the 'equality' vs 'equity' concept, that doesn't lead to 'Close public schools and switch everything to Charter schools', that's an absurd conclusion.
- f13f1f1f1 5mo ago
  [flagged]
  - empath75 5mo ago
    It sounds like you have some particular groups in mind.
  - watwut 5mo ago
    The actual alternative is to provide resources to schools that are in bad areas. And to provide resources for people in those areas themselves.
    - pelagicAustral 5mo ago
      Because there is such good precedents that providing unlimited resources to troubled areas actually fix problems.
    - JCTheDenthog 5mo ago
      The results from Abbott Districts in New Jersey would suggest that increased funding and resources does little if anything to improve results. Abbott Districts in New Jersey have been getting funding at roughly the same level or higher as the wealthiest districts in the state since 1990, and they have nothing to show for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district The difference in math proficiency for Abbott students vs. non-Abbott students has stayed roughly the same, while thr language proficiency gap has actually increased.
deleted 5mo ago
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jackmott42 5mo ago
In countries where students perform better, they do the opposite of your plan. Resources are pumped into the failing schools to get them to do better. You seem to be just arguing for even more privatization in American which is awful, the kids that are failing have parents that won't be paying for good education or setting up schools. They won't bother with it at all if it isn't public and required.
- akramachamarei 5mo ago
  > the kids that are failing have parents that won't be paying for good education As in, they would be spending their vouchers on things besides education? Because typically when people speak of privatizing education it means creating a marketplace of educators which parents select and buy with publicly funded vouchers.
retrac 5mo ago
It's so strange to see this happen in the USA when our education system up here in Canada has essentially the same set of cultural and social values and there's plenty to gripe about but we haven't had the 'levelling' thing. There have been attempts but it has strongly resisted by parents. [1] I think there may be more realization up here that "gifted education" is a type of "special" education, in the same way remedial classes for delayed children are. Kids who need spec ed. and who don't get it can have very bad outcomes in life. When the topic has come up I've often pointed out that if you are a parent: you really don't want those evil geniuses in your child's class, poking holes in everything the teacher says, taking up all the teacher's time talking about things over your kids' head, and probably initiating your kid into inappropriately adult concepts. Such children need specialists who know how to deal with that kind of abnormality. [1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3907781/restructuring-toronto-schools-gifted-special-ed-programs/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3907781/restructuring-toronto-sch...
- jjmarr 5mo ago
  I attended a specialized math and science program (MaCS) in the TDSB. It was gutted by removing selective admissions in favour of a lottery, precisely because of the report you've cited. The "levelling" is real in Canada and good private schools often manage to skip multiple grade levels. Funnily enough, I've seen the opposite in the USA. My highly driven American friends somehow manage to get entire associate's degrees before finishing high school, which is unthinkable in Canada.
  - retrac 5mo ago
    They reversed the lottery thing after just two years as a failure and reinstated the previous policies. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-scraps-lottery-merit-based-admissions-9.6949070 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-scraps-lottery-m... > “They decided to put ideology ahead of student achievement,” said Yu. “In reality, it's hurting everyone, including the equity deserving students that are there but [who] would not thrive in that sort of environment,” he said.
- borski 5mo ago
empath75 5mo ago
> if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination benefiting you or something. -- It's not really racial discrimination per se, but there's a strong parental-educational/economic/class element which is still tied to race in the US unfortunately.. It's not reason not to have high school calculus but it's still something to keep in account.
59percentmore 5mo ago
Ladies and gentlemen, the modern eugenicist. Meanwhile, an anecdote: 11th Grade: Precalculus, all A's 12th Grade: AP Calculus, C average, one D quarter (in the middle of my parents' divorce, onset of body dysmorphia/dysphoria, college entrance applications, senior research practicum) College Sophomore Year: Applied Calculus, aced, highest final score in the class Post-college self-study: Failure to advance Circumstances affect performance. >so if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination benefiting you or something Within the wider historical scope, in America, specifically: yes. Even if you're in the group that's being discriminated against, and succeeding despite that. That's why it's systemic. A cold summer day doesn't negate the existence of climate change.
- akramachamarei 5mo ago
  > Within the wider historical scope In what situations would you attribute effects to concrete, near-term causes instead or abstract, historical ones? In particular, why do you attribute academic success in some areas to historical racism instead of (presumably) modern poverty? In other words, given a cohort of poor kids and not poor kids, which outcomes of each group would you assign to historical racism and why? In particular, would you expect different groups to perform better or worse after controlling for things other than race and experiences of racism?
  - 59percentmore 5mo ago
    Wrong premise. Near-term and historical causes are intertwined, inexorably-linked. Both cohorts are the result of historical racism. Hence, >Even if you're in the group that's being discriminated against, and succeeding despite that. I would expect the continued, sustained, and unburdened efforts to address and undo the effects of the policies and behaviors that make up what we know to be and have been systemic racism are necessary in order to remove historical racism as a cause of contemporary circumstances.
    - akramachamarei 5mo ago
      If understand you correctly, your answer to my question would be "never", that is, you would always attribute some blame to historical causes. Okay. I am left with more questions, however. To paraphrase your final paragraph, you expect that efforts to undo the effects of past racism—those effects which we collectively call systemic racism(?)—is necessary to snip that past racism from the causal chain to present ills. But I'm left wondering if this language of systemic racism is even particularly useful in describing the situation. That is, it seems the manifestation of this framing is to address these downstream effects (poverty, etc.), none of which are inherently racial, but affect educational outcomes. But it seems to me that framing the problem nonracially and focusing solely on the proximal causes of educational issues has the same (or better!) manifestations as the racial framing. In short, I feel the systemic racism framing is unproductive, because in a prudent implementation it merely adds discussion of distant causes, while identifying the same social issues to address. In an imprudent implementation, it would not only cloud the field with historical discussion, but distract from important proximal issues which don't fit the historical frame, while at the same time alienating people who feel excluded or infantilized or condescended upon based on their immutable characteristics, which is scarcely outweighed by a possible ethnic rallying effect which could boost participation. I think I need to provide a concrete hypothetical to tidy up. Consider a cohort of struggling students in Virginia, say, old coal town. The sociologist correctly identifies historical racism as a factor in some of the students' issues. So they... what? Acknowledge it? What for? They begin their real work addressing (somehow, idk) the homework environments kids have, their encouragement to succeed, the parents' support, school supplies, whatever. And race comes into the calculations exactly... never. I imagine it would be very disturbing if it did. "We're gonna help the black kids first because Jim Crow happened and that means they need it more." Well... maybe! Why make the approximation? Just focus on the proximal causes and get a precise prescription, no need for rounding.
hypersoar 5mo ago
I can find no evidence that California ever tried "banning high school calculus". The chapter in the much-maligned mathematics framework on high school [0] makes no such proposal, and indeed suggests consolidating the prerequisite classes to make it easier to reach calculus without acceleration in middle school: > An alternative to eighth-grade acceleration would be to adjust the high school curriculum instead, eliminating redundancies in the content of current courses, so that students do not need four courses before Calculus. As enacted, Algebra II tends to repeat a significant amount of the content of Algebra I, and Precalculus repeats content from Algebra II. While recognizing that some repetition of content has value, further analysis should be conducted to evaluate how high school course pathways may be redesigned to create more streamlined pathways that allow students to take three years of middle school foundations and still reach advanced mathematics courses such as calculus. Nor can I find any evidence that they "reject the idea that some kids are more talented at somethings than other kids". Instead, their FAQ [1] includes: > All students deserve powerful mathematics instruction. High-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated. > All students, regardless of background, language of origin, learning differences, or foundational knowledge are capable and deserving of depth of understanding and engagement in rich mathematics tasks. This is not remotely the same as the silly framing of "if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination". It's about not giving up on students who are undeserved by mathematics education as it is currently constituted. I myself have mixed feelings on "de-tracking" mathematics courses. I benefited from accelerated math classes and would have been bored to tears if forced to take classes at the standard pace. But I also understand that accelerated classes have tended to allocate more resources to students who are already succeeding. It's a thorny problem. But this comment adopts the framing of right-wing propaganda rather than the actual contents of the framework. [0] https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/mathframeworkch8.pdf https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/mathframeworkch8.p... [1] https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/mathfwfaqs.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/mathfwfaqs.asp
- akramachamarei 5mo ago
  > But I also understand that accelerated classes have tended to allocate more resources to students who are already succeeding. Where does your understanding come from? I'd imagine that educating less-gifted (intellectually or socioeconomically) students would be more expensive. To some extent, I can imagine there being additional costs to providing advanced education, such as if you need to higher better qualified teachers, or if somehow the textbooks are more expensive. And there might be costs in providing multiple tracks, such as having additional teachers, which could occur depending on the number of students. But I can also imagine advanced students' classes requiring fewer teaching assistants, fewer educational commodities (calculators, laptops), perhaps.
recursivedoubts 5mo ago
Give the money to the parents in the form of income-adjusted vouchers to spend on education as they see fit.
- hedora 5mo ago
  That creates a market for lemons. How does a parent (especially one that is illiterate) compare between educational opportunities for their kids? The status quo says that the schools do not measure outcomes (and when they do, they do not publish it, or publish it on a long delay), so any objective data parents could use is not available.
  - recursivedoubts 5mo ago
    As opposed to the current market for education? Parents know which schools are good and which aren't. They are intrinsically interested in their child's education in a way that no one else is. It's an obvious solution.
  - graemep 5mo ago
    > How does a parent (especially one that is illiterate) compare between educational opportunities for their kids? If you have a significant number of illiterate parents they could hardly do worse than your current system! They can judge by reputation, talking to parents with kids currently in a school, etc. IMO that is better than publishing metrics because then schools focus on the metrics: this is a huge problem in the UK where metrics are published. In my experience parents (regardless of educational level) make better decisions than the system does, and there is research to back it up (outcomes for home educated kids for whom parents make all the decisions).
121789 5mo ago
I think you have equity and equality exactly reversed
- iamkrazy 5mo ago
  No he hasn't.
dyauspitr 5mo ago
[flagged]
- maxglute 5mo ago
  PRC has affirmative action points on gaokao for "underperforming" minorities, well it's been phased out to economically disadvantaged minorities last few years to mitigate privilege stacking. So system not incompatible with affirmative action, but even then tier2 PRC schools the affirmative action floor is still like 95th percentile tier1 closer to 99.9 percentile, i.e. not something that can be gamed like in US by 75th percentile SAT scores, athletics, donors, personality scores, diversity.
  - dyauspitr 5mo ago
    How is underperforming/disadvantaged minorities not diversity? Also, I don’t think there’s a problem with using athletics as a criteria for admission. Other than that, I completely agree with you.
    - maxglute 5mo ago
      >underperforming/disadvantaged minorities Underperforming with a standardized test floor, i.e. for tier1 PRC universities this is lowering bar for minority to 99th percentile instead of 99.9 percentile. They filter before tertiary with programs that find all the high performing minorities in poor/disadvantaged regions and throwing them into subsidized boarding schools in wealthy provinces with better academic pipelines, i.e. ensuring they still enter university fully prepared instead of lowering floor to 80th percentile SAT math scores that on paper is good enough but in reality is borderline remedial stupid for university math. Hence PRC STEM has negligible drop rate vs west. As for athletics, I think it's sensible for US who tightly coupled university economics with (some) sports that it makes sense for some athletes, but that's an... unusual arrangement.
- jltsiren 5mo ago
  Standardized testing is usually foiled by Goodhart's law. If the outcomes of the tests matter, schools start focusing on test prep, at the expense of actual education. It's probably necessary to have one set of standardized tests for college admission, but otherwise they should be abolished, because they are a terrible idea. Separation of responsibilities is the actual key to good public schools. At least to the extent politicians and administrators can solve the issue. There should be a central entity that sets most of the curriculum and monitors and audits the entities that run the schools. And it must have the power and the resources to intervene if it determines that a school is not performing as expected.
dabluecaboose 5mo ago
> This solves the problem of trying to use this as a curriculum back door for climate denial and Islamophobia (or whatever the red states are pushing). Well, my red state public school taught me calculus, algebra, and evolution without making the claim that knowledge is somehow racist. So maybe those in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones
cdcarter 5mo ago
Can you share some credible sources on "schools banning calculus"? Googling seems to primarily show up Quora and indeed HN discussions, and no actual policy proposal or news article.
mark242 5mo ago
"If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district." There is zero incentive for "people outside the educational system" to do this. Kids will absolutely suffer because of this plan. The answer to this, like always, is that teachers need to be paid more.
kys11 5mo ago
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throwawaypath 5mo ago
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ams92 5mo ago
Equality is more expensive. It’s much easier to just cut advanced classes and shove the upper percentile students closer to the average in the name of having equal outcomes for all races. Similar to other issues in this country, we like to address the symptoms of economic inequality instead of attacking it at the source.
MSFT_Edging 5mo ago
> If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district. This would absolutely deepen the issue. Public school has faced various compounding issues over the years related to policies like this. One big example is teaching to the test, diminishing the actual education because the standardized tests are the deciding factor whether or not the school gets funding. Ironically, it would make it worse because a lot of school problems simply are funding problems. Public schools in wealthier neighborhoods do better because wealthier families can afford to support the children, where poorer areas have way less access. These problems begin to compound. The SAT thing was pushed aside originally because it was partially an indicator of who could afford tutoring on the specific weirdness of the SAT vs who was on their own. Kids who grow up poor also tend to have more home responsibilities. Parents may work longer hours(or be a useless deadbeat), kids will have to watch their siblings or take on part time jobs which cut into the time they can dedicate to education. I do agree that the equity approach is short sighted and the totally wrong approach, but the correct approach would cause riots when the policy calls for funneling more funds to the worse performing schools to stand up tutoring early. Money can solve the issues of "wealthy areas can afford tutoring", money spent on teachers to provide better educational materials, and generally more spent on additional teachers overall, to cover problematic students who distract the rest of the class. Destroying public school infrastructure due to a systemic problem would be a colossal mistake. All you need to know about adding a profit motive to education can be seen in private colleges, where education often takes a backseat to metrics like research positions, tuition costs skyrocketing, and even more overpaid admins compared to the public sector.
upboundspiral 5mo ago
I know many teachers and funding already works the way you describe: the better a school's students do, the more funding it gets (schools also get funding for the number of days the students show up). What this does is make it so anyone with a pulse gets a passing grade. What teachers actually want and need is the ability to fail people. At one district the math department wanted to fail a bunch of kids until the principal intervened, saying they should pass more people, and make exams worth less of the grade. Teachers need the support from the state and the district to be allowed to fail students early in their academic journey so that students can get the help they need immediately and prevent them from reaching high school and still not knowing their times tables.
sometimelurker 5mo ago
> ... you can compute a derivative by 12th grade The fact that calculus is seen by the public as something really really hard needs to be fixed. I taught myself differentiation in 7th and I'm not proud of it because it's not difficult. Maybe the issue is crappy curriculums and incentives putting the best mathematicians on Wall Street rather than in public schools, but there needs to be a cultural push of some sort. I've given a million last minute math lessons to some of my less math inclined friends, and there is no barrier at all stopping people from learning a ton more math than is taught in schools. > ... some kids are more talented at some things than other kids ... This idea is 100% true, but I don't think its a helpful idea in the context of making people learn more math. Unlucky people who internalize this idea end up thinking they are innately worse at understanding abstract ideas, and end up not trying that hard. I completely believe anyone capable of doing a euclidian proof in geometry class can read and fully understand the Bitcoin whitepaper - but they don't. And the barrier for understanding Bitcoin is probably lower than geometry. > Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This, but at a more localized level by giving teachers bonuses depending on how well the students do in the next grade.
armchairhacker 5mo ago
> I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. I disagree, and I’m the person who said underperforming kids should be put in work programs or mental institutions (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060371). I should’ve chose better words, so let me clarify here: there should be tiered schools, all funded in relation to how many students they have. One school for gifted students, one for second, … down to “schools” that teach vocations, then “schools” where students play around and see therapists, both for students who aren’t learning even with an IEP. This is roughly what some European countries like Germany do. Although unlike Germany, I think they should start earlier and allow movement up for students that show improvement. Ultimately, no student should be educated below their level. LLMs allow a decent teacher to teach at the PhD level (and IME most teachers are decent, because most become teachers out of passion).
adolph 5mo ago
> If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district. K-12 education funding is strange. It has social welfare like elements like an entitlement, but is provisioned as a conditionally compulsory service like a jail. It suffers from similar cost/benefit illegibility as healthcare, with its triangulation of patient, provider and payor, only remove decision making from the patient and on the provider side add local politics to upper management and union rules to workers. Maybe that it works at all is testament to people caring about kids.
ux266478 5mo ago
> To get an idea of how off the rails this has gotten, go read up on their statements trying to justify banning high school calculus. Can you provide a link?
tstrimple 5mo ago
The equity vs equality argument only ever seems to be brought up by people clueless about both. They seem to think "equality" is fair. As in, anyone who can pass this arbitrary test is qualified and that is fair and just. Despite the fact that these tests have been deliberately designed for generations to be both subjective and exclusionary. But there is one test that everyone needs to pass so it's "fair" to these people. I own the house I live in because of the school district it put us in. It allowed my children to literally walk a couple blocks to their elementary school. I can afford to and do send my children to all the extra-curricular learning opportunities I can. And they have latched onto it and started asking for more things in the areas they are interested in. I can send my children to all the fucking dance or music lessons they can handle. I buy them literally every book that they ask for. My children are in the top 5% of every fucking metric, but it has nothing to do with "equality". It has to do with the opportunities we've been able to afford them. Opportunities that the vast majority of Americans cannot or will not follow up on. But people like you are willing to judge those kids as less deserving because they don't pass some arbitrary fucking test that I have been preparing my kids for their entire lives. But that's "equal" and "fair". Unlike "equity" where we take other things into consideration.
duxup 5mo ago
That’s an interesting contrast to what I perceive as an issue where I am. Where are my kids go to school there’s plenty of classes for gifted kids (as in kids who excel in a traditional school environment). And there’s plenty of help for kids with challenges. But it feels like there’s really nothing to try to move the needle for anyone else, anyone not super motivated or with specific challenges. If you doing “ok” nobody cares.
like_any_other 5mo ago
Financial incentives can easily ruin something, but it is very hard for them to fix it. I think the best we can hope for is decent financing that doesn't interfere too much, and the rest must be solved culturally. Because the US school system used to work better, and lots of others work well, without any weird financial shenanigans. We should not be so capitalism-brained to forget that financial compensation is not the only lever.

by hedora 5mo ago

ryandrake 5mo ago

Measuring (and funding) schools based on student outcome is fraught because a student's performance / preparedness for the "next level" is not entirely a function of the school. There are other significant parameters, including parental upbringing, home life stability, neighborhood safety, friends, hunger/nutrition, various trauma and abuse, the list goes on. I'm sure it's been studied, but I'd bet "school quality" is not even close to number 1 on the list of predictors of educational outcome.

hedora 5mo ago
This is true. There are safeguards (that are currently failing) that my program would engage: - The state is legally required to provide those kids with an education. - There is funding allocated to help those districts. If "we will not pay you if the kids do not learn" means there are zero schools in those districts then (1) the state government will get sued for not doing its job (because closing 100% of the schools makes the failure objective and obvious) and (2) it will have to update those funding formulas so that it is possible for some school (state run, or private) to break even while providing an education in those areas.
- gausswho 5mo ago
  With sympathy to your appeal that 100% closures will force us to reckon with the problem, I suspect it'd only lead to missing the forest for the trees. This would come with substantial pains to the community. Potentially ones that knock-on to other pains. You're at the root of why this is a tricky problem to solve. In fact there is no solution, just a wide basket of expensive things we should aspire to do to improve affairs.
  - hedora 5mo ago
    What pain, exactly? - The local public school goes from 80 kids per grade to 40, and a new school opens across the street or just rents an existing building from the existing school district. - Funding stays flat, and academic performance goes up. - Administrators get to decide which teachers to lay off, and they will be de facto fired if they get rid of the high performers while keeping the low performers. - If the union contracts make it impossible to retain the high-performers, then the school eventually shuts down, and teachers that are competitive on the job market get hired by the new school for similar pay / benefits. - Teachers at the new school get evaluated on whether they do their job, and the new administrators have a strong financial incentive to use performance-based evaluation instead of seniority / nepotism / whatever. I see no downside whatsoever.
    - gausswho 5mo ago

MeetingsBrowser 5mo ago

> I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This seems problematic. Students' success isn't entirely up to the school. Some areas genuinely need more resources than others. This system punishes areas that need more resources with by removing resources, likely causing a downward spiral. A generation of kids is left with poor education before the schools eventually close, and then who wants to start a school in an area that has historically struggled when funding depends on them succeeding? Based on happenings in other states, when public schools close the schools that take their place are from well funded groups who care more about spreading ideologies than running successful or profitable schools.

hedora 5mo ago
The function isn't "winner takes all". It's a claw back after objective failure. California already spends tons of extra money on stuff like special ed, and struggling districts. I wouldn't touch that. So, if there's a high school in a struggling area and it's graduating kids that can't do 7th grade math, then that opens up funding for charters in that area at 150% state average per student, or whatever the current formula us.

jeffbee 5mo ago

I doubt that you can point to a high school which banned calculus. My guess is that you are referring to a political fight in San Francisco where a very specific racial/ethnic cohort of parents believes that one of the high schools is a Berkeley/Stanford acceptance funnel reserved for them, and they got mad when the government decided to spread the wealth. From my perspective, there has never been any dumber debate than whether 9th grade math is called "Math" or "Algebra". My kids went to high school in Berkeley where Math is just called Math in grades 9-11 and after that you can take AP Calculus or AP Statistics if you want. And this is not Woke 1.0 stuff because the courses have been named that way forever.

hedora 5mo ago
They planned to do it state wide. The ban was blocked. It did not happen. However, you can read the proposal if you want to see what sort of reasoning leads to "UC is admitting students to STEM majors, then finding out the students are not prepared for pre-algebra".
scarmig 5mo ago
The revisionism here is astounding. Yes, San Francisco eliminated algebra for all 8th graders in public schools. It was not a simple rename. Parents sent their kids to supplementary private classes that taught the same curriculum as the old algebra class did, and it was not a redundant recap of the new not-algebra class. I understand the motivation to deny that San Francisco banned middle school algebra: it's embarrassing, and it was disastrous for student outcomes. But it was a very real thing. (The Lowell debate was a separate thing: should an academic-focused magnet school be able to use a standardized test to determine proficiency? Or should it be a lottery?)

pseudalopex 5mo ago

They defined equity as Fair outcomes, treatment, and opportunities for all students.[1] [1] https://www.cde.ca.gov/qs/ea/ https://www.cde.ca.gov/qs/ea/

avidiax 5mo ago
What is a "fair" outcome? Is it easier to hold back talented students with a low bar or push untalented ones to a higher bar?
- z3c0 5mo ago
  The conundrum of "equality of outcome" vs "equality of opportunity" hinges on that core question. It's weird, and possible contradictory, to see a policy claiming to attempt both. Most would define a "fair" opportunity as everyone getting the same chances to succeed, but a "fair" outcome would segment on merit. If angling towards fair outcomes, there's usually less uproar over lifting the floor (e.g financial aid), versus lowering the ceiling (e.g. limitations on admissions based on ethnic or financial background).
  - hedora 5mo ago
    A much better policy would be to raise the floor and not pay attention to equality of outcome. If the worst school in 2036 California is better than the average school in 2026, then that's an obvious win. (That goal is completely achievable -- only about a third of California students are grade-level proficient right now.)
    - z3c0 5mo ago
      Raising the floor is an equality of outcome. It is arguably equality of oppprtunity too, but only when ignoring intergenerational wealth as a factor. Your kids affordíng school is your outcome, their oppprtúnity.
- redsocksfan45 5mo ago
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mc32 5mo ago

The results were predictable and predicted but politicians, state and local went whole hog on equity. That along with NCLB results on this catastrophe. We’re finally seeing some needed pushback. You can’t just hand out As to everyone and pass everyone as it’s a kindergarten assignment and then expect excellence. You’re teaching people who will become adults and you’re shortchanging them on skills if you don’t require proficiency. It’s also unfair to apt students who put in the time to learn and do well. I can’t believe they actually went so far as to dismantle the little haven for achievement that was Lowell high school in SF by getting rid of GPA and entrance exams for a few years. Eventually furious alumni got that idiocy overturned but it should have never happened. We’re also seeing higher ed address grade inflation by capping As at some institutions of renown.

confidantlake 5mo ago

The most important factor isn't the schools, it is the kids themselves.

hedora 5mo ago
California used to have the best schools in the country, and roughly a third of our urban population is Silicon Valley. It's home to the largest economy in the US by a large margin, and is one of the richest states. Yet, somehow, for math: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=NP&chort=1&sub=MAT&sj=&st=MN&year=2015R3 https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=... the only states/territories doing worse at math are DC, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Alabama. I'm not sure what Alabama's excuse is, but the other three entries on that list have obvious economic problems (only low income urban, failed power grid, literally blowing away due to climate change).
- watwut 5mo ago
  Silicon Valley is also the place of serious homeless problem. "The economy" as an abstractions is not what matters - the economy here is some people being super rich while others increasingly outside of good options.
  - hedora 5mo ago
    That's due to unrelated intentional mismanagement by state and local governments. Just build enough market rate housing to house the local population, and the issue will solve itself. "Affordable housing" is a trap for buyers, builders, and policy makers: - If you buy an affordable housing unit, then when you sell it, you have to charge based on a formula that will be way below the normal appreciation in your area. Basically, the money you put into the house was a sunk investment that's guaranteed to under-perform anything else you could have put it into. You're much better off getting a fixer-upper condo, or just renting + putting the money in an ETF.) - If you build an affordable housing unit, then the rest of your development project becomes less profitable. Once the project is approved, you're foolishly tying up capital that could have been used to fund additional developments in other states. Also, the affordable housing approval process is slow and politically fraught. While that happens, you're holding a piece of land (and paying interest on it) that might turn out to be worthless, depending on the outcome of local politics. (If you don't believe me, next time you're driving around Silicon Valley, count "proposed development" signs, and categorize them by "badly weathered" or "brand new". "Badly weathered" means someone has been paying a mortgage on the (probably $10's-100's M) field behind the sign for at least a year. They're not paying home mortgage rates for that. It's probably 7-10% interest. That $700K-10M that could have been used to actually build houses. - If your local government is subsidizing affordable housing, then they're misallocating resources. They could have used that money to expedite permit applications, improve public transit, add bike trails, build parks, increase freeway access or invest in other public goods that make the area more attractive to residents. Those things have a much higher payoff per dollar. Also, the local government has a monopoly on them. By opting to not do them, they are causing economic damage that cannot be routed around by the private sector. Of course, there's also the question of deciding who gets the public funds, and all the corruption and backroom dealing inherent in that process.

deleted 5mo ago

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julianeon 5mo ago

> Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This has the unintended consequence of encouraging schools to eject students who are struggling. For example, if the student has a learning disability, declare that it's too serious for them to handle, and then transfer them to a school that theoretically can. The system gets gamified and the "top" schools are just ones that reject, socioeconomically, every student who can't pay for tutoring or full-time care, which is a very technical form of "excellence".

daedrdev 5mo ago
The current situation, where students succeed regardless if they completely failed to learn and do zero work is also pretty bad
hedora 5mo ago
Public school districts cannot expel students in California.
- toshinoriyagi 5mo ago
  No, but they can transfer them, which is what the comment you replied to was worried about. My partner used to be an elementary school teacher and frequently complained about the school she worked at. The district transferred a large percentage of students with IEPs (individualized education program, a plan for special care/resources for students with disabilities, often related to poor behavior) from other schools in the district to hers. Her school did not have adequate resources to handle these students, so they always had multiple students with severe behavioral issues that should have been in a dedicated classroom with a special education trained teacher, but were just in regular teachers' classes. Naturally, the teachers were burnt out from working with too many challenging kids they were not trained to take care of and the other students had worse learning outcomes.
Bratmon 5mo ago
I think the answer to this is that schooling/care for people with disabilities that make it impossible for them to succeed in normal school should be a totally different budget with different success criteria than the budget for normal school. There are two different and contradictory goals here- the current dynamic where every gain for one is a loss for the other creates a ton of bad outcomes across the board.

throwaway5752 5mo ago

The people working on this aren't idiots. There are people who see massive business opportunities for enriching themselves in privatizing the education system. Some of there points are reasonable, and sometimes they are frauds. Either way, they lobby hard and have a lot of generally Republican politicians in their pockets. Also, teacher pay is terrible in comparison to the job stress and - reasonably and expected - educational requirements. The education system is trying to deal with a probably that is out of their control, the increasing wealth stratification in the US, while fending off adversaries that with both good and bad intentioned reasons are trying to undermine the institutions of public education. At the same time, we have a totally new societal threat in social media. If you haven't read "Careless People", read it. You seem societies around the world locking social media away from kids on the advice of professional groups of educators, pediatricians, and psychologists. There are hordes of irresponsible and negligent parents whose kids are barely functional, and working their way through the educational pipeline. There is no easy fix here that anyone is missing. In a democracy, this is an existential national crisis, as we are all seeing in real time. edit: don't ask me who is working on this. It just tells me you are unserious and just complaining. Try google. Hundreds of thousands of people are working on this. Please elaborate on your disagreement with teachers groups (NEA, AFT), the prior administration (American Rescue Plan), or the current administration (ECCA). Or disagreements with AmeriCorps or NPSS as private volunteer service groups groups. Or disagreements with private education advocates (CAPE, NAIS). You may not like all the administrators and principals and teachers as individuals working on it in the system, or PTA organizations outside the system. I could go on all day. But these people are all seriously concerned about the problem, even though they may disagree in areas - you are not special in awareness of this issue.

hedora 5mo ago
Who's working on this? I think there are some pretty obvious easy fixes, at least for California: Find a library that still has a copy of the educational plan California used back in the 1970's, and do that. At the time, we had the best schools in the country. The state is much richer and has much higher income/sales tax rates now than it did back then. I think that should more than make up for the Prop 13 funding disaster, though it might mean moving some cash around in the state budget.

999900000999 5mo ago

>Those schools would also not be paid unless the students do well in the next phase of their education The teachers would just fill in the tests for the students. This has already happened in some places. The bigger macro economic issues would probably be the collapse of the middle class, rampant housing and food insecurity. Hirerarcy of needs and all that. Anyway with The Republicans going out of their way to restrict student visas it's unclear where our next generation of high achivers is going to come from. We sure aren't raising them here.

hedora 5mo ago
> The teachers would just fill in the tests for the students. Fraud is illegal. If the law isn't going to be enforced, then trying to fix the law is useless. I agree about food insecurity. Nationally, it's worse now than it was during COVID. California actually made some good progress on that a few years ago: https://www.cafoodbanks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SB1383_Overview.pdf https://www.cafoodbanks.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/SB138... I haven't checked food insecurity rates since then, but you may have noticed that food collection barrels have become rare around the holidays. At least for a few years, the food banks in Silicon Valley were truck-constrained, not food-constrained, so those barrels weren't worth the effort.
- 999900000999 5mo ago
  You’re putting a lot of otherwise good people, teachers of low income students, into a very bad situation. Many would just quit, and among those who stayed what are the options ? Get fired when the school is shutdown for under performing. Fill in tests for students. If we use programming as an example, the best tech manager on earth can’t get a bunch of random people to write production ready code in a month ( maybe JS, but not Rust). Public schools can’t pick and choose students. Charters sorta can. If I ran the school system I’d set up *paid* apprenticeship to job programs in high schools. Actually get these kids real careers. You SHOULD be able to afford an apartment with a high school degree.

kubb 5mo ago

Why do you even need higher education if you can brain drain educated people from India?

throwaway613746 5mo ago
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alex_suzuki 5mo ago
Why so complicated? I thought the idea was to rent intelligence from OpenAI.

Catloafdev 5mo ago

This is absurdly problematic. Your solution is basically handicapping the schools with kids that perform worse and then potentially closing them? That doesn't solve the problem, this is just pro-Charter School propaganda that ignores the real-world effects of these positions. You've identified a real issue with the 'equality' vs 'equity' concept, that doesn't lead to 'Close public schools and switch everything to Charter schools', that's an absurd conclusion.

f13f1f1f1 5mo ago
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- empath75 5mo ago
  It sounds like you have some particular groups in mind.
- watwut 5mo ago
  The actual alternative is to provide resources to schools that are in bad areas. And to provide resources for people in those areas themselves.
  - pelagicAustral 5mo ago
    Because there is such good precedents that providing unlimited resources to troubled areas actually fix problems.
  - JCTheDenthog 5mo ago
    The results from Abbott Districts in New Jersey would suggest that increased funding and resources does little if anything to improve results. Abbott Districts in New Jersey have been getting funding at roughly the same level or higher as the wealthiest districts in the state since 1990, and they have nothing to show for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbott_district The difference in math proficiency for Abbott students vs. non-Abbott students has stayed roughly the same, while thr language proficiency gap has actually increased.

deleted 5mo ago

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jackmott42 5mo ago

In countries where students perform better, they do the opposite of your plan. Resources are pumped into the failing schools to get them to do better. You seem to be just arguing for even more privatization in American which is awful, the kids that are failing have parents that won't be paying for good education or setting up schools. They won't bother with it at all if it isn't public and required.

akramachamarei 5mo ago
> the kids that are failing have parents that won't be paying for good education As in, they would be spending their vouchers on things besides education? Because typically when people speak of privatizing education it means creating a marketplace of educators which parents select and buy with publicly funded vouchers.

retrac 5mo ago

It's so strange to see this happen in the USA when our education system up here in Canada has essentially the same set of cultural and social values and there's plenty to gripe about but we haven't had the 'levelling' thing. There have been attempts but it has strongly resisted by parents. [1] I think there may be more realization up here that "gifted education" is a type of "special" education, in the same way remedial classes for delayed children are. Kids who need spec ed. and who don't get it can have very bad outcomes in life. When the topic has come up I've often pointed out that if you are a parent: you really don't want those evil geniuses in your child's class, poking holes in everything the teacher says, taking up all the teacher's time talking about things over your kids' head, and probably initiating your kid into inappropriately adult concepts. Such children need specialists who know how to deal with that kind of abnormality. [1] https://globalnews.ca/news/3907781/restructuring-toronto-schools-gifted-special-ed-programs/ https://globalnews.ca/news/3907781/restructuring-toronto-sch...

jjmarr 5mo ago
I attended a specialized math and science program (MaCS) in the TDSB. It was gutted by removing selective admissions in favour of a lottery, precisely because of the report you've cited. The "levelling" is real in Canada and good private schools often manage to skip multiple grade levels. Funnily enough, I've seen the opposite in the USA. My highly driven American friends somehow manage to get entire associate's degrees before finishing high school, which is unthinkable in Canada.
- retrac 5mo ago
  They reversed the lottery thing after just two years as a failure and reinstated the previous policies. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-scraps-lottery-merit-based-admissions-9.6949070 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/tdsb-scraps-lottery-m... > “They decided to put ideology ahead of student achievement,” said Yu. “In reality, it's hurting everyone, including the equity deserving students that are there but [who] would not thrive in that sort of environment,” he said.
borski 5mo ago

empath75 5mo ago

> if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination benefiting you or something. -- It's not really racial discrimination per se, but there's a strong parental-educational/economic/class element which is still tied to race in the US unfortunately.. It's not reason not to have high school calculus but it's still something to keep in account.

59percentmore 5mo ago

Ladies and gentlemen, the modern eugenicist. Meanwhile, an anecdote: 11th Grade: Precalculus, all A's 12th Grade: AP Calculus, C average, one D quarter (in the middle of my parents' divorce, onset of body dysmorphia/dysphoria, college entrance applications, senior research practicum) College Sophomore Year: Applied Calculus, aced, highest final score in the class Post-college self-study: Failure to advance Circumstances affect performance. >so if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination benefiting you or something Within the wider historical scope, in America, specifically: yes. Even if you're in the group that's being discriminated against, and succeeding despite that. That's why it's systemic. A cold summer day doesn't negate the existence of climate change.

akramachamarei 5mo ago
> Within the wider historical scope In what situations would you attribute effects to concrete, near-term causes instead or abstract, historical ones? In particular, why do you attribute academic success in some areas to historical racism instead of (presumably) modern poverty? In other words, given a cohort of poor kids and not poor kids, which outcomes of each group would you assign to historical racism and why? In particular, would you expect different groups to perform better or worse after controlling for things other than race and experiences of racism?
- 59percentmore 5mo ago
  Wrong premise. Near-term and historical causes are intertwined, inexorably-linked. Both cohorts are the result of historical racism. Hence, >Even if you're in the group that's being discriminated against, and succeeding despite that. I would expect the continued, sustained, and unburdened efforts to address and undo the effects of the policies and behaviors that make up what we know to be and have been systemic racism are necessary in order to remove historical racism as a cause of contemporary circumstances.
  - akramachamarei 5mo ago
    If understand you correctly, your answer to my question would be "never", that is, you would always attribute some blame to historical causes. Okay. I am left with more questions, however. To paraphrase your final paragraph, you expect that efforts to undo the effects of past racism—those effects which we collectively call systemic racism(?)—is necessary to snip that past racism from the causal chain to present ills. But I'm left wondering if this language of systemic racism is even particularly useful in describing the situation. That is, it seems the manifestation of this framing is to address these downstream effects (poverty, etc.), none of which are inherently racial, but affect educational outcomes. But it seems to me that framing the problem nonracially and focusing solely on the proximal causes of educational issues has the same (or better!) manifestations as the racial framing. In short, I feel the systemic racism framing is unproductive, because in a prudent implementation it merely adds discussion of distant causes, while identifying the same social issues to address. In an imprudent implementation, it would not only cloud the field with historical discussion, but distract from important proximal issues which don't fit the historical frame, while at the same time alienating people who feel excluded or infantilized or condescended upon based on their immutable characteristics, which is scarcely outweighed by a possible ethnic rallying effect which could boost participation. I think I need to provide a concrete hypothetical to tidy up. Consider a cohort of struggling students in Virginia, say, old coal town. The sociologist correctly identifies historical racism as a factor in some of the students' issues. So they... what? Acknowledge it? What for? They begin their real work addressing (somehow, idk) the homework environments kids have, their encouragement to succeed, the parents' support, school supplies, whatever. And race comes into the calculations exactly... never. I imagine it would be very disturbing if it did. "We're gonna help the black kids first because Jim Crow happened and that means they need it more." Well... maybe! Why make the approximation? Just focus on the proximal causes and get a precise prescription, no need for rounding.

hypersoar 5mo ago

I can find no evidence that California ever tried "banning high school calculus". The chapter in the much-maligned mathematics framework on high school [0] makes no such proposal, and indeed suggests consolidating the prerequisite classes to make it easier to reach calculus without acceleration in middle school: > An alternative to eighth-grade acceleration would be to adjust the high school curriculum instead, eliminating redundancies in the content of current courses, so that students do not need four courses before Calculus. As enacted, Algebra II tends to repeat a significant amount of the content of Algebra I, and Precalculus repeats content from Algebra II. While recognizing that some repetition of content has value, further analysis should be conducted to evaluate how high school course pathways may be redesigned to create more streamlined pathways that allow students to take three years of middle school foundations and still reach advanced mathematics courses such as calculus. Nor can I find any evidence that they "reject the idea that some kids are more talented at somethings than other kids". Instead, their FAQ [1] includes: > All students deserve powerful mathematics instruction. High-level mathematics achievement is not dependent on rare natural gifts, but rather can be cultivated. > All students, regardless of background, language of origin, learning differences, or foundational knowledge are capable and deserving of depth of understanding and engagement in rich mathematics tasks. This is not remotely the same as the silly framing of "if you can compute a derivative by 12th grade, it's due to racial discrimination". It's about not giving up on students who are undeserved by mathematics education as it is currently constituted. I myself have mixed feelings on "de-tracking" mathematics courses. I benefited from accelerated math classes and would have been bored to tears if forced to take classes at the standard pace. But I also understand that accelerated classes have tended to allocate more resources to students who are already succeeding. It's a thorny problem. But this comment adopts the framing of right-wing propaganda rather than the actual contents of the framework. [0] https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/mathframeworkch8.pdf https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/documents/mathframeworkch8.p... [1] https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/mathfwfaqs.asp https://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/ma/cf/mathfwfaqs.asp

akramachamarei 5mo ago
> But I also understand that accelerated classes have tended to allocate more resources to students who are already succeeding. Where does your understanding come from? I'd imagine that educating less-gifted (intellectually or socioeconomically) students would be more expensive. To some extent, I can imagine there being additional costs to providing advanced education, such as if you need to higher better qualified teachers, or if somehow the textbooks are more expensive. And there might be costs in providing multiple tracks, such as having additional teachers, which could occur depending on the number of students. But I can also imagine advanced students' classes requiring fewer teaching assistants, fewer educational commodities (calculators, laptops), perhaps.

recursivedoubts 5mo ago

Give the money to the parents in the form of income-adjusted vouchers to spend on education as they see fit.

hedora 5mo ago
That creates a market for lemons. How does a parent (especially one that is illiterate) compare between educational opportunities for their kids? The status quo says that the schools do not measure outcomes (and when they do, they do not publish it, or publish it on a long delay), so any objective data parents could use is not available.
- recursivedoubts 5mo ago
  As opposed to the current market for education? Parents know which schools are good and which aren't. They are intrinsically interested in their child's education in a way that no one else is. It's an obvious solution.
- graemep 5mo ago
  > How does a parent (especially one that is illiterate) compare between educational opportunities for their kids? If you have a significant number of illiterate parents they could hardly do worse than your current system! They can judge by reputation, talking to parents with kids currently in a school, etc. IMO that is better than publishing metrics because then schools focus on the metrics: this is a huge problem in the UK where metrics are published. In my experience parents (regardless of educational level) make better decisions than the system does, and there is research to back it up (outcomes for home educated kids for whom parents make all the decisions).

121789 5mo ago

I think you have equity and equality exactly reversed

iamkrazy 5mo ago
No he hasn't.

dyauspitr 5mo ago

[flagged]

maxglute 5mo ago
PRC has affirmative action points on gaokao for "underperforming" minorities, well it's been phased out to economically disadvantaged minorities last few years to mitigate privilege stacking. So system not incompatible with affirmative action, but even then tier2 PRC schools the affirmative action floor is still like 95th percentile tier1 closer to 99.9 percentile, i.e. not something that can be gamed like in US by 75th percentile SAT scores, athletics, donors, personality scores, diversity.
- dyauspitr 5mo ago
  How is underperforming/disadvantaged minorities not diversity? Also, I don’t think there’s a problem with using athletics as a criteria for admission. Other than that, I completely agree with you.
  - maxglute 5mo ago
    >underperforming/disadvantaged minorities Underperforming with a standardized test floor, i.e. for tier1 PRC universities this is lowering bar for minority to 99th percentile instead of 99.9 percentile. They filter before tertiary with programs that find all the high performing minorities in poor/disadvantaged regions and throwing them into subsidized boarding schools in wealthy provinces with better academic pipelines, i.e. ensuring they still enter university fully prepared instead of lowering floor to 80th percentile SAT math scores that on paper is good enough but in reality is borderline remedial stupid for university math. Hence PRC STEM has negligible drop rate vs west. As for athletics, I think it's sensible for US who tightly coupled university economics with (some) sports that it makes sense for some athletes, but that's an... unusual arrangement.
jltsiren 5mo ago
Standardized testing is usually foiled by Goodhart's law. If the outcomes of the tests matter, schools start focusing on test prep, at the expense of actual education. It's probably necessary to have one set of standardized tests for college admission, but otherwise they should be abolished, because they are a terrible idea. Separation of responsibilities is the actual key to good public schools. At least to the extent politicians and administrators can solve the issue. There should be a central entity that sets most of the curriculum and monitors and audits the entities that run the schools. And it must have the power and the resources to intervene if it determines that a school is not performing as expected.

dabluecaboose 5mo ago

> This solves the problem of trying to use this as a curriculum back door for climate denial and Islamophobia (or whatever the red states are pushing). Well, my red state public school taught me calculus, algebra, and evolution without making the claim that knowledge is somehow racist. So maybe those in glass houses shouldn't be throwing stones

cdcarter 5mo ago

Can you share some credible sources on "schools banning calculus"? Googling seems to primarily show up Quora and indeed HN discussions, and no actual policy proposal or news article.

mark242 5mo ago

"If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district." There is zero incentive for "people outside the educational system" to do this. Kids will absolutely suffer because of this plan. The answer to this, like always, is that teachers need to be paid more.

kys11 5mo ago

[dead]

throwawaypath 5mo ago

[flagged]

ams92 5mo ago

Equality is more expensive. It’s much easier to just cut advanced classes and shove the upper percentile students closer to the average in the name of having equal outcomes for all races. Similar to other issues in this country, we like to address the symptoms of economic inequality instead of attacking it at the source.

MSFT_Edging 5mo ago

> If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district. This would absolutely deepen the issue. Public school has faced various compounding issues over the years related to policies like this. One big example is teaching to the test, diminishing the actual education because the standardized tests are the deciding factor whether or not the school gets funding. Ironically, it would make it worse because a lot of school problems simply are funding problems. Public schools in wealthier neighborhoods do better because wealthier families can afford to support the children, where poorer areas have way less access. These problems begin to compound. The SAT thing was pushed aside originally because it was partially an indicator of who could afford tutoring on the specific weirdness of the SAT vs who was on their own. Kids who grow up poor also tend to have more home responsibilities. Parents may work longer hours(or be a useless deadbeat), kids will have to watch their siblings or take on part time jobs which cut into the time they can dedicate to education. I do agree that the equity approach is short sighted and the totally wrong approach, but the correct approach would cause riots when the policy calls for funneling more funds to the worse performing schools to stand up tutoring early. Money can solve the issues of "wealthy areas can afford tutoring", money spent on teachers to provide better educational materials, and generally more spent on additional teachers overall, to cover problematic students who distract the rest of the class. Destroying public school infrastructure due to a systemic problem would be a colossal mistake. All you need to know about adding a profit motive to education can be seen in private colleges, where education often takes a backseat to metrics like research positions, tuition costs skyrocketing, and even more overpaid admins compared to the public sector.

upboundspiral 5mo ago

I know many teachers and funding already works the way you describe: the better a school's students do, the more funding it gets (schools also get funding for the number of days the students show up). What this does is make it so anyone with a pulse gets a passing grade. What teachers actually want and need is the ability to fail people. At one district the math department wanted to fail a bunch of kids until the principal intervened, saying they should pass more people, and make exams worth less of the grade. Teachers need the support from the state and the district to be allowed to fail students early in their academic journey so that students can get the help they need immediately and prevent them from reaching high school and still not knowing their times tables.

sometimelurker 5mo ago

> ... you can compute a derivative by 12th grade The fact that calculus is seen by the public as something really really hard needs to be fixed. I taught myself differentiation in 7th and I'm not proud of it because it's not difficult. Maybe the issue is crappy curriculums and incentives putting the best mathematicians on Wall Street rather than in public schools, but there needs to be a cultural push of some sort. I've given a million last minute math lessons to some of my less math inclined friends, and there is no barrier at all stopping people from learning a ton more math than is taught in schools. > ... some kids are more talented at some things than other kids ... This idea is 100% true, but I don't think its a helpful idea in the context of making people learn more math. Unlucky people who internalize this idea end up thinking they are innately worse at understanding abstract ideas, and end up not trying that hard. I completely believe anyone capable of doing a euclidian proof in geometry class can read and fully understand the Bitcoin whitepaper - but they don't. And the barrier for understanding Bitcoin is probably lower than geometry. > Personally, I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. This, but at a more localized level by giving teachers bonuses depending on how well the students do in the next grade.

armchairhacker 5mo ago

> I think all funding in California education (other than terminal levels like 4 year bachelors and up) should be a function of the percentage of students that succeed at the next step. I disagree, and I’m the person who said underperforming kids should be put in work programs or mental institutions (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060371 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48060371). I should’ve chose better words, so let me clarify here: there should be tiered schools, all funded in relation to how many students they have. One school for gifted students, one for second, … down to “schools” that teach vocations, then “schools” where students play around and see therapists, both for students who aren’t learning even with an IEP. This is roughly what some European countries like Germany do. Although unlike Germany, I think they should start earlier and allow movement up for students that show improvement. Ultimately, no student should be educated below their level. LLMs allow a decent teacher to teach at the PhD level (and IME most teachers are decent, because most become teachers out of passion).

adolph 5mo ago

> If a local district starts losing funding, then it would have to close / shrink schools, and people from outside the educational system would be allowed to establish independent (secular) charter schools within the district. K-12 education funding is strange. It has social welfare like elements like an entitlement, but is provisioned as a conditionally compulsory service like a jail. It suffers from similar cost/benefit illegibility as healthcare, with its triangulation of patient, provider and payor, only remove decision making from the patient and on the provider side add local politics to upper management and union rules to workers. Maybe that it works at all is testament to people caring about kids.

ux266478 5mo ago

> To get an idea of how off the rails this has gotten, go read up on their statements trying to justify banning high school calculus. Can you provide a link?

tstrimple 5mo ago

The equity vs equality argument only ever seems to be brought up by people clueless about both. They seem to think "equality" is fair. As in, anyone who can pass this arbitrary test is qualified and that is fair and just. Despite the fact that these tests have been deliberately designed for generations to be both subjective and exclusionary. But there is one test that everyone needs to pass so it's "fair" to these people. I own the house I live in because of the school district it put us in. It allowed my children to literally walk a couple blocks to their elementary school. I can afford to and do send my children to all the extra-curricular learning opportunities I can. And they have latched onto it and started asking for more things in the areas they are interested in. I can send my children to all the fucking dance or music lessons they can handle. I buy them literally every book that they ask for. My children are in the top 5% of every fucking metric, but it has nothing to do with "equality". It has to do with the opportunities we've been able to afford them. Opportunities that the vast majority of Americans cannot or will not follow up on. But people like you are willing to judge those kids as less deserving because they don't pass some arbitrary fucking test that I have been preparing my kids for their entire lives. But that's "equal" and "fair". Unlike "equity" where we take other things into consideration.

duxup 5mo ago

That’s an interesting contrast to what I perceive as an issue where I am. Where are my kids go to school there’s plenty of classes for gifted kids (as in kids who excel in a traditional school environment). And there’s plenty of help for kids with challenges. But it feels like there’s really nothing to try to move the needle for anyone else, anyone not super motivated or with specific challenges. If you doing “ok” nobody cares.

like_any_other 5mo ago

Financial incentives can easily ruin something, but it is very hard for them to fix it. I think the best we can hope for is decent financing that doesn't interfere too much, and the rest must be solved culturally. Because the US school system used to work better, and lots of others work well, without any weird financial shenanigans. We should not be so capitalism-brained to forget that financial compensation is not the only lever.