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My understanding of injecting money in education is that it's proven to be extremely ineffective at improving outcomes. Schools just hire more administrators a

My understanding of injecting money in education is that it's proven to be extremely ineffective at improving outcomes. Schools just hire more administrators and build nicer gyms.

deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]
kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago
You have to wait 20 years for the returns to society. Public education was enormously successful when it was introduced in the 19th century. There's just no profit in waiting for second order effects to kick in.
- rayiner 3mo ago
  Diminishing returns. Per-student education spending has been going up since 1990 except a dip during the 2008 recession. Adjusting for inflations it’s now double what it was 30 years ago.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago
    The population of students is shrinking and there is (unnecessarily) growing overhead that has to be paid for.
    - rayiner 3mo ago
      The people in charge of the schools don’t seem to think it’s unnecessary overhead?
      - NamlchakKhandro 3mo ago
        of course their luxury SUVs wouldn't think it's an unnecessary overhead. Come on guy, those expense accounts aren't going to pay for themselves... chop chop... get to it.
        vintermann 3mo ago
        Why would they be any better than the people distributing the money to them in the first place? The students working hard at "providing the good educational outcomes", by this economy's standards, are suckers.
- dataviz1000 3mo ago
  So was Rural Free Delivery. Farmers being able to communicate was a massive boon. There is a channel for farmers called RFD tv. They completely scrubbed the free provided by the government part after private equity bought the tv channel targeting farmers. Then they got Imus in the Morning so farmers listed to Imus, Rush, Hannity, and orielly forgetting the government helps them.
- slumberlust 3mo ago
  What makes you choose the 19th century for public education creation? It was my understanding the Puritans and thusly Yankees that spread through NE and the north Midwest were staunch proponents of schoolhouses and publicly funded education dating back to the to the early 17th century.
  - kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago
    Publicly funded non-secular education didn't take off globally until the 1830s when everyone started copying Prussia.
saulpw 3mo ago
Well yes, you have to spend the money wisely. How could we construct a system so that we have 2x as many teachers (thereby halving the classroom size)? That would have a lot of good second-order effects beyond test scores.
- rayiner 3mo ago
  So why has per-capita student spending doubled since 1990 (adjusted for inflation) without any increase in test scores? Why haven’t we been spending the money wisely? Student to teacher ratios have continuously decreased and are about half of what they were in 1960. Data on the results is mixed: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/class-size-what-research-says-and-what-it-means-for-state-policy/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/class-size-what-research-...
  - rixed 3mo ago
    Because we have also increased the spending in "un-education" (entertainment, social media, college sport...) ? What's your own theory ?
    - deleted 3mo ago
      [deleted]
  - bugflux 3mo ago
    Honestly curious, but don’t tests also adjust for “inflation”? Aren’t tests today be harder than they were in 1990?
    - lostmsu 3mo ago
      See https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/mathematics-performance-pisa.html https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/mathematics-performa...
  - dntrkv 3mo ago
    The funding system is broken, not the actual act of funding. We aren't incentivizing meaningful work, we are incentivizing diplomas.
kjkjadksj 3mo ago
What about into research grants?
watutalkinbout 3mo ago
Maybe don't just 'inject' it. Maybe use it to increase outcomes.
- vintermann 3mo ago
  Trying to micromanage how the money gets spent is how you get administrators.
  - watutalkinbout 3mo ago
    I think you completely missed my point.
piva00 3mo ago
Investment in education is one of the best ROI a society can have. Quite surprising that in the USA this relationship has been eroded by schools spending in sports and admin, in most other developed countries it's a quite direct relationship between more investments -> better educational outcomes.
- spwa4 3mo ago
  But there's 2 problems with that. To save money governments declare that "teaching is a profession". By which they mean: "teaching", not subject matter expertise, matters. Except: 1) the single thing you cannot beat is capable teachers. And NOT capable as in able to teach, subject-matter-experts. And that is what everybody wants to avoid at all costs. Put it like this: an unwashed, abrasive, offensive smelly asshole with a master in math can teach kids math. A super-friendly, nice, beautiful, polite social science major (or not even that) who doesn't know math well cannot. The level of teachers needs to be an order of magnitude above the level expected of kids at the end of the class. Knowledge of the subject needs to take absolute precedence in teacher hiring decisions, to the point that good teachers get rejected if lacking expertise in the subject. This is not how things work. They only worked that way for a short while due to the crash of 89. I've had a French teacher that couldn't speak more than "some" French. Certainly nowhere near fluent. 2) Money needs to support that. Which means for Math, the money for math teachers needs to be competitive with research departments of banks, and very different for different subjects, which seems offensive to schools and government in general. If teaching positions aren't competing with other professional careers in the subject matter, it will never work. This will, of course, mean that many science teachers make more than a school principal and even a district administrator. Deal with it. For Math, they are literally not even 25% of that, but even for French it's insufficient.
  - piva00 3mo ago
    > 2) Money needs to support that. Which means for Math, the money for math teachers needs to be competitive with research departments of banks, and very different for different subjects, which seems offensive to schools and government in general. If teaching positions aren't competing with other professional careers in the subject matter, it will never work. This will, of course, mean that many science teachers make more than a school principal and even a district administrator. Deal with it. I believe this to be a heavily US-centric view, Estonia and Finland do not pay more for math teachers than they could get in banks' research departments but still manage to get competent teaching across most school subjects. Things work outside of the US, the issue is the US does not want to look outside and adapt itself to incorporate what's been learnt from other systems. It's a "do the US way or no way" attitude, and it's slowly eroding to become more a "no way" than any kind of "US way" of doing things.
LCRVYSB 3mo ago
Injecting money into education is how the US got to the moon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Education_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Education_Act) And, school administrators are the opposite of what's needed in schools: the US needs better teacher pay and more teachers -- the ones who actually teach students. Short of that however, yes, we get philanthropic failures such as Zuckerberg's attempt in silicon valley, and basically any attempt throughout Africa as examples. Throwing laptops at the problem doesn't work, neither does external donations that get funneled to the wrong places.

My understanding of injecting money in education is that it's proven to be extremely ineffective at improving outcomes. Schools just hire more administrators and build nicer gyms.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]

kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago

You have to wait 20 years for the returns to society. Public education was enormously successful when it was introduced in the 19th century. There's just no profit in waiting for second order effects to kick in.

rayiner 3mo ago
Diminishing returns. Per-student education spending has been going up since 1990 except a dip during the 2008 recession. Adjusting for inflations it’s now double what it was 30 years ago.
- kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago
  The population of students is shrinking and there is (unnecessarily) growing overhead that has to be paid for.
  - rayiner 3mo ago
    The people in charge of the schools don’t seem to think it’s unnecessary overhead?
    - NamlchakKhandro 3mo ago
      of course their luxury SUVs wouldn't think it's an unnecessary overhead. Come on guy, those expense accounts aren't going to pay for themselves... chop chop... get to it.
      - vintermann 3mo ago
        Why would they be any better than the people distributing the money to them in the first place? The students working hard at "providing the good educational outcomes", by this economy's standards, are suckers.
dataviz1000 3mo ago
So was Rural Free Delivery. Farmers being able to communicate was a massive boon. There is a channel for farmers called RFD tv. They completely scrubbed the free provided by the government part after private equity bought the tv channel targeting farmers. Then they got Imus in the Morning so farmers listed to Imus, Rush, Hannity, and orielly forgetting the government helps them.
slumberlust 3mo ago
What makes you choose the 19th century for public education creation? It was my understanding the Puritans and thusly Yankees that spread through NE and the north Midwest were staunch proponents of schoolhouses and publicly funded education dating back to the to the early 17th century.
- kevin_thibedeau 3mo ago
  Publicly funded non-secular education didn't take off globally until the 1830s when everyone started copying Prussia.

saulpw 3mo ago

Well yes, you have to spend the money wisely. How could we construct a system so that we have 2x as many teachers (thereby halving the classroom size)? That would have a lot of good second-order effects beyond test scores.

rayiner 3mo ago
So why has per-capita student spending doubled since 1990 (adjusted for inflation) without any increase in test scores? Why haven’t we been spending the money wisely? Student to teacher ratios have continuously decreased and are about half of what they were in 1960. Data on the results is mixed: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/class-size-what-research-says-and-what-it-means-for-state-policy/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/class-size-what-research-...
- rixed 3mo ago
  Because we have also increased the spending in "un-education" (entertainment, social media, college sport...) ? What's your own theory ?
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
- bugflux 3mo ago
  Honestly curious, but don’t tests also adjust for “inflation”? Aren’t tests today be harder than they were in 1990?
  - lostmsu 3mo ago
    See https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/mathematics-performance-pisa.html https://www.oecd.org/en/data/indicators/mathematics-performa...
- dntrkv 3mo ago
  The funding system is broken, not the actual act of funding. We aren't incentivizing meaningful work, we are incentivizing diplomas.

kjkjadksj 3mo ago

What about into research grants?

watutalkinbout 3mo ago

Maybe don't just 'inject' it. Maybe use it to increase outcomes.

vintermann 3mo ago
Trying to micromanage how the money gets spent is how you get administrators.
- watutalkinbout 3mo ago
  I think you completely missed my point.

piva00 3mo ago

Investment in education is one of the best ROI a society can have. Quite surprising that in the USA this relationship has been eroded by schools spending in sports and admin, in most other developed countries it's a quite direct relationship between more investments -> better educational outcomes.

spwa4 3mo ago
But there's 2 problems with that. To save money governments declare that "teaching is a profession". By which they mean: "teaching", not subject matter expertise, matters. Except: 1) the single thing you cannot beat is capable teachers. And NOT capable as in able to teach, subject-matter-experts. And that is what everybody wants to avoid at all costs. Put it like this: an unwashed, abrasive, offensive smelly asshole with a master in math can teach kids math. A super-friendly, nice, beautiful, polite social science major (or not even that) who doesn't know math well cannot. The level of teachers needs to be an order of magnitude above the level expected of kids at the end of the class. Knowledge of the subject needs to take absolute precedence in teacher hiring decisions, to the point that good teachers get rejected if lacking expertise in the subject. This is not how things work. They only worked that way for a short while due to the crash of 89. I've had a French teacher that couldn't speak more than "some" French. Certainly nowhere near fluent. 2) Money needs to support that. Which means for Math, the money for math teachers needs to be competitive with research departments of banks, and very different for different subjects, which seems offensive to schools and government in general. If teaching positions aren't competing with other professional careers in the subject matter, it will never work. This will, of course, mean that many science teachers make more than a school principal and even a district administrator. Deal with it. For Math, they are literally not even 25% of that, but even for French it's insufficient.
- piva00 3mo ago
  > 2) Money needs to support that. Which means for Math, the money for math teachers needs to be competitive with research departments of banks, and very different for different subjects, which seems offensive to schools and government in general. If teaching positions aren't competing with other professional careers in the subject matter, it will never work. This will, of course, mean that many science teachers make more than a school principal and even a district administrator. Deal with it. I believe this to be a heavily US-centric view, Estonia and Finland do not pay more for math teachers than they could get in banks' research departments but still manage to get competent teaching across most school subjects. Things work outside of the US, the issue is the US does not want to look outside and adapt itself to incorporate what's been learnt from other systems. It's a "do the US way or no way" attitude, and it's slowly eroding to become more a "no way" than any kind of "US way" of doing things.

LCRVYSB 3mo ago

Injecting money into education is how the US got to the moon. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Education_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Defense_Education_Act) And, school administrators are the opposite of what's needed in schools: the US needs better teacher pay and more teachers -- the ones who actually teach students. Short of that however, yes, we get philanthropic failures such as Zuckerberg's attempt in silicon valley, and basically any attempt throughout Africa as examples. Throwing laptops at the problem doesn't work, neither does external donations that get funneled to the wrong places.