Education in the United States
We have a thread devoted to academic freedom at universities, and we have a thread devoted to whether higher education should be subsidized. This thread is a landing spot for discussion of other issues related to education -- issues like school integration, pedagogy, the influence of politics on education (and vice versa), charter schools, public v. private schools, achievement gaps, and gerrymandering of school districts.
I'll start the discussion with two articles. The first deals with a major changes in the public school system in NYC.
NYC's public schools are highly segregated for such a diverse city. Last Friday, Bill DeBlasio announced the following:
Middle schools will see the most significant policy revisions. The city will eliminate all admissions screening for the schools for at least one year, the mayor said. About 200 middle schools — 40 percent of the total — use metrics like grades, attendance and test scores to determine which students should be admitted. Now those schools will use a random lottery to admit students.
In doing this, Mr. de Blasio is essentially piloting an experiment that, if deemed successful, could permanently end the city’s academically selective middle schools, which tend to be much whiter than the district overall.
DeBlasio also announced that:
New York will also eliminate a policy that allowed some high schools to give students who live nearby first dibs at spots — even though all seats are supposed to be available to all students, regardless of where they reside.
The system of citywide choice was implemented by former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2004 as part of an attempt to democratize high school admissions. But Mr. Bloomberg exempted some schools, and even entire districts, from the policy, and Mr. de Blasio did not end those carve outs.
The most conspicuous example is Manhattan’s District 2, one of the whitest and wealthiest of the city’s 32 local school districts. Students who live in that district, which includes the Upper East Side and the West Village, get priority for seats in some of the district’s high schools, which are among the highest-performing schools in the city.
No other district in the city has as many high schools — six — set aside for local, high-performing students.
Many of those high schools fill nearly all of their seats with students from District 2 neighborhoods before even considering qualified students from elsewhere. As a result, some schools, like Eleanor Roosevelt High School on the Upper East Side, are among the whitest high schools in all of New York City.
Here is the New York Times article that describes the changes:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/nyreg...
Obvious questions for discussion include:
- How large a priority should cities place on ensuring that city schools are representative of the city as a whole?
- Are measures like the ones that DeBlasio is implementing likely to be effective in making schools more representative?
- Will these measures have unintended (or intended) consequences that extend far beyond changing the representativeness of city schools?
Tell me exactly how this works. Do we completely eliminate public schools, or just siphon money away from them? Will the voucher pay 100% of the private school tuition? How much would that come out per student vs. public school. Can we guarantee every student can attend?
Schools are like the police. If you don't like what they're doing you just defund, then everything will get better.
Tell me exactly how this works. Do we completely eliminate public schools, or just siphon money away from them? Will the voucher pay 100% of the private school tuition? How much would that come out per student vs. public school. Can we guarantee every student can attend?
no you start with vouchers and charter schools, no one is yet removing the public option (afaik).
you make money follow the student not the teachers union. if public schools can teach 100 students with 2m, ofc if they have half the students they need half the money and so, so you aren't "siphoning". that would require public schools to fire aggressively ofc, if demand for their services drop, and they have plenty of fat to cut starting from all DEI, and many admin jobs, then the worst teachers.
They can also rent portions of their buildings to charter schools at some point
Keep in mind demand wouldn't drop the same in every one of them, it will drop more in the most horrible ones, which then will have to cut and/or at some point close which is one of the main ways you improve education, by pruning the worst 5% of horrible offenders.
the charter school supply will position itself in a way that caters to local demand. in a dense urban area with a lot of people all kind of offers will pop up, including some schools asking top ups from parents. but in many cases the voucher will cover tuition in full yes (and will be lower than the cost per pupil you see today in the worst offending areas because it won't need to cover for the democrats cost bloat). i mean this is what is already happening we aren't talking hypotheticals.
there might be accessibility problems in rural/sparse areas which is something you have to think about in detail depending on the area, and in some cases you will need to top up with public money a tad to guarantee coverage of service (like the USA already does with mail services to cover unprofitable areas).
the winners will be families, students, taxpayers, society at large because with less money you achieve better results.
the huge losers will be teachers unions, democrat politicians getting less in donations, radical leftist colleges (good luck asking 50k/year for majors in useless garbage if those people can't then be hired as DEI consultants by school districts)
imagine spending 36m to give two extra days of schools to 9% of the kids in LA,
because your political donors want to be paid special overtime and whatnot to work on December 19th roflmao.
democrats use taxpayers money for education as their piggy bank
Also if you ever come across someone whose English is perfect but you can't place their accent, they are from South Africa.
Americans can't tell an Australian accent from a UK accent from a South African accent. The rest of us can.
Some Americans are more traveled than others.
I definitely have a hard time between Australian vs New Zealand though. I don't think UK vs Australia is particularly hard to distinguish though. Not very hard at all.
Some Americans are more traveled than others.
I definitely have a hard time between Australian vs New Zealand though. I don't think UK vs Australia is particularly hard to distinguish though. Not very hard at all.
Australia vs New Zealand differences are quite subtle, much like some US vs Canadian accents. In contrast, English vs Welsh vs Scottish vs Irish accents are all starkly different. Even south of England vs north of England are very different.
Australia vs New Zealand differences are quite subtle, much like some US vs Canadian accents. On the contrary, English vs Welsh vs Scottish vs Irish accents are all starkly different. Even south of England vs north of England are very different.
I don't know, from where I sit NZ is like ultrasoapy like "ultra British" like as if most sounds disappeared , Australia is more like a drawl where at least I can hear the actual sounds
I don't know, from where I sit NZ is like ultrasoapy like "ultra British" like as if most sounds disappeared , Australia is more like a drawl where at least I can hear the actual sounds
I've confused Aussies for Kiwis before and vice versa. My recommendation would he never to suggest one or the other as being wrong is liable to get you punched lol.
I worked with a bunch of Aussies, South Africans, and Afrikaners who spoke English. After a while it was pretty easy for me to tell them apart.
Back to the topic at hand, I have to say, Luciom is selling me on this charter school idea and I'm not really understanding the objections to it.
AFAIK we don't have charter schools in the UK, but we do have free (over here the term "public school" is counterintuitively used to mean a private, i.e. paid school - it's open to all members of the public who can afford it) "grammar schools" which have entrance tests and the student needs to get a high enough score to be accepted. The alternative to a grammar school is called a comprehensive school which is open to all students who live in the catchment area. Does the US have something similar to our grammar schools for high achieving students?
I guess vouchers and charter schools seem ok in theory.
One of the things that makes me leery of it is the fact the right wants it so bad. I can't help but to think I'm not hearing the nitty gritty from luciom. His railing against teacher unions give me a pause as well.
What do we do with those kids that can't/won't learn?
What do we do with the very challenging kids that might make it?
What do we do with the over-achievers?
I guess vouchers and charter schools seem ok in theory.
One of the things that makes me leery of it is the fact the right wants it so bad. I can't help but to think I'm not hearing the nitty gritty from luciom. His railing against teacher unions give me a pause as well.
What do we do with those kids that can't/won't learn?
What do we do with the very challenging kids that might make it?
What do we do with the over-achievers?
Like I say, over here we have grammar schools for high achievers, which have entry tests. On the opposite end of the spectrum, we also have comprehensives which will accept all the kids that have been expelled from everywhere else. If you manage yo get expelled from there, it's probably off to juvie.
Of course he is, I guess.
There isn't even 10 countries who are are native english
speakers.
Of course I was kidding, but I am shocked that there are 67 countries whose primary language is English - I was imaging it was closer to 15-20. Sorry for he derail over a stupid joke.
I guess vouchers and charter schools seem ok in theory.
One of the things that makes me leery of it is the fact the right wants it so bad. I can't help but to think I'm not hearing the nitty gritty from luciom. His railing against teacher unions give me a pause as well.
What do we do with those kids that can't/won't learn?
What do we do with the very challenging kids that might make it?
What do we do with the over-achievers?
If the US went to vouchers what you are likely to see is a bunch of companies running schools that work their asses off trying to recruit parents/kids to their schools.
There are likely to be schools out there that will compete for the behavior challenging kids as well. Remember we are talking about guaranteed gov't checks every year as long as the kids/parents can keep the kids in school. If you think these behavior challenging kids are unattractive think about how there are some renters who are super unattractive, but they are section 8 housing so home owners are still willing to fix up a house enough to attract these types of renters because they come with the gov't guaranteed checks.
There will also likely be some kind of standardized test that will be required and each school will have to publish how their kids did. There will also likely be some kind of gov't rule that if a school tests below x% mark that the vouchers they will give those kids is only 75% (making up numbers for the sake of argument) of the voucher they will give those parents if they went to a school above that x% test mark.
Over-achieving kids will be requited even harder than normal kids in the same way colleges currently recruit them - scholarships, smaller classrooms, better facilities, pizza for lunch everyday, etc.
I'm not sure what all lucium has said about teacher unions, but I think they are a net drag on education - as is tenure in college professors.
