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?
Ok, guess I'm a bit uneducated here. I assumed something was a for profit company, a charity, or a government/state funded entity. I didn't know there was another type of organisation.
At this point The Ivy Leagues and similar private colleges are basically investment banks/giant property owners (owning giant chunks of some of the most valuable land in the country) that dont have to pay most taxes because they are "non profits."
Ok, guess I'm a bit uneducated here. I assumed something was a for profit company, a charity, or a government/state funded entity. I didn't know there was another type of organisation.
It's a very intricate pattern of various types of entities with detailed distinctions, and anyway the model I am suggesting is already operating in some American states, it's not an "on paper" model.
The thing that hasn't happened yet (afaik) is the abolition of the state owned ones, but plenty of places have charter schools in the USA (places you can choose instead of your assigned public school, where the government pays a fixed sum for tuition )
It's a very intricate pattern of various types of entities with detailed distinctions, and anyway the model I am suggesting is already operating in some American states, it's not an "on paper" model.
The thing that hasn't happened yet (afaik) is the abolition of the state owned ones, but plenty of places have charter schools in the USA (places you can choose instead of your assigned public school, where the government pays a fixed sum for tuition )
What's your objection to that sort of mixed model, with both public and charter schools available?
What's your objection to that sort of mixed model, with both public and charter schools available?
Waste of money except in rural remote areas. As always private entities in competition do a better job at providing a service for lower prices.
I can see the public option as a last case resort if no one is willing to open a school in some place, but even in that case it would be better to just increase the voucher size for that area until you have takers, like we do in many countries to have companies serve very rural areas with mail, banking services, trains and so on.
I'm still curious as to how this not for profit private business model works, and why it would create competition, but I guess I can do my own research on that.
I'm still curious as to how this not for profit private business model works, and why it would create competition, but I guess I can do my own research on that.
Competition simply because various groups will be interested in having a say in education, and because demand will be fragmented among various options, with people preferring some kind of education to some other, same as why there are both pizzerias and burger joints.
As for the nonprofit I am not saying to mandate that forms just saying it will be one of the forms used.
Billionaire foundations could play a role, big colleges with great endowments if they want could create specialized prep schools and so on and on.
Someone will try for profit entities sure, then you let the market do its thing which is always a better thing than the public only thing
I do think that the school system in America, the UK, and I suspect most other Western countries is woefully inadequate, particularly when it comes to STEM subjects. I have no idea what should be done about it, but it seems like maybe Luciom's voucher system might help. Or it might not, who knows.
I'm still curious as to how this not for profit private business model works, and why it would create competition, but I guess I can do my own research on that.
Look for comparative studies on how successful ones (DC) compare to **** ones (basically all the deep red states)
A theme emerges: oversight and the ability to get rid of badly performing schools can make vouchers and charters extremely successful, to the consternation of teacher’s unions that often seem to wish ill upon the charter schools
I always find it strange people thinking the private sectors is there to give a better services at the expenses of profits …
We see it clearly I suppose how many stuff we buy today last half or a third of time what it used to last..
Because it’s a better services we get ?
Just looking at how far more expensive medical care in the U.S. is twice as expensive in public healthcare should sound some alarm bell on that notion of better services with higher profits isn’t compatible ..
Look for comparative studies on how successful ones (DC) compare to **** ones (basically all the deep red states)
A theme emerges: oversight and the ability to get rid of badly performing schools can make vouchers and charters extremely successful, to the consternation of teacher’s unions that often seem to wish ill upon the charter schools
Was the DC program even successful? It's not great if that one is the example of success and other ones are typically worse.
In So Cal cities charter and magnet schools provide MUCH better outcomes than regular public ones, and there is fierce competition by everyone in the middle class and lower to get in one.
More than any other issue, this is probably where there is the biggest disprecancy between the Democratic machine (which is anti-Charter school) and the holi polloi.
-For those of you not aware of how CA demographics work, the white vote that is anti charter schools is mostly upper class who send their kids to private school or suburban whites who send their kids to local public schools that are effectively segregated by extremely high single family property prices and strict zoning laws. And the black and Hispanic that supports charter schools are the people who actually have to send their kids to public schools.
Charter schools don't need to be perfect btw, they just need to be better than the worst public schools in a district to provide actual value to families, and that's such a low threshold it's very hard to fail.
moreover charter schools cost taxpayers less per pupil than fully public schools
This is an aside, but I really feel an important motivation for liberal elites (whose own children all go to private schools) for being so supportive of dysfunctional public schools, and antagonistic towards any efforts to improve the system; is a cynical desire to sabotage the lower classes to give their own children a competitive advantage.
This is an aside, but I really feel an important motivation for liberal elites (whose own children all go to private schools) for being so supportive of dysfunctional public schools, and antagonistic towards any efforts to improve the system; is a cynical desire to sabotage the lower classes to give their own children a competitive advantage.
Cool, since we are generalising, now do conservatives. Why do they hate education so much and exalt ignorance and superstition?
Cool, since we are generalising, now do conservatives. Why do they hate education so much and exalt ignorance and superstition?
Well, mainly because they are uneducated, ignorant and superstitious.
Ironically, it is a general failing of liberal elites in that they love to recognize and demonize the pathologies of the white, lower class. But because of their white savior syndrome, they have this weird blind spot where they dont realize that poor, uneducated black and brown people are just as bad (if not worse). And that importing millions of such people from Latin America for cheap, labor reasons looks like it may politically backfire. AS they seem just as eager as poor whites to embrace all the right wing "MAGA" pathologies that dont involve racism against themselves.
D2_E4,
Anytime you need any generalization to help you understand the world better, I am here to provide the service. Free of charge.
I do think that the school system in America, the UK, and I suspect most other Western countries is woefully inadequate, particularly when it comes to STEM subjects. I have no idea what should be done about it.
Teach math like they do in Singapore. Offer supplemental reading in the style of:
Probability and Statistics: The Vegas Way : Unique, Easily Understood, Conversational Style for Students, Gamblers and Others Not Mathematically Inclined
Teach math like they do in Singapore. Offer supplemental reading in the style of:
Probability and Statistics: The Vegas Way : Unique, Easily Understood, Conversational Style for Students, Gamblers and Others Not Mathematically Inclined
Judging by the length of the title, sounds like one of your books.
Catchy.
This is an aside, but I really feel an important motivation for liberal elites (whose own children all go to private schools) for being so supportive of dysfunctional public schools, and antagonistic towards any efforts to improve the system; is a cynical desire to sabotage the lower classes to give their own children a competitive advantage.
I guess you can ascribe a secret, subconscious motivation to any group, but never in my life have I heard a personal acquaintance say anything that led me to believe that this "cynical desire" had ever crossed their mind.
