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?
I love how you just try to shut down debate about the most incorrect part of your post on which your entire premise rests. Newsom allowed schools to open but because he didn't force them to you pretend he was advocating for their closure.
This is a chronic problem for a lot of people.
A poster says X because he imagines that X must be true because X fits with his worldview. Then, when he is questioned about X, he looks for evidence. If the poster can't find evidence, or even worse, is confronted with something that is contrary to what he said, then he dissembles, shifts the goalposts, or asks why people are focusing on smaller point X rather than larger point Y.
It should be easy to say, "I assumed that X must be true but now I am not so sure." But for a lot of people, it is exceedingly difficult.
This is a chronic problem for a lot of people.
A poster says X because he imagines that X must be true because X fits with his worldview. Then, when he is questioned about X, he looks for evidence. If the poster can't find evidence, or even worse, is confronted with something that is contrary to what he said, then he dissembles, shifts the goalposts, or asks why people are focusing on smaller point X rather than larger point Y.
It should be easy to say, "I assumed that X must be true but now I
man you said you didn't care about evidence of hipocrisy because it's common.
now newsom allowing public schools to stay closed for many more months than private schools is "evidence of the contrary" ffs
This is a chronic problem for a lot of people.
A poster says X because he imagines that X must be true because X fits with his worldview. Then, when he is questioned about X, he looks for evidence. If the poster can't find evidence, or even worse, is confronted with something that is contrary to what he said, then he dissembles, shifts the goalposts, or asks why people are focusing on smaller point X rather than larger point Y.
It should be easy to say, "I assumed that X must be true but now I
That's a very lawyerly way of saying "a lot of people don't like to admit being wrong" lol.
man you said you didn't care about evidence of hipocrisy because it's common.
now newsom allowing public schools to stay closed for many more months than private schools is "evidence of the contrary" ffs
No. I said that you can find a few hypocrites in any group and that those hypocrites don't tell us much about the group as a whole.
I'm still waiting for the evidence that supports your premise.
now newsom allowing public schools to stay closed for many more months than private schools is "evidence of the contrary" ffs
The article that you posted stated that he allowed schools to open, but somehow you're using that as evidence that he advocated for them to be closed. You're not making much sense.
The article that you posted stated that he allowed schools to open, but somehow you're using that as evidence that he advocated for them to be closed. You're not making much sense.
He allowed schools to open because that's how PRIVATE schools got opened, for his kids.
But he didn't force the opening of public schools.
The topic was about having private schools open, and public schools closed
So the evidence you found completely disproves your premise and undermines your entire argument, but you can't admit it?
So the evidence you found completely disproves your premise and undermines your entire argument, but you can't admit it?
The top of the iceberg evidence (governor of the most populous state) proves that democrats were fine allowing public schools staying closed while they sent their kids to private schools.
The fact that they talked in favour of opening those schools while allowing them to stay closed, while creating the legal conditions that allowed them to close, even if they had the power to keep them open is only an aggravating factor, don't you see?
I can admit I was wrong in writing about being vocally in favor of closing public schools in 2021, but the idea is the same, actually worse, they even pretended to want them open while doing everything they could to keep them closed.
CDC guidelines for example were written to allow teachers to claim their health was at risk and so schools could be closed. State guidelines in democratic states as well
I was wrong, but if you think about it, I was actually just even more right!
And all the democratic elites follow Newsome, the tip of the iceberg...
Many of the various issues within the US education system could be mitigated simply by banning private schools altogether. This has been demonstrated repeatedly.
Many of the various issues within the US education system could be mitigated simply by banning private schools altogether. This has been demonstrated repeatedly.
In NYC, at least, I think that complete abolition of private schools would cause a significant chunk of the city's wealthiest taxpayers to move to the suburbs (which many do already, but not as many as in a lot of U.S. cities).
Many of the various issues within the US education system could be mitigated simply by banning private schools altogether. This has been demonstrated repeatedly.
i am not sure how this can be achieved legally under the current reading of the US constitution though ( Wisconsin v. Yoder, 1972) , given the court finds a right to homeschooling, even if you could ban private schools people would set up pooled-homeschooling with tutors anyway (like they did during covid in some cases)
Pingry is within commuting distance from Manhattan and lots of legit private boarding schools outside of NYC.
A lot of the NYC private schools probably just start a new campus in Newport/Hoboken or whatever.
Simplistic solutions like abolish all private schools is never the answer for complex issues. What works in NY, Chicago and San Francisco doesn't work in other places. Where I live 52% of the people who live in the city are below the poverty line. With suburbs that you can drive downtown in 30 minutes at rush hour, better schools and housing, all of the rich live outside city limits. Still, private schools do keep taxpayers and their families within city limits. Without this option, there would be even less taxpayers (families) in the city.
Pingry is within commuting distance from Manhattan and lots of legit private boarding schools outside of NYC.
A lot of the NYC private schools probably just start a new campus in Newport/Hoboken or whatever.
They all suck and are getting worse from what i can tell. Ive been to one and am keeping track of that.
You dont even know what its like
But play Mr Knowitall 😀
Yea
What’s been shown is that when faced with public education as the only option, the wealthy pour their resources into those systems instead of private education and demand higher quality from their representatives which elevates the entire public system by proxy. It’s a curb cut effect, and it is very simple which is why it works.
