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?
The latter link , belief in "peaceful natives" is higher the younger the generation. And among millennials/z higher with more education.
In europe (in italy at least) we touch pre-colonization american natives very little in general outside of college, and in college only if it's linked to the major.
And what we study in high school about natives is most about central and southern american natives (maya/inca/atzec).
We are told about the imperialistic incas and so on
Is the real lesson here that the natives were savages and barbarians and we should think of them as we do of the Ghanaians?
I was taught “trail of tears” was considered one of the darkest stains on American history.
ye that has nothing to do with the topic though, which is "where you told natives murdered each others at rates higher than murder rates in western societies at the same age, and warfare between different tribes was extremely common, and they got slaughtered regularly all the times for millennia before they ever saw a white man, so what colonizers did them *wasn't much different from the fate natives regularly encountered when living among themselves*
Is the real lesson here that the natives were savages and barbarians and we should think of them as we do of the Ghanaians?
No lesson is the "white colonizers" weren't worse people in any actual sense, they weren't bad people who killed good people, they were just violent people (like everyone always was in history, or their group perished), that killed weaker people, like natives did among themselves all the times anyway. No special "white man guilt".
Everyone alive today of any ethnic group exclusively exists because A LOT of his ancestors were more violent, more cunning, more murderous, more cinical than the other people living at the same time and location. We are *all* descendants of violent people, the non violent ones were genocided over and over and over and over.
Is the real lesson here that the natives were savages and barbarians and we should think of them as we do of the Ghanaians?
Yes, for the most part. Same thing for the Europeans before they were civilized. I don't know how familiar you are with actually Norse/Germanic history, but it is some savage ****. But in fairness probably mild compared to what was going down with the Aztecs. Apocalypto (the Mel Gibson movie) was probably a sanitized version of just how brutal the Aztecs were.
No lesson is the "white colonizers" weren't worse people in any actual sense, they weren't bad people who killed good people, they were just violent people (like everyone always was in history, or their group perished), that killed weaker people, like natives did among themselves all the times anyway. No special "white man guilt".
Everyone alive today of any ethnic group exclusively exists because A LOT of his ancestors were more violent, more cunning, more murderous, more cinical than the other
this.
of course the usual crowd will abhor such statements, but violence, or more aptly the threat of it, is what keeps the world in order.
Yes, for the most part. Same thing for the Europeans before they were civilized. I don't know how familiar you are with actually Norse/Germanic history, but it is some savage ****. But in fairness probably mild compared to what was going down with the Aztecs. Apocalypto (the Mel Gibson movie) was probably a sanitized version of just how brutal the Aztecs were.
yes but they were only violent because of colonialism.
ye that has nothing to do with the topic though, which is "where you told natives murdered each others at rates higher than murder rates in western societies at the same age, and warfare between different tribes was extremely common, and they got slaughtered regularly all the times for millennia before they ever saw a white man, so what colonizers did them *wasn't much different from the fate natives regularly encountered when living among themselves*
We don't have data on "murder rates" among Native Americans prior to arrival of Europeans in the Americas.
For that matter, we don't really have reliable data on murder rates among Europeans during that period either.
*yawn* more shameless lies, what's the point?
We don't have data on "murder rates" among Native Americans prior to arrival of Europeans in the Americas.
For that matter, we don't really have reliable data on murder rates among Europeans during that period either.
we do actually
wonna know which burial sites yielded the highest % of violent death rates everywhere in world history? literally the most violent society of all those we ever got numbers for, across time an geography?
the only thing we aren't sure of is whether they were killing each other more than most other human groups in human history inside the tribe, or between tribes.
We need more educational services for the underprivileged.
But we mustn't then place those same underprivileged with jobs in the activism sector of the economy, considering the health risks
Press 1 for more services.
Luciom,
Do you honestly believe that the charts you posted above prove what you want them to prove? This is a serious question. I am trying to understand how statistically illiterate (or delusional) you actually are.
None of the charts prove much of anything about relative murder rates in the Americas as compared to Europe prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.
If you are simply noting that life was often brutal in the ancient past, that's hardly a novel observation.
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
vouchers and charter schools are just another way for private companies to rent seek. and then you just see the reality of the race to the bottom of cheapest product/highest profit that you see absolutely everywhere, that republicans just ignore and pretend doesnt exist.
you dont understand how taking money out of a system while providing nothing of value to the system is a bad thing for the people that use said system?
for example there are about 20 states(last i checked) in the US where you can not buy a car directly from a manufacturer. you HAVE to go through a car dealership in the state. and the car dealership makes a "profit" as you said.. you can understand how that is a bad thing for the people that have to use the system right?
you dont understand how taking money out of a system while providing nothing of value to the system is a bad thing for the people that use said system?
for example there are about 20 states(last i checked) in the US where you can not buy a car directly from a manufacturer. you HAVE to go through a car dealership in the state. and the car dealership makes a "profit" as you said.. you can understand how that is a bad thing right?
If they provide nothing of value, why do they exist? Sounds like they provide some sort of distribution framework between the manufacturer and the consumer, no? I mean, you probably can't buy aspirin directly from whoever manufactures it either.
As it relates to the current topic, I can certainly see why taking money out of a system while providing nothing of value would be a bad thing, but you need to demonstrate why charter schools add no value - simply saying that they don't is not really refuting anything that has been argued.
If they provide nothing of value, why do they exist? Sounds like they provide some sort of distribution framework between the manufacturer and the consumer, no? I mean, you probably can't buy aspirin directly from whoever manufactures it either.
As it relates to the current topic, I can certainly see why taking money out of a system while providing nothing of value would be a bad thing, but you need to demonstrate why charter schools add no value - simply saying that they don't is not really refu
they exist because of lobbying money and insider dealing. it's a system of middlemen carving out money.
charter and private schools already exist in the united states, giving them further portions of public education funds provides nothing to the existing structure. the idea that those schools are going to suddenly double in size taking kids that aren't already able to afford/test into them is nonsense. the tuitions/test standards will just increase in proportion to the vouchers.
the idea that you are going to get "budget" schools opening up for the base price of the voucher that are better than the current program that has more funding is also nonsense. it's just a rightwing idea to get richer and mostly white kids away from everyone else leaving them behind.
None of the charts prove much of anything about relative murder rates in the Americas as compared to Europe prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Americas.
If you are simply noting that life was often brutal in the ancient past, that's hardly a novel observation.
No I am noting that life was particularly brutal in the Americas in the ancient last compared to the rest of the world pre-state.
Few places were as brutal in human history before states as north America was pre -european arrival, that's what the charts say.
And it's quite a "novel" for some people observation to notice that a significant proportion of deaths were death from human violence.
When people think of brutal past they think about lack of food, simple accidents killing you, disease and so on. Not murder as the cause of death for 1 or 2 people every 10, nevermind the absurd 6/10 in south Dakota (probably some outlier linked to some event there)
vouchers and charter schools are just another way for private companies to rent seek. and then you just see the reality of the race to the bottom of cheapest product/highest profit that you see absolutely everywhere, that republicans just ignore and pretend doesnt exist.
Remember that in the voucher system each parent is given a voucher for each child. The schools will have to work their tails off trying to convince each parent that their school is the best school for their child. It isn’t a race to the bottom to provide the worst/cheapest education. In fact the exact opposite would occur because each year the parent can switch to another that provides a better education.
Rent seeking purportedly refers to the idea of finding some Perma -cashflow you get without delivering anything.
It has nothing to do with private schools in competition
Traditionally when most people think of rent they think of the price people pay to stay in a property that someone else owns. So the person who owns the property gets the money via the rent and renters get to stay in the property. Rent agreements are signed by both the renters and the owners and the only reason both parties sign the contract is because they found it to be the best value to them.
Remember that in the voucher system each parent is given a voucher for each child. The schools will have to work their tails off trying to convince each parent that their school is the best school for their child. It isn’t a race to the bottom to provide the worst/cheapest education. In fact the exact opposite would occur because each year the parent can switch to another that provides a better education.
Traditionally when most people think of rent they think of the price people pay to st
this simply isn't how the world works with stuff like this.. it might work that way in your trickledown privatize everything fantasy world, but that's not the case with real people. i have 1 ISP available to me. my only option is to move. that ISP has absolutely zero need to compete thus why my service is absolute crap and i pay just as much as people with literally 25x the speed and service. and they spent a lot of money for the privilege of NOT competing. that's how schools will work. what good is every child gets a voucher, when you have 1 option or you have to commute 45 minutes each way or move your entire residence to the other "option".
and i'm sure the rightwingderp answer will be, "then someone will start another school". but the answer is the same. why don't i have more than one ISP?
and yes the term "rent seeking" has a different meaning than the term rental.
