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?
Well if republicans would actually care about the teachers and working class in general it wouldn’t be so …
That’s actually how democracy work .
You vote for those that benefits you , when you actually are informed enough to know who actually benefits you ….but many on a certain sides of the aisle can’t even read a chart !
I hope repubs never care about teachers if teachers don’t change. Too many teachers fought to keep schools closed for far too long under Covid. Again, until they have an incentive to actually care for kids they will never do so. Repubs fight for kids and dems fight for teachers - it’s a story as old as the two parties.
You forgot to address my point about how teachers currently have zero incentive to do a good job.
Luciom,
Enough with this. We get it. You are dying to explain at length why you think black people are dumb. You feel aggrieved that you aren't able to do so without risking a ban. To all that, I say tough ****. If it is so important to you to be able to air your views on that topic, then go somewhere else.
no I want to explain at length why democrats in Vermont with the same identical policies, ideas, commitments, organizational procedures do exceptionally better than democrats in California wrt education.
wait no, I'll wait for you to explain that to me.
can you under forum rules?
given other people say Canada does well and the USA does worse and they claim this means voucher schools are useless, how can I counter that if not by giving my opinion about why USA intrinsically would have worse educational results cereria paribus?
but I can't under forum rules (and not necessarily the reasons you think).
but this is a thread about USA education, how can we discuss it while hiding the elephant in the room?
but you do you, so please tell me why Minnesota and Vermont have exceptionally better educational outcomes than the richer California who spends more on education (it's all democrats deciding everything in the 3 states)
imo if the schools went full private you'd end up with a handful of companies in each region (eventually countrywide) in the school business. Like how Tylenol costs $50 a pill in a hospital or the dod paying $10 for a paperclip or whatever, the govt (taxpayers) would start getting gouged for everything, costs cut everywhere for more profit, etc... also would not be inclusive at all. Just because a mom in Compton wants to send her kid to school in Beverly hills doesn't mean it's going to happen.
You do realize that in many states it costs more per kid in a public school than a private school, right? So the exact opposite of what you think will happen is already happening and the vouchers would create a lot more incentive to compete.
If you actually think that's the reason why Canada is getting better results than the US, you have further demonstrated your lack of knowledge of this subject, but of course that never stops you from having strong opinions you believe to be worthy of churning out 40 or 50 posts per day about. And how you think privatizing the education system would solve this is beyond me. Perhaps your solution includes special schools for dumb people from undesirable demographics?
Edit to add: Oops, sorry Rococo
I think zip code segregation is terrible.
given it's impossible to remove that because no party can win elections proposing that, voucher schools would achieve partial geographical desegregation so low SES, high IQ students (those who have a chance) don't have to spend half their time in school worrying when they will be hit again with their stuff stolen.
low SES students without special qualities will always perform horribly in any system regardless
given other people say Canada does well and the USA does worse and they claim this means voucher schools are useless
Nope.
Pretty sure I'm the only one who brought up Canada, and I certainly didn't "claim this means voucher schools are useless". I said it's not a magic solution.
Well, you could provide the evidence you've seen that has convinced you that a private school/voucher system will provide great results. PISA rankings certainly don't seem to back that up, so on what are you basing this belief?
Nope.
Pretty sure I'm the only one who brought up Canada, and I certainly didn't "claim this means voucher schools are useless". I said it's not a magic solution.
Well, you could provide the evidence you've seen that has convinced you that a private school/voucher system will provide great results. PISA rankings certainly don't seem to back that up, so on what are you basing this belief?
I am not saying it will provide GREAT educational outcomes.
i said it would improve outcomes at the margin while heavily damaging democrats in the USA.
I am not sure what this has to do with PISA given it's about two possible American scenarios, an america with vouchers schools everywhere vs an america without.
I think zip code segregation is terrible.
given it's impossible to remove that because no party can win elections proposing that, voucher schools would achieve partial geographical desegregation so low SES, high IQ students (those who have a chance) don't have to spend half their time in school worrying when they will be hit again with their stuff stolen.
low SES students without special qualities will always perform horribly in any system regardless
Hey look, now you're on to something! Have you given any thought to the idea that maybe just throwing up your hands and saying "well, no politicians can win an election with that proposal, so I guess we're stuck with the real problem - let's just further divide everyone up!" might not be an optimal approach? Like, maybe trying to fix the huge diversity in SES might not just help with education, but many other problems that plague society?
I am not saying it will provide GREAT educational outcomes.
i said it would improve outcomes at the margin while heavily damaging democrats in the USA.
Wow, setting that bar high! 🙄 Own the libs! Own the libs!
I am not sure what this has to do with PISA given it's about two possible American scenarios, an america with vouchers schools everywhere vs an america without.
Is the argument that tough to follow? I've seen no evidence to show a vouchers system is a good solution, or even an improvement. Do you have any?
the huge diversity in SES is mostly because high SES people marry and stay married, the rest of the population doesn't.
and high SES people assortatively marry more than everytime before in history in the USA today (you don't have high income men marrying secretaries or bimbos anymore, you get that?).
so it's two income, two college major parents vs random basket case households with one parent away, in jail, on drugs, dead by fentanyl and so on.
Or "simply" divorced, in a country where it is then normal to move away for the parent without custody (do you know that's not legal in Italy? you have to live where the kids are even if the primary custodian is the other parent, or you lose all parental rights for life).
that is unsurmountable by policy, and high income people in the USA already pay a disproportionate part of overall federal income taxes.
the huge diversity in SES is mostly because high SES people marry and stay married, the rest of the population doesn't.
and high SES people assortatively marry more than everytime before in history in the USA today (you don't have high income men marrying secretaries or bimbos anymore, you get that?).
so it's two income, two college major parents vs random basket case households with one parent away, in jail, on drugs, dead by fentanyl and so on.
Or "simply" divorced, in a country where it is then
LOL, OK then.
the huge diversity in SES is mostly because high SES people marry and stay married, the rest of the population doesn't.
Dunno man, seems like every other day there is a headline about the latest record breaking divorce settlement or some juicy gossip about allegations made in some divorce involving the rich and famous.
Nah man, SES diversity is just completely unsolvable. The poors are dumb, keep intermarrying, and so they need to be left behind. It's not the government's job to worry about that, so it's time to put it in the hands of free enterprise, and the strongest will thrive!
as for proof of voucher schools working on not, as with any politicized topic you can link as much crap as you want proving they don't, I can link as much crap as I want proving they do work, all the crap will be published in "scientific journals", and no one will change his mind.
same as with the effect of tariffs on GDP, efficacy of masks to prevent COVID and so on.
LOL.
Nah man, SES diversity is just completely unsolvable. The poors are dumb, keep intermarrying, and so they need to be left behind. It's not the government's job to worry about that, so it's time to put it in the hands of free enterprise, and the strongest will thrive!
this un ironically (except it's the rich that stopped marrying poorer, less educated people, specifically rich men who stopped having children with lower SES women)
this un ironically (except it's the rich that stopped marrying poorer, less educated people, specifically rich men who stopped having children with lower SES women)
do you want the links from right-leaning associations so that you can then counter with left-leaning institutions disagreeing?
to what end?
it's not like the first time I talk about this topic lol
You do whatever you like. PISA is the most universally used/respected ranking I know of, and I don't see any indication in those rankings that there's reason to believe vouchers would be an improvement. To counter that, so far you've come up with implications of innate superiority I won't get into and that the poors don't marry the right people being the reason that vouchers are the best that can be done, even though it will apparently only improve things at the margins:
Yes, we need some sort of ultimate fix for the undesirable question. If only we could come up with a catchier phrase for that.
Yes, we need some sort of ultimate fix for the undesirable question. If only we could come up with a catchier phrase for that.
let them live freely like everyone else without subsidize them, there is no fix.
draconian punishments if/when they touch other people property or body though, and we are fine.
btw I am still waiting explanations as to why Minnesota and Vermont do so much better than California wrt K12 education, I can even accept leftist papers on that
