Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 114 posts

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#21

Post by ThomPete »

dalke wrote: post #18
ThomPete wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are even more truly awful publicly funded schools out there too. Harlem have their share. That doesn't mean there aren't good public schools too. But that's not a way to discuss this IMO. Teaching is hard, getting a school to run properly is hard in todays environment. Charterschools are good because they allow for differentiation in education. We don't want anyone to be educated exactly the same way. Thats not…

I feel like you are presenting a fake contrast. When I was in public schools, there was a lot of differentiation in education, and students definitely weren't taught all the same, including different levels (eg, AP vs. non AP history), different tracks (eg, extra courses for those interested in practical arts, or interested in programming, for a career), and special support for students with more specific needs, incl…

No fake contrast. I am responding to the OP who seem to want charter schools to go away based on a claim that they are somehow bad.

Success Academy was started because the public school system failed to educate kids in Harlem. The philosophy have since then been copied at other schools with success my son is in Williamsburg.

This isn't only about the curriculum but about the very approach to teaching the kids AND the parents involvement in their kids education.

The difference between today and back then I feel is best illustrated by this http://i.imgur.com/LglSapk.jpg

Success Academy fights this with tooth and nail but in return require quite a lot from their teachers.

It's not a perfect system but I prefer it compared to the public school he first went to exactly because its focus on getting parents back on the side of the teacher and their goal and method for getting the kids to love learning.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#22

Post by partisan »

exelius wrote: post #7

This is a good thing for the country; the education provided by these schools is often on par with sources like Kahn Academy and Coursera -- at a much higher price. It seemed like many for-profit colleges are simply a way for "schools" to collect federally guaranteed loans that the students then have to pay back. The student assumes all of the risk. The other side of this industry are charter schools. These are for-p…

One thing that gets lost in the comparison between charter schools and public schools is that charter schools get to cherry pick their students. The students not accepted into charter schools are sent to public schools. Public schools then have a higher concentration of underperforming students and therefore perform worse when compared to charter schools.

If you are given the best students and money is thrown at you, you are being handed success. The rest of the schools are being handed failure. When all schools are charter schools then we will see many of them fail and be replaced by more charter schools and the problem will just be perpetuated in a different form.

I wish it were true that charter schools were all about giving students a better education. It is unfortunately not. It is part political and part financial. The political aspect comes from showing success through change (see my first paragraph to understand how that success is gained). The financial aspect goes to the higher salaries paid to administrators. The school districts are happy to pay higher salaries now to rid themselves of unions and more importantly, pensions since charter schools are not unionized. Teachers at those schools work long hours for slightly higher pay. The approach is churn and burn. They hire younger teachers who are just passing through the system on their way to their true careers after they burn out and become disillusioned about the system. Some people will make off pretty well during this growth stage, but the long term outlook is poor.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#23

Post by vonmoltke »

dalke wrote: post #18
ThomPete wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are even more truly awful publicly funded schools out there too. Harlem have their share. That doesn't mean there aren't good public schools too. But that's not a way to discuss this IMO. Teaching is hard, getting a school to run properly is hard in todays environment. Charterschools are good because they allow for differentiation in education. We don't want anyone to be educated exactly the same way. Thats not…

I feel like you are presenting a fake contrast. When I was in public schools, there was a lot of differentiation in education, and students definitely weren't taught all the same, including different levels (eg, AP vs. non AP history), different tracks (eg, extra courses for those interested in practical arts, or interested in programming, for a career), and special support for students with more specific needs, incl…

In my district ~20 years ago "mainstreaming" and "well-rounded" were the buzzwords of the day. That meant, aside from a few honors and AP courses, everyone went through more-or-less the same path in high school. I had 28 classes over four years; 20 were proscribed by the general graduation requirements. There was little wiggle room for "tracks"; those boiled down to "Do I take four years of math and science or just three?" and "Do I take four years of foreign language or stop at two?".

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#24

Post by ThomPete »

partisan wrote: post #22
exelius wrote: post #7

This is a good thing for the country; the education provided by these schools is often on par with sources like Kahn Academy and Coursera -- at a much higher price. It seemed like many for-profit colleges are simply a way for "schools" to collect federally guaranteed loans that the students then have to pay back. The student assumes all of the risk. The other side of this industry are charter schools. These are for-p…

One thing that gets lost in the comparison between charter schools and public schools is that charter schools get to cherry pick their students. The students not accepted into charter schools are sent to public schools. Public schools then have a higher concentration of underperforming students and therefore perform worse when compared to charter schools. If you are given the best students and money is thrown at you,…

Charter schools like Success Academy function by lottery so no cherry picking at all. And keep in mind it was started in Harlem not exactly the best base for the kids with the best resources.

The reason why charter schools like Success Academy are popular is because it's strong focus and philosophy.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#25

Post by galby »

ThomPete wrote: post #15
galby wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true for Success Academy but there are some truly awful charters out there. The problem is that what it means to be a charter school varies so much from state to state and even from district to district.

There are even more truly awful publicly funded schools out there too. Harlem have their share. That doesn't mean there aren't good public schools too. But that's not a way to discuss this IMO. Teaching is hard, getting a school to run properly is hard in todays environment. Charterschools are good because they allow for differentiation in education. We don't want anyone to be educated exactly the same way. Thats not…

I completely agree with you there- I'm a huge fan of well run charters (like KIPP for example) but they don't seem like a scalable solution because they demand so much more of their teaching staff. My comment was more just a criticism of charter school enabling legislation - states that allow online charter schools or home school charters just don't pass the smell test (to me at least).

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#26

Post by ThomPete »

galby wrote: post #25
ThomPete wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are even more truly awful publicly funded schools out there too. Harlem have their share. That doesn't mean there aren't good public schools too. But that's not a way to discuss this IMO. Teaching is hard, getting a school to run properly is hard in todays environment. Charterschools are good because they allow for differentiation in education. We don't want anyone to be educated exactly the same way. Thats not…

I completely agree with you there- I'm a huge fan of well run charters (like KIPP for example) but they don't seem like a scalable solution because they demand so much more of their teaching staff. My comment was more just a criticism of charter school enabling legislation - states that allow online charter schools or home school charters just don't pass the smell test (to me at least).

Good teachers aren't scaleable thats a problem in its own, which is why the parent's involvement is so crucial IMO.

Success Accademy functions by lottery so it has kids from all over new york. Public schools are zoned which means that the best schools are those where the parents have the best incomes.

So even on a "fairness" scale I believe at least Success Academy pass the test.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#27

Post by ThomPete »

wfo wrote: post #19
Shivetya wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh please, get off this idea we don't put enough money into education. We put too much, so much so that they ended up hiring people other than teachers and the carry forward costs are too high. You want to fix education in the US, the money must follow the student. Until the school systems themselves are forced to improve by having students want to attend they won't. The recent issue with testing which they said was…

Of course it's a money issue. We pay teachers garbage for working harder than anyone else, who wants to do that job? If you got the A-types who go into finance or law or medicine into teaching you'd see a very different scenario play out. Right now it's essentially all-volunteer. People call it "a labor of love" but a double-time job paid at part-time wages is what they mean. Teachers don't make money or have respect…

It's a parent issue first of all and can be solved without more money.

http://i.imgur.com/LglSapk.jpg

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#28

Post by randcraw »

IMHO, a better strategy for government would be to encourage community colleges to do more, especially: 1) to emphasize skills that are in demand locally, in the community where the school serves, and 2) to provide instruction for more advanced subjects as part of professional continuing education. Of course, they'll need more funds to do this, as badly cash strapped as they are today.

For example, I'd dearly like to take some advanced math courses like those in the junior/senior years of any good undergrad curriculum. But no college in the Philadelphia area offers these on evenings or weekends, and no college (I know) offers them online. I can't imagine that there's no market for this. Why should this be?

Given the wide availability of community colleges and today's computers and networking infrastructure, it should be easy to teach strong uppergraduate courses to nontraditional students in a wide range of useful tech subjects like engineering, physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc. Using the physical resources of local community colleges, even many uppergrad lab-based courses could be supported.

But to expand their charter, community colleges will need better support, and not just from their local communities. Most CCs today are overwhelmed with lowergraduate demand, given the universal unaffordability of college education.

If congress wants to do something constructive, they should shift their support and attention away from for-profit schools and transfer to community colleges.

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#29

Post by a-priori »

mason240 wrote: post #12
exelius wrote: post #7

This is a good thing for the country; the education provided by these schools is often on par with sources like Kahn Academy and Coursera -- at a much higher price. It seemed like many for-profit colleges are simply a way for "schools" to collect federally guaranteed loans that the students then have to pay back. The student assumes all of the risk. The other side of this industry are charter schools. These are for-p…

All three of those are true with public schools systems.

In the United States maybe. Elsewhere, public school systems seem to be able to deliver a high quality education at a reasonable cost to the public.

In Ontario, Canada, the public spent $23.6B on education in the 2013-2014 fiscal year. That's total cost, including salaries and building maintenance and supplies and everything else that goes into running an education system. That works out to $11.7k per student per year based on 2,015,411 students in the 2013-2014 school year.

That's similar to what you'd pay in private school tuition, and that's with all the bureaucracy and unions and teacher's salaries (teachers here top out at around $100k salary) and all the other things people complain about as reasons public schooling is a waste of money. It's not; it's about the same cost as private schooling.

But with public funding, a good education is available to everyone, and the public has more direct oversight of the curricula and of standards. As a result, Canada scores well in international school rankings, similar to the best European countries -- which are also, almost universally, funded publically (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PISA_2012#Results).

Re: The Rise and Fall of For-Profit Schools

#30

Post by dublinben »

ThomPete wrote: post #24
partisan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that gets lost in the comparison between charter schools and public schools is that charter schools get to cherry pick their students. The students not accepted into charter schools are sent to public schools. Public schools then have a higher concentration of underperforming students and therefore perform worse when compared to charter schools. If you are given the best students and money is thrown at you,…

Charter schools like Success Academy function by lottery so no cherry picking at all. And keep in mind it was started in Harlem not exactly the best base for the kids with the best resources. The reason why charter schools like Success Academy are popular is because it's strong focus and philosophy.

Every single student in that lottery had to be entered by a parent concerned about their education. That already presents a selection bias that will deliver better testing results than the entire student population.
Post reply on HN