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If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

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Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#141

Post by devinhelton »

brownbat wrote: post #138
phd514 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that conclusion is that some of the highest-funded public schools in the country such as DC are among the worst performers. Funding is not the sole (or even most important) determinant of quality in education.

Sorry, wasn't clear. This conclusion isn't limited to funding. It doesn't necessarily mean that the high performing schools are high performing because they have a high tax base, that's just a correlation. Quality teachers may not be attracted to inner-city schools because of unstated biases, or because they prefer to live in other areas and have short commutes. Or maybe you have a safety issue due to a school's loca…

For whatever reason though, busing led to miraculously improved outcomes.

This is asserted in episode 562, but no evidence was cited. I did a deep dive on this myself, reading numerous studies and various books, and in my opinion any link between integration and academic achievement is minimal at best. Read the two books by Raymond Wolters, and then compare with the American Life episodes, and make your own judgement about which side has the more accurate narrative.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#142

Post by brownbat »

kefka wrote: post #94
brownbat wrote: post #21

The most moving and informed coverage of the US education system I've heard have all been through This American Life.[0][1][2][3] Ok, there's an easy four hours of content to listen to. Enjoy! The short takeaway for me was basically that local funding through property taxes is a terrible idea if you want anything approaching fairness. If you can afford to live in an area with high property taxes, the US school system…

I listened to that last one.. It tells me how tenuous local government really is, and how usurpation of local government isn't really that terribly difficult. Yeah, in that case it was Hasidic Jews. I'm shocked that there wasn't more anti-semetic actions, primarily because the Jews there were trying to turn the local educational system into one for them. But I digress; it would, and has been the same for Christian co…

The Federalist Papers have a few good ideas on this.

Next best thing to finding a philosopher king is to try to create lots of warring interest groups that prevent each other from doing much at all. Or maybe make everything take supermajorities...

In a small setting like a school district, it's not clear there's any way to protect the rights of a minor subset of the population without simply granting them disproportionate power and making the other subset of the population the maligned group.

If group A wants x, and group B wants y, then you can either solve it by majoritarian or anti-majoritarian rules. Depending on the issue, I want majorities to decide in some cases, and not on others. I don't feel like issues of slavery, for example, are appropriate democratic questions.

You could put a special court on top of the structure with the goal of looking out a sort of "Rawlsian fairness," trying to seek the outcome that both parties would agree to if they were both spending some time in each others' shoes.

I'll admit I don't know what the fair resolution should be in a school district where a majority of parents prefer no school taxes and no public schools, just that people seem to get pretty unfairly hurt as this one unfolded.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#143

Post by brownbat »

hash-set wrote: post #129
nkrisc wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By the way, why do you think wealthier people shouldn't get more advantages in life? Sure, let wealthy ADULTS have more advantages. However, children have no say in their circumstances, so I do think it is right to at least give CHILDREN equal opportunity and resources.

Focus on what I said: You can never achieve that. The wealthy will always find ways to undo whatever leveling you attempt. The elite social class in the US is its own little society and most of us are not in it!

> You can never achieve that.

You can't live forever but I still believe in hospitals.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#144

Post by ohyes »

hash-set wrote: post #131
ohyes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wealthier people do have more advantages in life. It's tautological to the extent that it describes what it is to be wealthy. We're talking about public education though, ideally, public education would have a universally high standard, and making funding for public education based on something like property values ensures that in certain areas it will be underfunded. So it's really about whether we take universal pu…

But it doesn't matter how it gets funded, it will always be chronically under-funded! I have watched this going on for thirty years! There is something inherently wrong with public education systems. I don't know if it is the unions or what, but no matter how much money we throw at them, they are always under-funded. It's amazing.

This is a pretty interesting chart.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_083.asp

If you go and plug the numbers in from 1970 to something that adjusts for inflation to ~2008, it doesn't seem that teacher salaries have really changed that much, maybe a 10% increase on average? Hardly seems like throwing tons of money at the problem.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#145

Post by masonic »

ohyes wrote: post #144
hash-set wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it doesn't matter how it gets funded, it will always be chronically under-funded! I have watched this going on for thirty years! There is something inherently wrong with public education systems. I don't know if it is the unions or what, but no matter how much money we throw at them, they are always under-funded. It's amazing.

This is a pretty interesting chart. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_083.asp If you go and plug the numbers in from 1970 to something that adjusts for inflation to ~2008, it doesn't seem that teacher salaries have really changed that much, maybe a 10% increase on average? Hardly seems like throwing tons of money at the problem.

It's not adjusted for reduced time spent on actual classroom and prep time or for increased benefits and pensions.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#146

Post by paulryanrogers »

jccalhoun wrote: post #103

It sounds like the pay is pretty good compared to other online tutoring stuff. In grad school I was an online tutor for Pearson for 3-4 years and the pay was minimum wage. I hated every minute of it. You would log onto a creaky old system (one entire year their scheduling system was down and we had to sign up for hours by filling out a google form) then download a rnadomly assigned college paper. You were expected to…

Why they have non-experts grading specialized subjects is beyond me. I don't want my physics work graded by the PE teacher or vice versa; unless they're knowledgeable in both.

Profit motive? If so it seems short sighted.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#147

Post by nkrisc »

hash-set wrote: post #130
nkrisc wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't a correlation? I'll have to look more into that but it seems to me you picked the one notable exception. The cultural problems are describe are the symptoms of much larger problems, particularly systemic and deliberate deprivation of resources and opportunities for more than a century. You are correct to an extent though that part of that problem is political: the lack of political will to spend any amoun…

Well, we have thrown welfare at what? Three generations now? How has that worked out? It hasn't. We're right back where we began but now with three generations of people who have never worked for a living.

That's because you can't just throw money at people and tell them to better themselves. It starts with drumroll a solid educational and support system. And we've come full circle.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#148

Post by allengeorge »

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #123
mabbo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea how they do it. They also committed to more responsible investing after it was noticed they had investments in cigarettes and alcohol- then made more money than before after the changes. They still have big challenges though, as they have a lot of baby-boomer teachers retiring, living longer, etc. They only real way they stay afloat at all is because teachers are paid pretty well in Ontario, and they g…

What's the market like for teachers who're fully French-English bilingual?

Honestly, unclear. For one thing school boards are motivated to constrain headcount, since that accounts for a massive proportion of their budget spend. On the other hand, demand - especially in the early years - is incredibly high, though it wanes later. Perhaps someone who works in TDSB or the like will respond with some insight.

https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2015/11/22/fre...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/ontario-schools-...

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#149

Post by eli_gottlieb »

allengeorge wrote: post #148
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the market like for teachers who're fully French-English bilingual?

Honestly, unclear. For one thing school boards are motivated to constrain headcount, since that accounts for a massive proportion of their budget spend. On the other hand, demand - especially in the early years - is incredibly high, though it wanes later. Perhaps someone who works in TDSB or the like will respond with some insight. https://www.thestar.com/yourtoronto/education/2015/11/22/fre... http://www.theglobeand…

Thanks. My wife is French-English bilingual with an interpretation certificate, and she now wants to become a science teacher, and I kinda wanna apply to enter Canada given the recent unpleasantness.

Re: If the U.S. Won't Pay Its Teachers, China Will

#150

Post by hurbledr »

devinhelton wrote: post #135
hurbledr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My point is simply that large-scale, forced integration made race relation problems much worse. It created problems where little existed. Are you really arguing that desegregation created these problems? Seems a bit backwards to me. I think it's incredibly obvious that race relation issues existed long before the desegregation of schools. You could argue that desegregation caused problems for white people where the…

Are you really arguing that desegregation created these problems? Seems a bit backwards to me. I think it's incredibly obvious that race relation issues existed long before the desegregation of schools. Did you read my post? https://devinhelton.com/busing-in-boston I'm talking mostly about Boston, though I've found the same things when researching other northern cities. I'm not sure about the American south, I haven'…

>Boston did not have a Jim Crow system – if a black child lived in a white area, he could go to the local mostly white school.

So you are arguing that Boston was so racially tolerant in the 70's that they had no racist policies either explicit or implicit, and that a black kid could go to a white school completely unmolested? That they wouldn't be yelled at or beaten? That they would be welcomed with open arms?

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