361–370 of 404 posts
Public schools are a cancer. They are worse for your intellectual development than just being left alone. They actually damage your mind by suffocating you of free thought and experimentation. And in the name of doing this, they pile on the stress and expose you to viscous bullies. The kids run these schools now, they are closer to day-care centers or zoos than schools. The teachers just watch idly while their studen…
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What is a public transit system? What a quaint idea. Seriously though, public transit is such a joke in most parts of the USA (especially the rural areas) that this is basically a non-starter. I live in a part of the country that does have a pretty good public transit system, I just checked on taking public transit from my neighborhood to my son's high school and discovered that it's not possible. There is no public…
People say "flyover country" as metonymy of the two different realities that are both called "USA", but "transit country" and "SUV country" may be better images. Outside the USA, 80% of what we see on TV shows is NYC. Sometimes I have this acute FOMO that I should be miserably scraping by in NYC just to be in the Navel of the World. It's just a mindfuck to us unamericans how big the US really is and how empty and bor…
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What’s your control? Do other schools in or out of the top 3% have earlier or later start times? How do you account for confounds like socioeconomics and demographics? If you don’t, what you have is an anecdote, not evidence. Others are pointing you to studies that look at real data and apply statistical rigor. You are arguing that your knowledge of a single example outweighs that evidence. That is precisely what peo…
17.3% of schools in New York start later than 8.30, the majority starts between 8-8.30 SA starts at 7.45 yet they dominate the Top 30 out of a sample of 2400 schools. I can live with that as a significant sample size and control group ESPECIALLY since I never said that the earlier you are up the better but simply that it's not a problem if you get early enough to sleep. The study you refer to compares 2, TWO schools…
You are. This doesn't mean they are for sure wrong, but you are looking at the success of one school system and saying that means that the start time does not matter. For all you know, that school system could change to starting at 8:30 and rank even higher. It is a textbook anecdotal claim.
>The study you refer to compares 2, TWO schools and doesn't come to any conclusion that contradicts mine in fact it support it. More sleep means better performance most of all.
That study doesn't compare two schools, it compares two classes in both of the schools against each other. This let's them better isolate the start time as the variable responsible for the change. It also references other studies with similar results. And it does disagree with you, the later start time was associated with kids getting 30 more minutes of sleep.
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I'm not saying teachers don't deserve to be paid more, but I was surprised to see how much Bay Area teachers make. It's public info for public schools.[1] In Santa Clara County, with no experience, starting salary is $71000. It increases on a schedule each year up to over $131000. Honestly, the job security, structured pay, and 3 months vacation per year is a pretty darn good deal. [1] - https://www.santaclarausd.org…
> 3 months vacation per year This perception is usually pretty inaccurate. There's no time given during the school year for essentials like curriculum development, continuing education requirements, training new teachers, etc, so that eats up time during the summer 'break'. https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/07/myth-o... > Klem says she’s spending the rest of her summer this year attending meetings, d…
The idea that most teachers are attending conferences or blogging about teaching all summer is odd though.
I come from a family of teachers. My mother started teaching later in life, got her Masters and was hustling when I was a teenager. After a decade teaching, I don't think she spends even a minute thinking about school during the summer.
My dad is now retired and has probably the best sort of pension imaginable in this country. Certainly nothing like that safety net will ever exist for me. I can't really compare his experience though because it was a different generation of teachers. He was very involved with his union too.
Teaching just seems like a varied profession based on where you are. I hear and believe the talk about teachers being undervalued, underpaid, overworked etc. But my family has done very well for themselves back in NY, with a lot less uncertainty than a lot of other professions.
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17.3% of schools in New York start later than 8.30, the majority starts between 8-8.30 SA starts at 7.45 yet they dominate the Top 30 out of a sample of 2400 schools. I can live with that as a significant sample size and control group ESPECIALLY since I never said that the earlier you are up the better but simply that it's not a problem if you get early enough to sleep. The study you refer to compares 2, TWO schools…
>But sure keep on claiming I am the one who is making anecdotal claims You are. This doesn't mean they are for sure wrong, but you are looking at the success of one school system and saying that means that the start time does not matter. For all you know, that school system could change to starting at 8:30 and rank even higher. It is a textbook anecdotal claim. >The study you refer to compares 2, TWO schools and does…
It's not just one school system it's various school systems Charter school vs. elementary school vs. different start time vs. different income groups etc.
You are just moving the goal post. For all intents and purposes what I am citing is as good if not better than the study you seem to think is more accurate.
With regards to the study, it compares two classes in two schools in high school. Yet somehow that's not anecdotal?
Furthermore no it actually says that the amount of sleep is what leads to better performance. NOT the time in the morning which was the entire claim of the parent I was answering so it does, in fact, agree with me even though it's, of course, actual anecdotal using two classes and it certainly isn't proving anything with regards to general performance or optimal time of day that kids can learn.
I am not even sure what we are debating anymore. But claiming my example is anecdotal is simply not true. It's much less anecdotal than any of the other studies being done here when it comes to performance which was what I originally responded to claims about.
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There’s a 20:1 to 30:1 ratio so are you suggesting it’s better for 20-30 working, single parent families? Maybe the government should pay teachers more and pay less on defense and we’d have a more productive society.
I've read multiple studies that the biggest influence in a kids success in school is their parents involvement. Don't make the assumption that throwing more money at teachers will improve our schools. Zuckerberg tried that with little success, as have many before him. I'd rather a focus on ensuring every kid has a healthy meal at the table. A support group who's invested in tbe individual kids success. A family that…
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I appreciate the perspective that you’re coming from, but I come from a family of educators. They do have occasional in service days over the summer and obviously are expected back at work a week or so before classes start. Other than that, it very much is a three-month vacation, one that shaped a large part of my childhood.
My understanding is that it's also often heavily weighted to the early years, unless you have someone else's lesson plans to use (and even then, you probably want to prep and maybe do a dry run). Just like any job, if 90% of what you're doing is new to you or something you have to develop yourself if vastly different than if 10% of what you're doing is new or something you're developing yourself. Given the actual in…
1. Teachers in positions new to them probably do have more work to do
2. A lot of that work may be due to their own inefficiency having not yet learned the role.
3. That inefficiency ends up being paid for with a) time and b) stress, including family stress.
4. Even still, I sincerely cannot remember a single time in my childhood where we were not traveling all summer long.
5. Fortunately budget cuts can end nonsensical programs and save everyone the hassle :-/
What a weird period of time that was.
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I understand the frustration, but I think it is absurd to expect teachers and school administrators (who are woefully underpaid, especially in the Bay area) to accommodate working parents by working extra hours just for the parent's benefit. It's a hard enough job as it is, what with the poor pay, large workload, dealing with entitled, helicopter parents and the diminishing societal appreciation for their contributio…
There’s a 20:1 to 30:1 ratio so are you suggesting it’s better for 20-30 working, single parent families? Maybe the government should pay teachers more and pay less on defense and we’d have a more productive society.
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> and pay for uniforms It's bad enough that the school enforces a school uniform in the first place, let alone has the nerve to make parents pay for it.
There are lots of benefits to uniforms. In NSW (Australia) public schools have uniforms, and parents pay for them. Low income families are generally able to obtain financial assistance through some grant, or fundraising programme; sometimes through donated uniforms. Uniforms actually help with socio-economic gaps: everybody dresses the same, regardless of whether you can afford more expensive status symbol clothing o…
In particular, justifying school uniforms because "you can't tell the rich kids from the poor kids" deprives both poor kids from learning how to positively interact with rich kids and rich kids from learning how to positively interact with poor kids. Being able to interact with people of wide socioeconomic diversity is a valuable skill.
I've also heard a lot of anecdotal evidence about school uniforms being problematic in inner cities because they'll inadvertently align with gang colors, meaning that students walking to/from school would have to either bring a change of clothes (and change at school twice a day) or risk being targeted for gang violence.