and the stock market is still on a tear...
US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
51–60 of 209 posts
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you or your loved ones or your friends are devastated by the layoffs and shutdown. When you are hurting and frustrated by everything that’s going on. Just remember. It’s the Chinese government that did this.
Oh fuck off with this xenophobic bullshit.
I think they were being facetious.
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions. Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? Education is funded largely by local taxes, and local tax revenues are being gutted, so there isn't much that can be done here without nationalizing public education.
I don't think we should be opposed to nationalizing education. A common curriculum would help mobility when it comes to families moving across state lines. It would also ensure uniform funding and plentiful opportunities to poorer and rural schools.
Even shorter term I'd like us to move away from local property taxes being used for local schools. The state government should have a statewide pool of money they allocate to schools based on enrollment numbers, cost of living. This should be sufficiently funded such that teachers can make a living wage in the local school district.
Those who don't like this can still send their kids to private schools.
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions. Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? Education is funded largely by local taxes, and local tax revenues are being gutted, so there isn't much that can be done here without nationalizing public education.
>Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? The US's definition of National Defense is actually playing world police for corporate profit. With that in mind it shows that they are superficially similar only.
National Defense is a luxury good until it isn't. Moreover, it is not something that can be purchased on short notice.
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#55You know who’s not laying off anyone? The military. Local funding of schools is ridiculous. Education benefits the whole nation. Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions.
> Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions. Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense? Education is funded largely by local taxes, and local tax revenues are being gutted, so there isn't much that can be done here without nationalizing public education.
> Could someone not make the same argument about the national defense?
> national defense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...
I'm not as against military spending as some people, but almost 800 billion dollars is too much
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#56You know who’s not laying off anyone? The military. Local funding of schools is ridiculous. Education benefits the whole nation. Educational investments shouldn’t be dictated by transient economic conditions.
Setting aside the specific merits of education funding; it makes no sense for any government spending to follow transient economic conditions.
If anything, we want government spending to be inversely correlated with economic conditions, so it should go up during economic downturns.
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#57Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#58Just watched Bryan Caplan give a talk about how the majority of our education system's resources are spent towards a "signaling arms race".
What once required a high school diploma requires an undergraduate degree. What once required an undergraduate degree requires graduate school. Most of your time spend in school is learning skills that the labor market cares little for.
Not wholly convinced by his conclusion that entirely defunding education is the path forward, but it's a perspective I found very interesting!
Here's the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hZylJp-pHo&t=495s
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#59It's odd to me that there is this bizarre certainty on hacker news that within 20 years the most common occupation, truck driving, will be nearly entirely obsolete, yet in an era where almost all human knowledge is available online for free, the idea that the education apparatus will either stay the same or continue to grow is somehow a given.
> where almost all human knowledge is available online for free And it has been so for nearly 20 years and changed very little. MOOCs are a failure as people will not finish them. Online certificates carry no weight with employers even if people do. We have promising prototypes of self driving trucks. We don't have such models for education.
We have plenty of promising prototypes. The original MITx / 6.002x had in the nineties rate it as being as-good-as or better than in-person.
OLI before that had good prototypes too.
The low-quality junk came in scaling. Part of that had to do with culture and people (business people took over from academics). Part of that with economics (people didn't shop on quality). Part on difficulty training. Etc.
Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
This just places even more burden on teachers to do everything. This is like keeping the troops but removing the supply lines.
Except, the janitors and / or lunch servers can be hired within a couple weeks and don't require training. Teachers are harder to hire because they have expertise, unions, and have years of experience.
And what about the instructional aides and other staff that do have significant training? And what about the web of relationships formed between the staff and students, including those between the janitors, lunch servers, etc and students? And what about the capacities and institutional knowledge that staff have about school operations?
Schools are complex operations, made simple only by those who don't understand them.