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US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

reuters.com

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Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#91
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.*

Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.

*https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#92
post #67

Could also do with cutting police funding. A local city in WA spends 53% of their budget on police[0]. Imagine if just a fraction of that went to education? I’d love to see solid studies on the efficacy/use of police budgeting. At a cursory glance, it’s an easy dataset with which to mislead: is crime going down because budgets are going up? Probably not. But without a solid study, we can’t say for sure. Still, I thin…

But a lot of money is wasted in education, as well. There are incompetent teachers with too much seniority to fire, for example, who are at the top of the pay scale, and with nice pensions waiting for them when they do retire. Many competent ones as well, but it's a big enough problem that basically every teacher I've ever met can tell you stories.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#93

On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.* Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it…

> anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

These layoffs could compromise the ability of millions of children to be curious. Is protecting future intellectual curiosity sufficiently interesting?

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#94
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One size fits all policy? Where do you draw the line with local parents fundraising to ensure schools in richer areas are always ahead in terms of opportunities? Local education can prepare areas differently. Some states/areas like Texas would benefit from Spanish as a language course others like Hawaii might be better served with Japanese. Gym in Alaska must be different compared to Florida. Nevermind the private sc…

That's why most federal pushes are for a "common core" curriculum. Math is math and federal funding doesn't preclude making local adjustments.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#95

It'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.

It is absurd to equate something that requires human empathy and connection to transport.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#96
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s an idea that’s popular with no one. People want local control. And if you want local control, you have to pay for it. Utah spends $7k per student and New York spends $22K and that’s the way they want it.

NY is more expensive than UT though

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#97
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

janitor-student relationships? server-student relationships?

Yes. Maybe not for you, or for all students, but for some, yes. It takes a village to raise a kid, not just those formally designated 'teachers'.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#98
post #4

Earlier 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.

>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. This should be the case. Having each state decide it's education is in the long term more dangerous than having each state have it's own army. Imagine if half the country had textbooks that made the Confederates out to be misguided but well meaning...…

I think the current system leads to too much stagnation. Let each state be a laboratory of democracy and hope the winning ideas spread instead of mandating a top down approach.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh fuck off with this xenophobic bullshit.

Xeonophobic? By calling out the cause of all the chaos? I don’t understand why people keep defending Chinese government. With feeble reframing like racism. Try this: why are you attacking hitler Germany? That’s xenophobic

Some people are okay with slave labor and the numerous crimes against humanity done by the past and current mainland chinese government. That or they think you are pro / against some politicians. Not all hn members are from the USA but a large portion of people in the US seem unaware of other english speaking countries or even people with second languages, who do not hold the opinions of politicians in regard to their own.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. This should be the case. Having each state decide it's education is in the long term more dangerous than having each state have it's own army. Imagine if half the country had textbooks that made the Confederates out to be misguided but well meaning...…

Yep. I teach in a rural school in the South. We still have Social Studies teachers claiming the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. It's really damn frustrating. Though textbooks? We haven't had textbook updates in years at this point. Since I was in the school, and I graduated 10 years ago.

I have friends and in-laws Who still maintain that. Honestly the myth of the lost cause was drilled into the culture for a hundred years.
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