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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

#151

Post by rayiner »

mhh__ wrote: post #55
tyree731 wrote: 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.

> 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

$800 billion based on what? China spends $175 billion on their military. Compared to us, they get multiples in terms of manpower and infrastructure per dollar spent. Then there is Russia.

As a percentage of GDP, we spend less on defense than France did in 1994, and half of what France spent in 1960.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#152

Post by smileysteve »

RhysU wrote: post #54
malwarebytess wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Ironically, much of our "national defense" can't be deployed near our borders at short notice because they're 2 days away (by air)(weeks by sea)

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#153

Post by jay_kyburz »

npunt wrote: post #140
jay_kyburz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think the are two separate concepts, and I'm pretty sure a AI could teach kids the times tables and test spelling. My kids know a hell of a lot about the video games they play, and they didn't need a human relationship to tech them how everything works.

Tech can definitely teach some things to some people, but among other things it cannot create the context for teaching. This issue has been pretty well explored in the edtech community for a long time, and of course pedagogical research for much longer. If you're interested in learning more check out sources like EdSurge, which I started as a place to explore these issues.

Yeah, I don't think we need to say, all education will now be done by AIs, but I am a little surprised how under developed a lot of the software was we encountered in our home schooling adventure.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#154

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

viburnum wrote: post #2

You 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.

They can go to military school. One nation, one mission, one thought! Wouldn't even have so much to unlearn then.

Ye olde new deal...

Oorah!

edit: notice to self: need to rewatch Starship Troopers

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#155

Post by rayiner »

blueblisters wrote: post #106
dorchadas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a teacher myself, and I think this is very much needed. Right now, good neighborhoods just get better schools, while bad neighborhoods get worse. It's a horribly vicious circle, and shows even in areas where there's only one school (my county, the 5th biggest in the state, only has 25k people and one high school) if there's a huge amount of poverty (something like 65% of our students are on free or reduced lunch;…

When I moved to the US, this was one of the things that surprised me the most. I found it really odd that my coworkers would look for homes based on how good the schools were in that neighborhood. The fact that all kids don't get equal opportunity makes it feel like a very broken society.

That has nothing to do with school funding. Your coworkers were looking for neighborhoods where they don’t have to send their kids to school alongside black or Hispanic kids. Here in Maryland, my exurban county spends $14,400 per student per year. Baltimore spends $17,500, despite having substantially lower cost of living. (Even excluding federal funding, Baltimore spends $2,000 more.) The rich suburbs around DC spend $16,900. The rich Virginia county where I grew up, on the other side of DC, spends $15,300. DC itself spends $21,000 per student. DC also has some of the highest teacher salaries in the country. It has brand new, beautiful LEED Gold high schools your coworkers would never send their kids to because those schools are 99% black. Inside DC itself, schools are funded equally, but houses in neighborhoods districts to majority white schools cost hundreds of thousands of dollars more.

(When we talk about “systemic racism” in this country, that’s what it means. It means that, even in blue states that are willing to provide ample funding to majority-minority schools, white and Asian parents would rather spend hundreds of thousands more on housing to avoid sending their kids to those well funded schools.)

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#156

Post by ikeyany »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #85
mhh__ wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

How much would be appropriate? What weapons systems should be canceled? Serious question. I would agree that $800B seems ridiculously high, and yet it's not easy to tease apart what should be cut.

Whatever funding goes to military displays at sporting events can be cut for once. We never had flyovers and 7th-inning-stretch-salutes-to-heroes 20 years ago.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#157

Post by ikeyany »

MattGaiser wrote: post #109
makeitrein wrote: post #58

Just 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…

I see it as less about signaling and more about proof. A long time ago, a high school diploma was rigorous enough that people actually failed. A significant number of people did not earn one. Now, I don't even know of a friend of a friend who has failed to earn one, even if they just kept on retaking the courses at relatively easy schools until they passed. It isn't clear to me what holding a high school diploma indi…

Signaling is synonymous with social proof in this context.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#158

Post by rayiner »

verst wrote: post #126
dorchadas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a teacher myself, and I think this is very much needed. Right now, good neighborhoods just get better schools, while bad neighborhoods get worse. It's a horribly vicious circle, and shows even in areas where there's only one school (my county, the 5th biggest in the state, only has 25k people and one high school) if there's a huge amount of poverty (something like 65% of our students are on free or reduced lunch;…

I grew up in Germany and went to public schools there. I just recently became a homeowner in Seattle. I have no ties to the local schools here and would much prefer everyone got equal opportunities and education. I'd like to see people succeed in this society on merit, not privilege - this starts with education. Germany uses a decentralized system where the federal government and state government allocate budget to s…

> Germany uses a decentralized system where the federal government and state government allocate budget to schools with some small additional contributions by local districts. Apparently 80% of the budget is spent on salaries. In 2016 the total education spending was 7100 Euros per student per year. This system seems to work quite well.

This is not dissimilar to how the system works in the US. Here is the spending for my state: https://conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/2019/02/20/funding-per-...

Depending on the county, 20-60% of the funding comes from federal and state levels, with lower income areas receiving more support from the federal and state government. Also, the spending in Baltimore, a very low income city where there was riots a few years ago after a police brutality incident, is double the 7,100 euros you mention above.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#159

Post by [deleted] »

bradly wrote: post #48

I live in San Diego and this is sadly just more of the same. Public schools cut non-essential programs and then PTAs in upper and upper-middle class neighborhoods raise money from parents to add those programs back to their specific school. When time comes to vote on taxes to increase education budget, they are confused, as the public school system in San Diego is working great for them and their community. You shoul…

[deleted]

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#160

Post by ikeyany »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #92
jwilber wrote: 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.

I'm curious about the true total cost of pensions for jobs like teachers and cops.
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