US schools lay off hundreds of thousands • Hacker News Board

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#161

Post by ikeyany » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:42 AM UTC

indemnity wrote: post #70

MattGaiser wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not funded by the national government. They are mostly funded by city and county governments, with some money from state governments. Basically each city or county is mostly responsible for paying for the education of the children within its boundaries. EDIT: I am slightly off on the percentages. See the comment below.

Explains a lot about the state of primary and secondary education in the USA. How can such a system not lead to massive disparities in quality and access to education, if there isn't a federal backstop to make up for differences in funding available from the state/county. Is there such a thing? Glad I live in a country where schools get funding based on factors like socio-economic status of surrounding community (the…

There are massive disparities. If you're an upper-middle class parent, you are primarily concerned with getting your kids in nice schools, as one's life trajectory in the US correlates very strongly with the kind of schools one went to.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#162

Post by ikeyany » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:43 AM UTC

Fiveplus wrote: post #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…

The future of education is relevant to intellectual curiosity.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#163

Post by npunt » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:55 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #153

npunt wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Totally. Part of the issue is there's at least two parallel markets in K12 edtech - school & home. I know there's lots of good stuff available for schools that just isn't designed for or available for home use. Meanwhile lots of the home stuff you find in app stores is more entertainment oriented.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#164

Post by hckr_news » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:01 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #105

paulvorobyev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if pedagogy is a deep and rich field and you can't as easily absorb information without the guidance of a knowledgeable mentor. Who would have thought?

I don't know, after a few months of home schooling, I'm pretty sure that mentor could be an AI.

I really can’t tell if this is sarcasm.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#165

Post by hckr_news » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:05 AM UTC

MattGaiser wrote: post #41

tengbretson wrote: post #25

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.

> 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.

Not necessarily. MOOCs and the opportunity to access free and open education are widely consumed by people outside the US in emerging countries.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#166

Post by koonsolo » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:11 AM UTC

jay_kyburz wrote: post #105

paulvorobyev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's almost as if pedagogy is a deep and rich field and you can't as easily absorb information without the guidance of a knowledgeable mentor. Who would have thought?

I don't know, after a few months of home schooling, I'm pretty sure that mentor could be an AI.

AI is probably far fetched, but gamified learning where you have to imput your result and you immediately see the correctness is already possible.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#167

Post by lotsofpulp » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:14 AM UTC

ikeyany wrote: post #160

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Add at least 30% to the numbers provided by the government hired actuaries. Each percent the assumed discount rate is too high results in ~15% change in liabilities. Not even mentioning additional liabilities due to underfunding, bad investments/corruption, and erroneous assumptions about mortality.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#168

Post by jay_kyburz » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:22 AM UTC

koonsolo wrote: post #166

jay_kyburz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, after a few months of home schooling, I'm pretty sure that mentor could be an AI.

AI is probably far fetched, but gamified learning where you have to imput your result and you immediately see the correctness is already possible.

I think you could go much further. We should work out how to monitor and test a students progress, push them harder if they are ready, or roll back a bit if we detect they missed something. On Khan Academy where everything is multiple choice, my kids started guessing rather than knowing the answers. It was up to me to notice the problem and take things back a step, and work out where they got lost.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#169

Post by jake_morrison » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:24 AM UTC

I think we need a common online learning platform for K-12.

That at least gives everyone the same access to the best lecturers, independent of the low education budgets from poorer areas, as well as e.g. AP classes that they can't get locally.

It reduces the need for "redundant" teachers there just to deliver a mediocre lecture. Teachers are still needed to provide individual help, something that doesn't scale as easily as online lectures. That could be done locally or remotely.

Students need a computer and internet access. Providing them with that is cheaper than trying to fund local teachers and buildings, though.

Then we need some way to provide the social aspects provided by schools, sports, chemistry labs, as well as all the other services like food and counseling which are not part of education but are provided by the school system.

The same thing applies to the university system. I think this is the way out of the current cost explosion/bubble.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#170

Post by catalogia » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:33 AM UTC

xtracto wrote: post #136

culturestate wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, "there are two oceans between us and any potential aggressors" is no longer a viable defensive posture. If you're gonna be drawn into a war today it's unlikely to come with years of lead time.

Anericans live so scared!

With all that defense spending, I can't imagine why any American would need to fear any foreign military threat.