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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

#201

Post by DuskStar »

viburnum wrote: post #199
DuskStar wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how would you propose to set budgets, or teacher salaries? Should the teacher in rural Montana be paid the same as the one in downtown NYC? For that matter, "funding" is also "control" - do you think many states or cities are going to be eager to hand over their curriculae to the federal government?

Federal government does cost of living adjustments all the time, it’s not rocket science. Local control and national funding is a completely possible policy choice. There are tons of examples.

> Local control and national funding is a completely possible policy choice. There are tons of examples.

I can think of a few examples of national control and national funding, or local control and local funding, but not national funding without national control. What are you thinking of?

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#202

Post by verst »

LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #147
verst wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

While that was then, now it is trendy (with a sharp rise since about 2015/2016) to send the kids to private schools if one can afford it. Hilariously even by politicians who favor the Gesamtschule/Stadtteilschule/Ganztagsschule concept in public.

Perhaps that is a trend in big cities or among the elite, but do you have a source indicating this is generally true?

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#203

Post by Balgair »

DuskStar wrote: post #198
Balgair wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like all things, it depends. My SO has had classrooms with >50% of the kids on IEPs. My SO has also had classrooms with <10% of the kids on IEP. The school generally has about 25% of the kids on IEPs.

> The school generally has about 25% of the kids on IEPs. That really just sounds like the definition of IEP has been stretched beyond all reason.

Not really.

The whole district is kinda like this. The kids really do need the help. The reasons for that need are all unique to each kid, but the underlying reason is poverty. They don't have enough to eat, their parents are incarcerated, their home life is horrific, they don't sleep enough, they get beat up by authority figures, etc. Add up any few of the reasons, and they'll clearly need an IEP, then add in trauma and PTSD stuff, and ... well. Mind, some are just fine through all the mess, and some need help even for less extreme issues. All people are distinct.

Giving kids the little help they can get at school due to these life-long circumstances is well warranted.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#204

Post by _8j50 »

dannypgh wrote: post #77
_8j50 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry but most military spending is not going to paying salaries. If your point is that defense budget should be smaller then I agree with that, but the last you want during an economic crisis is cutting back on defense/military. The economy depends on peace and geopolitical stability,not being able to respond properly to a crisis requiring military action can lead to scenarios that exasperate economic recovery. My v…

> The economy depends on peace and geopolitical stability Well, we're boned.

Yeah, you can say that again.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#205

Post by LargoLasskhyfv »

verst wrote: post #202
LargoLasskhyfv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While that was then, now it is trendy (with a sharp rise since about 2015/2016) to send the kids to private schools if one can afford it. Hilariously even by politicians who favor the Gesamtschule/Stadtteilschule/Ganztagsschule concept in public.

Perhaps that is a trend in big cities or among the elite, but do you have a source indicating this is generally true?

It depends. From personal experience i only know a hand full. Then it further depends on what you mean by big city. What about any city which has social hotspots in the "Plattenbauten" social housing projects built since the 70ies? Where often the temporary housings for the refugees have been located, and then later on integrated into the already less than ideal situation in schools there.

I feel like i have read hundreds of cases from all across the country confirming what i experience personally.

Groups of naughty little assholes from early childhood to puberty, terrorizing and vandalizing anyone and everything.

Not all of them, but many.

This may look like I'd favor the AFD, or something similar. But I don't.

Just watching and noticing the change in general, confirmed by the few people i personally interact with, in part heavily sobered up by what they experienced when engaging into voluntary support work for them, the feeling of entitlement some had, the rage when confronted with the not so rosy reality, and so on.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#206

Post by vkou »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #181
vkou wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Logistics in 2020 aren't much easier than they were in 1920, or in 1820. And the lead time for ICBMs to kill ~ a billion people has been ~40 minutes for the past 40 years.

The 82nd airborne division can be in planes on it's way to drop anywhere in the world 18 hours after a phone call from the White House. The Russian equivalent is called the CRRF, and has a similar force mix for obvious reasons.

The 82nd airborne division will be out of fuel, ammunition, and food within a week after dropping anywhere in the world, without an international logistics network of shipping to support them, and all the baggage that comes with keeping that network operating.

Look at the massive logistics effort that was necessary to invade and occupy Iraq, a country one-tenth the size of the US, where half the opposition deserted before a shot was fired, half of the rest deserted after the first shots were fired, and where half of its neighbours have US or NATO military bases in them.

No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean.

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#207

Post by Godel_unicode »

vkou wrote: post #206
Godel_unicode wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 82nd airborne division can be in planes on it's way to drop anywhere in the world 18 hours after a phone call from the White House. The Russian equivalent is called the CRRF, and has a similar force mix for obvious reasons.

The 82nd airborne division will be out of fuel, ammunition, and food within a week after dropping anywhere in the world, without an international logistics network of shipping to support them, and all the baggage that comes with keeping that network operating. Look at the massive logistics effort that was necessary to invade and occupy Iraq, a country one-tenth the size of the US, where half the opposition deserted b…

> No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean.

1 - Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

2 - Even if that were true, American allies are frequently not across oceans from Russia/China/Iran/North Korea.

Are you suggesting that the United States should back out of NATO? Tell Japan and South Korea we don't like our treaty obligations and to fend for themselves?

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#208

Post by [deleted] »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #207
vkou wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 82nd airborne division will be out of fuel, ammunition, and food within a week after dropping anywhere in the world, without an international logistics network of shipping to support them, and all the baggage that comes with keeping that network operating. Look at the massive logistics effort that was necessary to invade and occupy Iraq, a country one-tenth the size of the US, where half the opposition deserted b…

> No other country in the world is capable of doing this across an ocean. 1 - Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 2 - Even if that were true, American allies are frequently not across oceans from Russia/China/Iran/North Korea. Are you suggesting that the United States should back out of NATO? Tell Japan and South Korea we don't like our treaty obligations and to fend for themselves?

[deleted]

Re: US schools lay off hundreds of thousands

#209

Post by woofie11 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #88
woofie11 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The problem is not in information quality. I agree that is a solved problem. But that was never the big challenge in education (besides the politics of it). The problem is in getting students to complete the work, be honestly assessed about the work, get feedback on their work as well as for employers to believe that the assessment means anything.

Most of those are solved problems, technically. What's not solved are, as you put it "the politics of it." Business models don't align with good models. Markets are highly inefficient, timescales are long, and transparency is poor.

MITx became edX because of that misalignment.

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