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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#61

Post by amadeuspagel »

brtkdotse wrote: post #5
techpression wrote: post #2

Most people with a non-political agenda would agree that the problems with the Swedish school system began when it was handed over to the municipalities from the state, I don’t think there has been a successful migration of responsibilities like this ever in the history of the country. We then had to suffer years of anti-scientific school regulations where student feelings and choice superseded traditional curriculum…

I have a mathematical agenda, I can’t get the following to balance: Municipal: Money_for_education - cost_of_teachers - cost_of_buiding - misc_costs = 0 Private: Money_for_education - cost_of_teachers - cost_of_buiding - misc_costs - cost_of_marketing = profit

That's a great argument for why the state should do everything and private companies shouldn't exist, but given the historical record of this arrangement, maybe there's something wrong with it?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#62

Post by SiempreViernes »

alvarlagerlof wrote: post #55

I'm a student in one of the AcadeMedia for-profit schools. They have around 30 schools with the same brand name as mine and they keep on buying others. There's over 600 of them. There are of course other brands that they own but this one is focused on technology. Now let me tell you about my experience. First, this school is very focused on marketing. They keep on doing things that are only for seemingly attracting s…

Wow, do you at least have as mc donalds nearby so you can get a few of their cheap "child sized" burgers?

Hope you can find a better school!

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#63

Post by SiempreViernes »

distances wrote: post #59
kakoni wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland, Local ”moderats” and liberals managed to cut over 1.5 billion euros from education in the past 10 years. Pretty sure they have private venture backed school system in mind.

> Pretty sure they have private venture backed school system in mind. Would you have something to back this assumption up?

There is their general intention to privatize everything possible because they oppose "big state"?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#64

Post by bjeds »

alvarlagerlof wrote: post #55

I'm a student in one of the AcadeMedia for-profit schools. They have around 30 schools with the same brand name as mine and they keep on buying others. There's over 600 of them. There are of course other brands that they own but this one is focused on technology. Now let me tell you about my experience. First, this school is very focused on marketing. They keep on doing things that are only for seemingly attracting s…

Thank you for your reply, I didn't expect I'd find a comment from an actual student of these schools here at HN. Your perspective is valuable.

If you follow Swedish media you probably know there's a large discussion/controversy right now about high school students (and younger kids) changing their behavior to avoid crime/trouble. For example see this recent article at SVT: https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/man-maste-vara-pa-sin-vak...

What's your take? Is this a problem in your school as well, or peer group? I'm genuinely curious: I'm old enough to never naturally meet people your age, but I'm not old enough to have kids or relatives your age.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#65

Post by vanderZwan »

bjeds wrote: post #38
bjornsing wrote: post #29

> While schools and colleges are sounding the alarm about declining knowledge results, joy grades are rising, as grades have become a competitive tool on the market. This in my opinion is the main problem. Take this "marketing tool" away from the private schools, and the rest of the problems are fixable (e.g. with diversified pupil compensation). But when you let a private business both grade themselves and sell entr…

I sort of agree with what you are saying (I'm also Swedish) but I think the incentives are different, and due to the American dominance of Hacker News readers it's worth to clear up: Swedish middle class parents do not choose "good schools" because they want a "great education" for their kids as a competitive advantage... in the sense of a well-off American parent want their kids to go to Harvard or MIT or similar. S…

Would that explain why my bachelor students were so unbelievable inept at emotionally dealing with and resolving conflicts when I taught at university there?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#66

Post by username90 »

lukeschlather wrote: post #54
gedy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you can also be underprivileged and gifted/talented (assuming you mean economic or racial privilege).

If you're underprivileged no test is going to detect your gifts. You're going to be hungry, have poor sleep, possibly abused, all sorts of things that will make you look like you're less capable than you are.

Most poor kids get fed and don't get beaten by their parents, so those factors can't be what explains the huge difference.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#67

Post by SiempreViernes »

distances wrote: post #60
SiempreViernes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, are you suggesting the municipalities should just deny education to the unprofitable students? Not sure how concentrating easy students would help if you still have to teach the complex ones too, and since the municipalities must provide education to eveyone they can't avoid them like the profit schools do.

I think the parent is proposing different municipal schools for easy-to-teach and hard-to-teach pupils. I don't see any way to achieve this politically, ever.

In some sense it already exists, the kids with severe developmental challenges have their own schools for example.

I guess the real problem is that nobody wants to send their kids to the "cheap" school, which is likely going to be filled with kids from affluent parents because study outcome is to first order just a function of parent income.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#68

Post by FabHK »

bjornsing wrote: post #29

> While schools and colleges are sounding the alarm about declining knowledge results, joy grades are rising, as grades have become a competitive tool on the market. This in my opinion is the main problem. Take this "marketing tool" away from the private schools, and the rest of the problems are fixable (e.g. with diversified pupil compensation). But when you let a private business both grade themselves and sell entr…

Do you know what is meant by "joy grades"? Does it refer to grade inflation (ie nearly everyone getting very good grades)?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#69

Post by bjeds »

vanderZwan wrote: post #65
bjeds wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sort of agree with what you are saying (I'm also Swedish) but I think the incentives are different, and due to the American dominance of Hacker News readers it's worth to clear up: Swedish middle class parents do not choose "good schools" because they want a "great education" for their kids as a competitive advantage... in the sense of a well-off American parent want their kids to go to Harvard or MIT or similar. S…

Would that explain why my bachelor students were so unbelievable inept at emotionally dealing with and resolving conflicts when I taught at university there?

Haha I don't know where you're from but Swedish people are often stereotypically bad at both dealing with emotions and resolving conflicts. "Van der" = Gonna guess you are Dutch? Well Swedish people are, as you know well yourself, the opposite of the Dutch in how to handle things.

Source: My partner is Dutch.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#70

Post by lou1306 »

corty wrote: post #7

While I agree with the article about the problems of profit-driven schools, the whole situation (and the article in parts) points to a imho bigger problem in most education systems: Profit-driven schools cater to the more able, easier to educate and more intelligent pupils. Why can they do that? Because public schools almost everywhere insist on coeducation of the most and least gifted. This is severely holding back…

School should also teach kids that they live in a complex society, where people have different backgrounds and, yes, different skill sets. I'm afraid that relegating "more gifted" kids (whatever this means) into a world of their own is not only harmful to those who are left out, but to them as well.
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