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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#161

Post by bjoli »

Grustaf wrote: post #158
bjoli wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now go and have a look where the schools are located. For-profit schools are more often located in areas where education level is higher. Less money spent on educating kids means more profit ina system where each student gets a fixed amount.

I'm not sure what your point is. Putting a school in a middle class area rather than a ghetto doesn't make it "elite". Especially when any kid can go there, regardless of where they live.

Not in theory. In practice however it is different: https://www.lararforbundet.se/bloggar/lararforbundets-utreda...

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#162

Post by bjornsing »

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…

I can agree to some extent, but wait until the middle class kids don’t perform well enough to make it into the middle class... Problem is: in a fair system that will happen, and many of those parents will fight tooth and nail to prevent it.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#163

Post by cycomanic »

skybrian wrote: post #150
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…

Is bringing a lunch you make at home an option? You might even be able to save up some money that way.

That suggestion defeats the purpose. The thing is schools are supposed to provide meals to students (at no cost), so if you're bringing your own lunch you're not saving your money, you saving the school money.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#164

Post by cycomanic »

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…

Actually the thing to do is stage protests one the dates that the schools have their information evenings. I'll bet you they will listen very quickly.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#165

Post by SiempreViernes »

vagrantJin wrote: post #143
SiempreViernes wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I reccomend changing schools as their lunch allowance isn't enough to cover even a full meal at McDonalds. If they just got cash the recommendation would be to get something from a supermarket, but it's locked to restasurants so single burgers is likely an upper limit outside of the cointracted restaurants that, as stated, sometimes denies service. I wonder what gives you the idea that hot dogs is much better tha…

> No, I reccomend changing schools as their lunch allowance isn't enough to cover even a full meal at McDonalds You suggest - please correct me if Im wrong - that a person should change schools because of lunch allowance? Jesus' feces. Holy shit!

Well yes, if you go to a school that thinks so little of their students that they try to get away with not giving them proper food there are other issues too.

And supposedly the entire point of the private schools is to give you freedom of choice, so why would you object to a student changing schools?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#166

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

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…

this is not out of the norm in NYC, especially at the low income level.

Take exhibit A - success academies chain. There are about 47 in total , most around NYC. They are an independent school which only the poor can get into. So it is private but paid with tax dollars. Because it is taxpayer-funded, once you apply, they can't discriminate - the only requirement to acceptance is that you are poor.

Yet the best students go there, and the school is so good that if it were a separate education system, it would be the best performing education system in the entire United States.

How do they do it ? Simple - they screen parents. They make the bar really high so only the most motivated parents will jump all the hoops to get their kids in.

And there is the problem - it is not the profit, but rather the fact that we refuse to accept that some kids are in a better situation to be educated than others. Whether due to better home environment, raw talent, good base, not sure. However, refusing to deal with this fact, only hurts kids.

How ? Well, the alternative to Success Academies is no 10,000 poor kids receiving elite education. Let us dump those kids back to the system of mediocrity where they were condemned until 15 or so years ago.

That's what equality really means unfortunately - everyone getting equally mediocre government-sanctioned education

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#167

Post by randompwd »

fabbari wrote: post #57
corty wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course higher intelligence is a privilege, as is higher sportive ability and other attributes given to you from birth. This includes your own personal attributes as well as the privilege that comes from your family's wealth and status. But actually, the word "privilege" muddles the waters, because those are two very different things. I agree that schools should not differentiate based on families' status and wealt…

Schools do not treat stupid and intelligent children the same, teachers - with few exceptions - do. Not because they are evil, but because to be able to cater to the different levels of intelligence and the variation in interests that you will naturally find in a random sample of children they require the time and opportunities to do so. As long as we treat teachers as the least important workers, without acknowledgi…

Please do not use code blocks just to draw attention to your comment. It is not clever or creative.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#168

Post by skybrian »

alvarlagerlof wrote: post #157
skybrian wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is bringing a lunch you make at home an option? You might even be able to save up some money that way.

Only on the summer as the school does not allow eating anything other than what the cafeteria serves in the buildings. The lunch cards are restricted to certain restaurants only.

Wow, banning people from bringing their own lunches to eat for lunch seems quite weird to me. Over-regulate much?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#169

Post by Grustaf »

bjoli wrote: post #159
Grustaf wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the Swedish system, all schools cost the same: 0. So there is no reason to target specifically wealthy students, all students are worth the same to you as school owner. In fact, they can't even accept students based on grades, there are only 4 criteria they are allowed to use when selecting students: location, time in queue, siblings in the school and whether you went to pre-school there. So what you end up with a…

Yes, but no: - The schools get a fixed amount of money per student. - The single largest predictor of school success is education level of the parents. - most for profit schools are in areas with higher education.

I'm not sure what you are arguing for or against here. I agree with all these points.

But it is still the case that a lot of the students will not be local, and the majority of the local kids will not go to the school, they will go to the local public school.*

The main reason these schools have better students is that you need to make an active choice to go there, and you need to do that a long time in advance. If you don't, you end up in a public school. This of course means that students from more motivated households go to these schools. Not wealthier students or even necessarily smarter students.

* There have been cases recently where it seems that the private school has bribed the public school system to close the local school, but in general the public school will remain and most of the local kids will go there.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#170

Post by skybrian »

cycomanic wrote: post #163
skybrian wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is bringing a lunch you make at home an option? You might even be able to save up some money that way.

That suggestion defeats the purpose. The thing is schools are supposed to provide meals to students (at no cost), so if you're bringing your own lunch you're not saving your money, you saving the school money.

If you take the money that the school gives you and make your own lunch for less money than the restaurants charge, that's better than a free lunch, since you have more money.
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