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The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

dianeravitch.net

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Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#211

Post by bjeds »

sobriquet9 wrote: post #174
bjeds wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure what you are claiming here. Are you saying that I'm wrong in questioning calling KTH "elite" because I used one anecdote in a larger argument? You can look up the admission statistics yourself: it's very easy to get in to KTH. Maybe there are some programs that are more competitive than others. When I finished high school, the admission criteria for example Electrical Engineering was roughly "you need a…

You are drawing conclusions about Swedish education based on a biased sample (people admitted to KTH). It's true that looking at people admitted to elite medical schools would introduce even bigger bias, but it does not mean that the sample you chose is representative.

No I'm not drawing any conclusions about Swedish education, I'm talking about KTH specificially. Are you replying to the wrong person?

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#212

Post by NoSubstitute »

username90 wrote: post #85

KTH tests engineering students math abilities by giving new students the same test every year. There is nothing gained or lost from this test so nobody studied for it. Anyway, this gives us a reasonable trend in how well students know the basics, and it shows that students are getting better and not worse right now. The worst class was the one starting 2007. https://www.kth.se/aktuellt/nyheter/trenden-har-vant-mattek…

Thanks. I contacted the author of that article and he gave me an updated graph. It, of course, doesn't have the numbers for 2020, as the test wasn't taken because of COVID-19.

Den mån 15 feb. 2021 kl 07:55 skrev Hans Thunberg:

Hej Kim! Förkunskapsprovet genomfördes även vid utbildningstart i augusti 2017, 2018 och 2019. I höstas blev det ingenting p ga av pandemien (vilket ju verkligen är synd – man hade vilja veta hur distansundervisning som började redan våren -20 påverjade förkunskaperna)

De förbättrade resultaten från 2015 och 2016 höll väsentligen i sig de tre följande åren, här är ett diagram som visar lösningsfrekvensen på förkunskapsprovet hos antagna till civilingenjörsutbildningarna vid KTH 1997 – 2019.

Med vänliga hälsningar Hans Thunberg

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1V7VrCVAAFia0Rd4gLRYI0dfEIZU...

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#213

Post by NoSubstitute »

leereeves wrote: post #9
brtkdotse wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The author claims that "the corporation schools can reduce salaries, teacher density, resource staff." Though that claim makes me wonder how these schools attract students. The "independent students" and their parents must not be too happy with the municipal schools if understaffed private schools are an appealing alternative.

This is exactly the topic of a book written about the issue, called "De Lönsamma" (the profitable). Two people from the world of education doing deep dives into the budgets of many municipalities also show infuriatingly poor judgement when allowing a new independent school to establish, with loads of subsidies and taxcuts.

"En bok om varför skolor slåss om elever, och om hur vinster i välfärden bara är en liten del av den diskussion vi behöver ha."

(A book about why schools fight over students, and how profits in public service is only a small part of the discussion we need to have.)

https://tankesmedjanbalans.se/

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#214

Post by sobriquet9 »

bjeds wrote: post #211
sobriquet9 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are drawing conclusions about Swedish education based on a biased sample (people admitted to KTH). It's true that looking at people admitted to elite medical schools would introduce even bigger bias, but it does not mean that the sample you chose is representative.

No I'm not drawing any conclusions about Swedish education, I'm talking about KTH specificially. Are you replying to the wrong person?

You need to read the whole thread for context. The original post claims education quality in Sweden deteriorated. username90 argues it didn't, using unchanged KTH test results as support. JorgeGT says KTH is an elite institution so there is a selection bias. You disagree, saying that KTH is not an elite institution. I'm saying the selection bias is still present because KTH students are not a representative sample.

In this context it does not matter how elite KTH is. It only matters whether KTH students on average are materially different from general population.

Re: The Shame of Swedish Education: J’Accuse

#215

Post by fabbari »

randompwd wrote: post #167
fabbari wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

  This is odd - I am not using code blocks, I am just typing in the text box to reply. I thought it looked like code as a way of showing my comments. I really don't know why it happens, I will look and see if it's somewhere in the settings.
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