Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#211

Post by staticassertion » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

nverno wrote: post #202

staticassertion wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the answer is no.

I would lean more towards this is one of those truths that can be taken as self-evident. But, at the same time I would be skeptical that any published evidence would account for the infinitude of confounding factors. My guess is it is similar to IQ results - does a good job weeding out people who know nothing, but does worse differentiating between students who are satisfactory and those who are exceptional

AFAIK there's more evidence supporting that ~B students are the most successful vs A students.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#212

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:50 PM UTC

antihero wrote: post #74

brianwawok wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No child left behind. It’s been ruled that it’s better that all students get to 20-80% knowledge then some get 100% and some get 0%. Which is why many people choose to go to private schools if you want to not be limited by this.

Surely this can be solved by streaming? Here in the UK we had bottom sets for the kids that were struggling, and top sets for kids who excelled. This meant that the learning pace could be tailored for each group. Still probably didn't stretch the top set kids as much as private schools could, which is why I am in favour of abolishing all private and grammar schools and making the resources available to those schools…

[deleted]

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#213

Post by throwaway6734 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

briandear wrote: post #206

Ivdg3 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, public school in the United States is broken. They're quite functional in the majority of the OECD. If you are a parent and are in SF this should be a wake up call. The city is rapidly failing, it's in your best interest to get out now.

Public schools where I live in Texas are great. Much better than the $33k per year school we had in Silicon Valley. The places were they seem broken are in big city districts where certain political factions, specifically teacher unions, get outsized influence on policy. I saw this up close when I lived in Jersey City and was considering a run for school board on Mayor Fulup’s slate of candidates. After being warned…

>And it isn’t about funding: look at the per pupil expenditures in DC or New York, and compare them to Austin suburbs like Leander, or Houston suburbs like the Woodlands

Spending per pupil can be a deceiving statistic due to the vastly different needs between poor/middle-class/wealthy students

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#214

Post by whatshisface » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

akomtu wrote: post #176

dnndev wrote: post #155

Public school is broken and we all know it - in general. We need competent administrators, more teachers and smaller classes. Parents need more time to teach their children what is not and should not be taught at school. Kudos to parents who can afford and decide to be more hands on with children’s education. It is heartbreaking when all a child has is public school.

"critical thinking" is what I think parents should teach to their kids. By that I mean giving cases of deception, gaslighting, etc. and asking the kid to discern the lie and the intent of the lie. I don't think schools teach this skill these days.

I think you are working in the right direction, but you have to include lies that are believed by the teller, semi-lies that were honestly conceived but lose their earnestness through determined avoidance of self-questioning, and even honest but harmful mistakes.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#215

Post by saiya-jin » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:51 PM UTC

ALittleLight wrote: post #184

hellbannedguy wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The teachers were worried about Covid. Kids weren't vaccinated.

Kids don't need to be vaccinated. Adults who are concerned about it, including teachers, should be. Keeping schools closed because children aren't vaccinated is irrational.

What the heck are you talking about? Brazil variant for example is pretty brutal on kids, death is not so uncommon result. School is one of the worst places for spreading, since tons of kids lack will/discipline to behave consistently, and are cramped in various classes. Once 1 member of household is sick, the chance rest will get it is pretty high.

Remote teaching sucks for many reasons for kids and should be used only when really unavoidable, but to claim kids are a-OK and shouldn't be vaccinated ain't based on science I've read so far.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#216

Post by crooked-v » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:52 PM UTC

um_ya wrote: post #170

staticassertion wrote: post #165

School's so stupid. If you give people a grade and tell them to maximize it, with no meaningful rewards that they can understand, they're going to cheat. Duh. I regret not cheating in school, what a waste of time all of that shit was. The teacher is basically like "haha dumb kids, we know you're cheating" and "if only we could punish students more!". There's a lot of "the smart kids are suffering because of the dumb…

I like the school voucher idea a lot. Give parents a voucher, as good as cash, for their child and let them choose the school. Private companies will compete for those vouchers, aligning focus on satisfying the parents and the children, rather than the government.

That sounds like a great way to indirectly punish parents who can't afford commutes for their children, since they get stuck with whichever schools the wealthier parents pull their children from.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#217

Post by mobilefriendly » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

schoolchoice wrote: post #31

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's responsibility is it to ensure that what is best for the management (state and district admin) is also what is best for student education? I'm not too familiar with the details of management here, but is it even possible for public schools (and other government operations) to have proper incentives given voters don't care about results? I suppose "school-choice", which happens to be vehemently opposed by Democr…

"School-choice" is great for optimizing local maximums at the expense of just about everyone else. Public education should focus on the lowest common denominators to maximize education per tax dollar. It's not the smart people with lack of opportunity that drag down society, it's the massive amount of undereducated adults that become dangerously suceptable to manipulation.

School choice is still universal public education. It is just the government providers of education have to compete with private providers.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#218

Post by josho » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:54 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #172

mindvirus wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're tearing down a straw man friend, I didn't say anything about tutoring or homeschooling. It'd mean the same thing it already means for 90%+ people - compulsory publicly funded education from 5-17 years old.

> You're tearing down a straw man friend, I didn't say anything about tutoring or homeschooling. No straw man involved. I don’t think you’ve thought through the implications of ‘getting rid of private school’. The point is that to ban private schools you’d also have to ban homeschooling.

It’s my understanding that private schools play a minor role in other countries. Those same countries also have home schools.

I don’t quite understand how restricting a private school of several hundred students affects a parent teaching their children at home.

Clearly rules could be in place to separate those concerns apart.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#219

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:55 PM UTC

Bostonian wrote: post #173

Bostonian wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We need more teachers and smaller classes." That would cost more, and reading the blog makes me want to send less money to the public schools.

For some reason my comment was downvoted. Does the system portrayed sound like one that is using resources efficiently to do important things? In some respects the school may doing harm, teaching students that they can be late and miss assignments without consequences. In the private sector they would be fired.

If you think that giving less money to struggling public services is a way to improve those services, then you are part of the problem. Political opportunists rely on that line of thinking to put public services into a death spiral, and their failure becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#220

Post by jollybean » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 10:56 PM UTC

analog31 wrote: post #69

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

Playing devils advocate for a moment, as grading works right now, a kid can quickly dig themselves into a hole that they have no realistic way to get out of, e.g., by utterly bombing on an exam or missing a few assignments early in the semester. The motivation for that kid to progress any further is zero, yet they are imprisoned in the classroom for the duration of the semester. This hits very close to home for me, a…

It's not unreasonable.

We don't want to fail kids consistently and put these huge marks in their psyche because they were not 'good at some thing'.

HS needs to teach the basics of course, beyond that it should be encouraged and supported.

My personal academic inclination didn't even start turning on seriously until I was very fortunate enough to get into a good Grad School and the fraternal competition sparked something I didn't know existed.

Kicking kids out of school permanently is the best way to make sure they end up on the streets, rugs, crimes gangs etc..

The funny part of 'On-Campus' suspension is that ... 'On-Campus' is the smartest thing in the article. Having to actually show up for school is much worse than not being in school! So that's a better 'punishment'. Maybe they should be required to read a book!

Guys like to focus on projects and applied things, I suggest 1/2 of high school past age 15 should be applied learning, projects. Literally anything that people engage with and learn from. And as a non-athlete, terrible at sports klutz, I would say 'gym class every day' would be ideal as well. 20% 'training' type stuff and the rest just fun sports.