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

#511

Post by paulddraper » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #106

nerdponx wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it either. People have learning and thinking differences, we know that and have known it for years. Accommodating those differences is important. Living out a real-life version of Harrison Bergeron is not the only way to do it.

> Harrison Bergeron Wow, I had never read that before: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html This really captures so much of the current thinking around "equity".

Written in 1961. And never more applicable than today.

Fortunately, my K-12 education included it as assigned reading :)

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

#512

Post by contrarian_5 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:13 AM UTC

very frequent topic here on HN. i remember a comment about a persons experience with the public schools in the soviet union when it collapsed. all the smart people pulled their kids out and did something else. its the same as everything else because if you want it to be done right then you have to do it yourself. there is no fixing public schools... they are run by the majority and they always will be. the problem isnt the schools, its the majority. after WW2 all the dumbest people fucked like rabbits with no financial or existential limitations to stop them, medicine increasingly spared idiots from the consequences of their actions. this initial seed of stupidity brought the next tooth of the ratchet into place: the popularization and normalization of eliminating all consequences from ones own actions. we just keep getting dumber. we were supposed to be re-galvanized by a major depression and a pandemic in the past 20 years but we postponed it all with technology and massive economic manipulation. eventually the chickens are going to come home to roost... in the meantime dont let the public schools rot out the inside of your kids head.

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

#513

Post by newacct583 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:16 AM UTC

contrarian_5 wrote: post #512

very frequent topic here on HN. i remember a comment about a persons experience with the public schools in the soviet union when it collapsed. all the smart people pulled their kids out and did something else. its the same as everything else because if you want it to be done right then you have to do it yourself. there is no fixing public schools... they are run by the majority and they always will be. the problem is…

What has happened to this site? We have a topic on the front page of the site for 15 hours now, with almost 400 comments, and the top comment is a nakedly eugenicist screed about "the dumbest people" having too many babies.

I mean, even skipping the moral horror here, it's not even true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

But HN... wants it to be true? What the actual fuck, people?

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

#514

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

raunak wrote: post #464

WalterBright wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caltech's freshman class size is also about 50% larger than in my day. These days I also hear that people shotgun out applications (much easier to do with a computer rather than a typewriter!) which increases the rejection rate even with the exact same number of students. I have no idea if the relative quality of today's Caltech freshman body is better or the same as in my day. I flipped through an SAT vocabulary bui…

I’m 18 now and took the SAT two years ago - I scored well without the need to practice too much, but official practice is available completely for free on Khan Academy. You really don’t need to pay anything to improve on the SAT these days, and anyone arguing elsewise is misguided as to how the test actually works. And also - I agree - I never really learned “grammar rules” or the details of writing. I just learned f…

Yup. I was taught to diagram sentences in school, but it seemed a useless skill, and I no longer recall any of it. I know if a sentence is grammatically correct or not just by reading it. There's no conscious thought process to it at all.

I read a great deal as a kid, too. Mostly scifi :-)

I made the mistake of attempting to learn German by memorizing. But who can remember which nouns go with der, die, or das? Not me. I bet the right way is to simply read the newspaper every day, looking up the words one doesn't know, one by one.

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

#515

Post by contrarian_5 » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:20 AM UTC

newacct583 wrote: post #513

contrarian_5 wrote: post #512

very frequent topic here on HN. i remember a comment about a persons experience with the public schools in the soviet union when it collapsed. all the smart people pulled their kids out and did something else. its the same as everything else because if you want it to be done right then you have to do it yourself. there is no fixing public schools... they are run by the majority and they always will be. the problem is…

What has happened to this site? We have a topic on the front page of the site for 15 hours now, with almost 400 comments, and the top comment is a nakedly eugenicist screed about "the dumbest people" having too many babies. I mean, even skipping the moral horror here, it's not even true: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect But HN... wants it to be true? What the actual fuck, people?

ive been here since 2014. i didnt bring up eugenics, but if you want to broach that topic then fine. intelligence, as well as all other traits or characteristics, of not just humans but all organisms, is subject to natural selection. if you deny this, you deny natural selection and this would make you a science denier. whether we should act on this fact, or the morality of doing so, is completely up to you. but you will not deny science on hackernews.

oh and you saw my comment at the top because the ranking algorithm takes the youthfulness of the comment into account. its rather embarrassing that you dont know this.

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

#516

Post by WalterBright » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

dehrmann wrote: post #503

raunak wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m 18 now and took the SAT two years ago - I scored well without the need to practice too much, but official practice is available completely for free on Khan Academy. You really don’t need to pay anything to improve on the SAT these days, and anyone arguing elsewise is misguided as to how the test actually works. And also - I agree - I never really learned “grammar rules” or the details of writing. I just learned f…

> You really don’t need to pay anything to improve on the SAT these days I heard something on This American Life, I think, about a "strong student" from a bad high school doing poorly on the SAT. I got the impression she hadn't prepared at all...which seems odd for a strong student when there are free resources. > memorizing vocab The College Board got called out for some of this after the "regatta" incident. It turn…

The only question I recall from the SAT was about analogies. It required a knowledge of the contents of various liquor drinks, like a martini.

I was just a kid. I didn't hang out in bars. I had no idea what the contents of a martini were.

I thought it was unfair, and was so annoyed I still recall it :-)

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

#517

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:22 AM UTC

yonran wrote: post #444

mmarq wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your question was “Do these 10 year old not care about school because there is something intrinsically wrong about them”. > My indirect answer is not necessarily, although there may be some for whom the answer is yes. I suspect the more common answer is no: They do not care about school because they have other, more pressing needs besides school. So, the answer is: no, these kids are not broken. > If you want to fo…

> these kids are not broken. > we are calling it "merit" It sounds like you’re arguing about who deserves the prestige of going to Lowell rather than who actually benefits and contributes to the experience of attending classes at Lowell, which is the most populous school in San Francisco and has fairly large class sizes and tough grading. Instead of pretending that all students are equally prepared for class or that…

[deleted]

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

#518

Post by tptacek » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:25 AM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #498

quadrifoliate wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would someone just starting their career in 2021 in the Chicago area get defined-benefit pension plans? Also, does a new teacher get as much as a new software developer? The $80k/year numbers that I keep seeing thrown around often apply to teachers with 20 or more years of experience, but software developers that level of experience make a lot more. In my state, older teachers get these, but newer teachers including…

> teacher > software developers Those are very different jobs, with very different skill sets. I'm not sure how much you can infer about one from the other.

Nothing, except that nobody reasonable believes that software developers are grossly underpaid.

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

#519

Post by chadaustin » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

kyboren wrote: post #143

jdhn wrote: post #30

Stuff like this is why I roll my eyes every time I hear that schools are underfunded and how we need to give them just a little more funding, and surely things will get better. If they're just going to pass students anyways, what's the point of increasing the funding?

That trope needs to die. California's schools are not underfunded. California spends a record amount on education[0], over $18k per child. "Reflecting the changes to Proposition 98 funding levels noted above, total K-12 per-pupil expenditures from all sources are projected to be $18,837 in 2020-21 and $18,000 in 2021-22—the highest levels ever (K-12 Education Spending Per Pupil). The decrease between 2020-21 and 2021…

Part of the issue is how unevenly distributed the money is. Look at slide 7/8 in https://www.cusdk8.org/cms/lib/CA02218495/Centricity/Domain/...

$8,200 per pupil in Cupertino, $24,700 in Woodside

CUSD is considering closure of three schools and eliminating librarians and art and music due to the failure of passing a parcel tax, and low per-pupil funding. Lots of folks on the street argue “it’s the administrator salaries!” but when you actually look at the budgets there’s just not enough money to keep the schools running. Teachers commute from over the mountains. Administrators are paid reasonably, but that’s the cost when their skill sets would easily apply to project management at a local tech company. Money’s not always the solution but sometimes it is.

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

#520

Post by throwawaysea » Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #494

brightball wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff like this drives the push for things like vouchers. I’m lucky to be able to send my kids to a good private school. We chose it after a tour and discussion with the headmaster about exactly how it operates. The teachers as a group research and plan curriculum. They coordinate across grade levels and determine how to roll out changes in the most effective way possible for students and parents as well. They rolled…

Forgive my ignorance, I’m from another land. What are vouchers in this context?

It’s about giving parents a voucher (like a gift card) to spend on a school. The idea is that instead of subjecting everyone to a one size fits all public school system, which can have various problems and inefficiencies, you give parents money that can only be spent on schools but let them choose which provider to spend it on (whether public or private or homeschooling or whatever). It introduces an element of competition between schools but also choice, and the ability for parents to seek out what is best for their child. For example: teacher union avoiding accountability via test scores? Switch schools. School policies not properly managing disruptive students? Switch schools. Curriculum not appropriate for your child? Switch schools.