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

adamcadre.ac

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

#691

Post by exolymph »

spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

The word "worthwhile" was a poor choice — you're probably intending to talk about economics, about the price someone's labor might justify in the future. But it sounds like you're talking about transcendent moral value, because that's what we associate with the term "worth." Hopefully you don't actually mean to say that lesser academic ability equates to lesser import as a human being.

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

#692

Post by Lammy »

dntrkv wrote: post #678
Lammy wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> for some reason, the US never mastered publicly run institutions This is by design, sadly, because the "wrong people" might benefit from them. But hey we have MLK Day and Juneteenth now so we fixed racism :)))))

Yes, the California DMV is a shit hole because republicans want to keep black people down. Makes total sense.

Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.history.com/news/california-once-tried-to-ban-bl...

I'm not trying to pressure you or anybody else to agree with me, but personally it was really shocking for me when I realized how segregated the Bay Area actually is: http://radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea

There's no way I can look at a divide like the one at the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge and not think that ease of access to irl mobility is an issue. Once Upon A Time it was imagined that Phase 2 of BART would run alongside that bridge. There is a bus, but it's not of much use for anybody who needs to work later than 9PM, like many service jobs: https://www.goldengate.org/bus/route-schedule/del-norte-bart...

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

#693

Post by spoonjim »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #602
spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

* remedial and the kids who were really trying would never be sent to remedial because that’s where the true losers were sent (in a different building) where they couldn’t disrupt anyone else’s learning.* This just isn't true. Do you honestly believe that a kid with a learning disability is simply not trying? I know that was the attitude of the schools of yesteryear - but they were wrong. There are lots of reasons fo…

“Remedial” was for the kids who disrupted class, started fights, were frequently absent. I am saying that the kid who was making a decent effort no matter how incompetent they were, was kept at the standard level.

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

#694

Post by duped »

chmod600 wrote: post #677
duped wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both. The public school system goes behind education because it's the only state service where most children can be reached. They're crucially important for providing food security and shelter to millions of children whose parents can't or won't.

Aren't those goals in tension? Isn't that a big part of the problem?

They're only in contention if we use the same measures for both, which is the root problem imo. In the United States our schools are more than places to expose children to literature, mathematics, and civics. It's a crucial social service and one with massive reach - if you want to affect change for the children and youth of America, schools are the place to go.

The contrary is also true. When we don't effectively use schools as these crucial public services, we wind up with the "school to prison pipeline" as it's called.

In my opinion the notion of "no child left behind" shouldn't equate to every kid going to college or becoming a doctor. We can design schooling metrics better than test scores and academic outcome. Like criminal justice outcomes, health outcomes like obesity, voting or civic participation, or even social outcomes. The goals of schooling shouldn't be wholly academic. That is why secondary education exists.

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

#695

Post by rayiner »

MomoXenosaga wrote: post #636
neartheplain wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many good reasons to de-racialize the discussion around US public education. One is that the "white school" trope is increasingly out of date. Instead, we've begun to see "Asian schools" wherever high-performing public high school schools admit students based on standardized testing. The top-ranked high school in the entire US, Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, is 65% Asian and 23% wh…

That is true its more about economic status now. We have made some considerable progress in opening up the middle class to immigrants. To paraphrase MLK "judged not on the colour of their skin but on the size of their parents' bank accounts". So many doors magically open to you when your parents have money.

It’s not about economic status. At TJ, where I went, the Asian majority is comfortably middle class, but less so than the white kids there. Stuyvesant, despite being 75% Asian, is 50% low income, and eligible for Title I funding a result: https://nypost.com/2014/07/19/why-nycs-push-to-change-school...

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

#696

Post by dntrkv »

Lammy wrote: post #692
dntrkv wrote: post #678

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the California DMV is a shit hole because republicans want to keep black people down. Makes total sense.

Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.history.com/news/california-once-tried-to-ban-bl... I'm not trying to pressure you or anybody else to agree with me, but personally it was really shocking for me when I realized how segregated the Bay Area actually is: http://radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea There's no way I can look at a divide like the one at the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge and not think that ease of…

> Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.history.com/news/california-once-tried-to-ban-bl...

150 years ago...

I don't see what the rest of your comment has anything to do with the discussion at hand. DMVs are terrible everywhere. The DMV in a rich zipcode suffers from the same issues as a DMV in a poor zipcode. Both rich and poor have to use the DMV.

The problem is not that racist white people are trying to run the DMV into the ground to keep black people poor. The problem is that many of our government institutions are run like shit. In many cases, fixing these institutions would benefit the wealthy more than the poor. Yet it doesn't happen. Why? Well, like with any other question regarding complex systems, there are different reasons depending on the case. Trying to distill it down to "racism" does not get as any closer to identifying the cause, nor fixing it.

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

#697

Post by Lammy »

dntrkv wrote: post #696
Lammy wrote: post #692

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.history.com/news/california-once-tried-to-ban-bl... I'm not trying to pressure you or anybody else to agree with me, but personally it was really shocking for me when I realized how segregated the Bay Area actually is: http://radicalcartography.net/index.html?bayarea There's no way I can look at a divide like the one at the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge and not think that ease of…

> Wouldn't be the first time: https://www.history.com/news/california-once-tried-to-ban-bl ... 150 years ago... I don't see what the rest of your comment has anything to do with the discussion at hand. DMVs are terrible everywhere. The DMV in a rich zipcode suffers from the same issues as a DMV in a poor zipcode. Both rich and poor have to use the DMV. The problem is not that racist white people are trying to run the…

If only you knew how bad things really are.

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

#698

Post by fakedang »

kickout wrote: post #652
fakedang wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investment bankers barely enjoy their jobs and take a lot of abuse from their bosses, yet there is no shortage of banker aspirants. Some even stay for the long haul, or go to even worse working conditions such as private equity, for more money.

Investment bankers also have autonomy and generally work in small teams. Not responsible for human beings, just capital. Also if a IB gets fired (but is good) they are probably employed within a week. A good teacher that gets fired (for fighting the bad administration? Good luck...

To draw parallels, an investment banker who goes against the system would likewise not be hired, but rather virtually blackballed. And good luck for whistle blowers in any financial institution.

Also investment bankers have as much autonomy as a client allows them to. And MDs and VPs are as much responsible for their subordinates and client relationships (although not in the same way as teachers are for students).

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

#699

Post by vmception »

spoonjim wrote: post #554

I’ve noticed that in the time since I was a kid, the focus of public school has shifted from about the 40th percentile student to the 5th percentile student. In my school, the entire focus of the operation was the decent student... the one who showed up, put in a decent effort, did at least three quarters of their homework. The school had tremendous resources for these kids to go to college, and the very best college…

That’s because there is greater ROI now in the population being productive. There is no utility in marginalizing anyone anymore.

The US attracts talent whether they were educated here or not. The US got to that place with poor schools while only heterosexual cisgender men were working. While the rest of the marginalized population was a drag on society and its security as they fought for scraps. The US becoming more inclusive in all facets amplifies its society much more, it doesnt mean turning any troubled youth into a surgeon or researcher. It means giving them a baseline to be productive at all.

If you want your child to be doing something else, look elsewhere.

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

#700

Post by zepto »

mindvirus wrote: post #682
muyuu wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

at best you'd move the threshold to remove yourself from the system a little higher, from those paying top dollar private schools to those who can hire tutors and/or have one of the parents dedicated to tutoring there's no effective way to ban private tutoring in the sense and effect of this thread that doesn't also involve banning homeschooling edit: or simply send the kids abroad, the classic rich-person-in-failed-…

I'm not seeing this connection that you and others are making between private schools and tutoring or homeschooling. When I say private schools, I mean it in the sense most people think of private schools: large institutions requiring applications, charging tuition and hiring teachers not related to the students, not "any form of education not provided publicly". I don't think homeschooling fits this definition. The…

> The point is to move the bar for removing yourself higher

No, the point was to make the people with the power to do something about it be forced to use public schools.

Just moving the bar a bit higher would have no such effect.

> Right now though a significant number of people opt out of the public system and I think that's a huge problem.

Why? What’s wrong with thinking the public school system is bad (which it obviously is) and doing something better for you child?

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