Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#111

Post by rejectedandsad » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:36 PM UTC

Mary-Jane wrote: post #84

larrymyers wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what we expect of schools they are underfunded. Schools provide before and after care outside of normal hours, they provide all 3 meals to many students. Counseling, social services, health care ... it's not just teachers in the classroom. Now, if the US wanted to actually fix poverty and inequality dealing with the symptoms wouldn't roll down to the schools to deal with.

Negatory. Us shovels more funding per student into its public schools than almost any other country. That funding is spend poorly, mostly on administrative functions that no doubt demonstrate in great detail how great each school is. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd

Admin bloat is very real but as the wealthiest country it makes sense we spend more on public education because we spend more on nearly everything.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#112

Post by commandlinefan » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

benrbray wrote: post #21

Bostonian wrote: post #8

Education is a multiplier of IQ, not an equalizer. Many people, although policymakers won't admit it, don't have the IQ to study at the high school level, for example learning algebra. Even more people don't have the IQ to study at the college level, for example studying calculus and writing a coherent, footnoted term paper. And only a small fraction of the population has the IQ to do significant research and earn a…

In my own perhaps limited experience, I've never really encountered anyone who is simply incapable of deep thought / critical thinking. I've met plenty of people who have a learned helplessness when it comes to, say, math. I've studied alongside classmates who could't spend as much time studying as me, simply because they had to support themselves with part-time or full-time work just to keep their head above water.…

> I've never really encountered anyone who is simply incapable of deep thought / critical thinking

Well, hang on - there are actually learning disabled people who are incapable of learning to tie their own shoes. That's an extreme outlier, of course, but it suggests that there are two possible interpretations for "intelligence": one, that everybody has an upper cognitive limit that they'll never be able to surpass, and the mentally disabled are just struck with a very unfortunately low limit. The other is that being mentally disabled is like being crippled: you either are able to walk/run (learn) or not, and it's just a matter of how much effort you expend in improving it if you have it. Even then - we know that some people learn much faster than others, so that would define intelligence as a measure of how quickly you can absorb new concepts. You seem to be leaning toward the feel-good, but very provably wrong, "everybody is as smart as everybody else" (captured by the Facebook-popular "everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid" quote falsely attributed to Einstein), but you're not doing anybody any favors suggesting that it's going to be as easy for them to learn calculus (if they can learn it all) as it was for you.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#113

Post by j_walter » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

kingsuper20 wrote: post #30

zozbot234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while also chronically underfunding schools Schools are not underfunded in the U.S., they waste money. Big difference.

It's remarkable how much the per capita, inflation corrected cost per pupil in California has gone up in 50 years. My own elementary school (not in CA), has double the amount of staff with the same pupil head count, plus I don't doubt that the salaries have risen faster than inflation and/or GDP improvements. OTOH, teachers were famously poorly paid in days of yore.

You say paid poorly, but exactly how poorly? Usually the upfront pay was offset by a good pension, medical benefits and having the summer months off was a huge benefit.

Teachers around here now make the average staring salary for a Bachelors Degree and still get the good benefits and time off.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#114

Post by dehrmann » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #99

kungito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the US has to split into separate countries and maybe adopt a system like EU. Everything in the us gets so generalized no one has any agency over it except companies with enough money to push a narrative across 300 mil people. Either that or the way you think about US has to change. I find it hard to believe every state does things the same way but still you say "US" has a problem and not Georgia or Calif…

The US was envisioned as a union of separate countries, like the EU. The EU is sliding towards US-style centralization.

> union of separate countries

Hence "United States."

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#115

Post by autocorr » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

viscanti wrote: post #48

kungito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the US has to split into separate countries and maybe adopt a system like EU. Everything in the us gets so generalized no one has any agency over it except companies with enough money to push a narrative across 300 mil people. Either that or the way you think about US has to change. I find it hard to believe every state does things the same way but still you say "US" has a problem and not Georgia or Calif…

The US could create an amendment to say something like "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people". Which would give individual States the right to control a lot of things. Is that kind of what you're thinking?

To anyone who does not get the irony in the above, this already exists as the Tenth Amendment. It is effectively ignored because it is considered legally redundant with the Constitution itself.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#116

Post by wittycardio » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #105

wayoutthere wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy hell dude, are you calling the working class lazy and the professional class hard-working?! This tells me you don’t have a lot of contact with the working class. The working class busts their asses while most software devs I know work about 2 hours a day from their couch in pajamas. Someone who works at a warehouse or fast food joint is a much harder worker than a software architect. Probably also working 60-80…

Americans glorify hard work while undervaluing efficiency. For example, I often hear fellow Americans brag about how many hours they put in or how intense their work is. This is true all the way from the blue collar trades to the most white collar (management consultants are notorious for this). In reality, it's better to use fewer hours to accomplish the same goal. There is no inherent value in applying more time to…

Uh I don't know what management consultants you've met but as an industry it is the opposite of efficient. It's an industry that's built on stealing value from the productive bits of society by leveraging the social status of it's employees. Some software is certainly very efficient and productive but after many years in software I can tell you that a lot of software work is repeated broken window fixing. It's not about lazy / hardworking it's about those with social capital and those without. Those with it prosper and those without it flounder.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#117

Post by rejectedandsad » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

alexgmcm wrote: post #83

kstenerud wrote: post #62

Education never was the "Great Equalizer". Its purpose has always been "to educate people in what they need to know." Now, "what they need to know" differs by caste. The high caste learn how they deserve their privileged position, how to perpetuate their position, and who are the key players. The medium caste learn how to set up or run business and merchant operations, how to be an exec, how power works, who are the…

I somewhat agree with the sentiment although I think it's a bit pessimistic and as described holds a stronger resemblance to a YA dystopian novel than reality. I went to a state school (i.e. public school in American terminology) in a poor area and studied hard and did well, got scholarships, went to Uni etc. There are some problems with people not being able to afford to dedicate time to study - this can be solved b…

Eh, it’s pretty real, we just call it going to a top school. People like me will never achieve what the people at Ivy+ schools will, and I’ll be locked in a lower caste for good.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#118

Post by iammisc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

dwater wrote: post #53

whb07 wrote: post #15

Controlling education is a political life source for the Democratic party in the U.S. One of the largest, if not the largest, unions is the teacher's and they are a major donor to the Democratic party. Thankfully, the one good thing about the shutdowns has been the ability for parents to observe a couple things: * how little the school system cares about the child * the indoctrination and political ideas being passed…

Schools are controlled primarily by state and local governments, which are not universally controlled by Democrats but split along typical red state/blue state lines: https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/parti... Republican legislatures have shown they are quite capable of passing legislation about education that serves little purpose beyond a political agenda, as this year's crop of bills banning c…

> unless there are numerous private schools in West Virginia that charge $4600 or less in tuition, which I would not expect.

There seem to be quite a few: https://www.privateschoolreview.com/tuition-stats/west-virgi...

In general, Catholic school is per capita cheaper than public. In fact, according to https://educationdata.org/average-cost-of-private-school, $4600 would be enough to cover the average Catholic elementary school in the US as a whole.

> Otherwise it's simply a transfer of funds away from public schools to middle and upper class families who were already leaning away from public education and the private (largely religious) institutions they prefer.

That's not true. Vouchers are more popular with minorities: https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/02/24/voters-str...

I also notice you use religious as a pejorative. There is little reason to do so. Catholic schooling for example provides better outcomes for low-income minorities than public schools, including when adjusted for poverty, parental behavior, etc. Thomas Sowell goes in depth in his book "education in america".

> If the intent was truly to provide school choice to all, they could end enrollment based on residence and allow low income families to choose to place their children in high performing schools in high income areas, but that kind of choice is not the intent of these programs.

Low income families do not want to place their kids in high performing schools in high income areas. That doesn't actually work. This typically leads to ostracization of the poor kids in school and the creation of two separate tracks.

My wife and I are in the best high school in our city ... if you're white or rich. If you're black it's the worst. It's in an extremely rich area, but it also includes a predominantly black poorer inner city neighborhood.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#119

Post by Retric » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

Mary-Jane wrote: post #84

larrymyers wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what we expect of schools they are underfunded. Schools provide before and after care outside of normal hours, they provide all 3 meals to many students. Counseling, social services, health care ... it's not just teachers in the classroom. Now, if the US wanted to actually fix poverty and inequality dealing with the symptoms wouldn't roll down to the schools to deal with.

Negatory. Us shovels more funding per student into its public schools than almost any other country. That funding is spend poorly, mostly on administrative functions that no doubt demonstrate in great detail how great each school is. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd

Comparing countries by PPP doesn’t account for the cost of education between countries. A collage educated worker in Mexico is much cheaper than a collage educated worker in Luxembourg even accounting for PPP.

In fact if you compare countries by Median household income PPP. You find a familiar ordering, Luxembourg 52,493, Norway 51,489, Sweden 50,514, Australia 46,555, Denmark 44,360, United States 43,585. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

Differences in scope between each country such as what pays for school lunch programs explains much of the difference.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#120

Post by yoz-y » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

ipaddr wrote: post #55

TrackerFF wrote: post #19

In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. Furthermore, strong labor laws have compressed salaries towards the mean, so people are not locking themselves into poverty by working low-wage / low-skill work, but there's a difference enough that people are incentivize…

You think in Europe people are more free to take chances than the US? There is less of a need to take a chance so people play it safe. Why risk it all or anything when your needs are met and money gets taxed highly at the upperend.

There is that, and also less funding and more regulation.