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

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

#181

Post by teachrdan » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:33 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #118

dwater wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 eleme…

> I also notice you use religious as a pejorative. There is little reason to do so.

While I tend to agree that Catholic schools are good at teaching science (except for reproductive science!), evangelical schools often teach against evolution, climate change, etc. A popular Christian textbook refers to the theory of evolution as “a wicked and vain philosophy.” And many of these schools accept vouchers! That means taxpayer funds set aside for education are actively being used, by religious schools, to make students dumber, in an explicit attempt at religious and political indoctrination.

https://www.politico.com/story/2014/03/education-creationism...

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

#182

Post by flavius29663 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:36 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #119

Mary-Jane wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But still, there isn't a lack of funding in the US, not when you compare it with every other developed country. Switzerland is not a cheaper country than the US, far from that. Still, being a teacher there is a highly respected profession, and a high school teacher can make 7-8000 per month (last time I spoke with a Swiss). They still pay less per student than the US.

If you ask me, I'm going to guess that building large football practice fields with nigh lighting, driving buses on all the hills twice a day, paying 200k to non-teachers, these things all add up.

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

#183

Post by zepto » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

arvinsim wrote: post #175

zepto wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd also argue it's a sort of 'digital colonialism' for want of a better term I think that’s a terrible term for it unless you think that America is somehow responsible for preventing Europe from developing its own tech industries.

But US Big Tech does affect at a global scale. What are the chances of a country developing their own search engine? Their own mobile OS and hardware? Their own social networking app?

What are you talking about?

Lots of countries have their own social networking apps. Some have their own search engines.

Also, quite a few countries have strong computer science schools and developers.

Linux was developed in Finland. Raspberry PI was developed in England.

“Big tech” isn’t preventing them from developing anything. The only thing holding these countries back is their business culture.

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

#184

Post by xyzzyz » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

ARandumGuy wrote: post #174

xyzzyz wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might have been true at some point in the past, but it is very much false now, and has been false for at least a decade or two. If local property tax revenues are low, the shortfall is made up for with state and federal funds. Just look at the data: worst performing urban schools often have more funding than better performing ones in rural areas or in smaller towns. If you don’t believe me, just show me a few ex…

The amount of local funding for public education varies wildly from state to state. In New Mexico in 2018, only 15% of public school revenue came from local sources. However, during the same year in Nebraska, that number is 53%. So yes, in some states differences in local property tax has a minimal effect on school funding. But in other states, the issue is still a significant issue. Source: https://nces.ed.gov/progr…

And in Nebraska, can you find a strong correlation between funding levels and schools performance? I asked you for examples, can you find any?

Importantly, if in many states the school funding is equalized, and yet we still have wide difference in performance between good and bad schools, why would anyone expect that changing funding structure in Nebraska would change school outcomes in a significant way? If school funding levels in Michigan are similar across the board, with worse performing schools getting more, not less funding than better performing ones, clearly something else than funding is responsible for these disparities, isnt it? Lastly, as funding disparities have been equalized in many places in past decades, have we ever observed lower funded schools catch up to better funded ones?

The school funding differences are quite obviously not responsible for disparities in school outcomes, and it is beyond clear to me that the entire goal of this narrative is not to improve schools, but instead to funnel more tax funds to politically allied groups, using children as a cover.

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

#185

Post by slg » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

>First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need as much specialized education or tools, and trial and error is free.

This is just the same "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" rhetoric that has been repeated for generations. The truth is that "trial and error" is not free because some people need to spend all their energy and resources treading water just to stop themselves from drowning. Having the safety net under you to catch you when you fail is not a universal truth in American society. This restricts certain classes of people from ever even attempting to "DO THINGS".

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

#186

Post by subsubzero » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:38 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.

I have a friend that was a teacher in palo alto at a public school, she taught special ed and was making 86k, not exactly poor but I could imagine a teacher at middle school or high school making more.

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

#187

Post by renewiltord » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

xyzzyz wrote: post #163

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…

That’s exactly how the USA was originally designed to work, and how it originally worked up until early-to-mid 20th century. It was only then when a bunch of power grabbing politicians, along with a bunch of complicit elements in the judicial apparatus, have twisted the US into completely different system that we now get to suffer from.

It’s not just power-grabbing politicians. It’s what the populace desires. Look at the overwhelming support for something like universal health care. That is a massive expansion of federal power.

A large number of Americans desire massive federal power.

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

#188

Post by UnpossibleJim » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:39 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #159

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

> chronically underfunding schools In Washington State, for decades there was a big push to "fully fund" the schools. They finally got their way a couple years back, i.e. just about everything they wanted. There has been zero improvement in results. There has been no further mention of "fully funding" the schools in the press since, but the demands for more and more money for the schools have not abated at all. Edit:…

https://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/detail/school-...

That, not unlike a lot of college misspending, was an administration issue, not a teacher issue. I, like most people don't mind paying taxes, but I want an itemized bill for my purchases and some redress when the money is misspent (I also live in WA... and the Seattle area is notorious for these types of shenanigans).

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

#189

Post by asdfg-2021 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:40 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…

>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 critical race theory shows (critical race theory being a graduate level discipline that is not taught in public secondary schools).

Your statement about critical race theory is misinformed; the legislation you refer to may be misguided, but the effects of this ideology have spread well beyond the university. For a good primer, I'd recommend this article by Columbia linguist John McWhorter:

https://johnmcwhorter.substack.com/p/you-are-not-a-racist-to...

(edited for link to written version of article vs. podcast)

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

#190

Post by beerandt » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:40 PM UTC

only_as_i_fall wrote: post #104

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

>First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. How do you define that though? Do you consider someone working a minimum wage job full-time to be in this category? Someone making $15-20 an hour but without any real opportunity for advancement? I don't understand the criteria.

Then the do-ing in this case would be quit working the dead-end job and finding another one.

If what you're doing now hasn't presented an opportunity for advancing, don't keep doing the same thing and expect different results.