Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’ • Hacker News Board

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#51

Post by khafra » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

_delirium wrote: post #3

I suppose it's a Cato blog post, but I was hoping for a more interesting discussion than just a random call for private education, with a market-will-solve it assertion. People learning at different paces and on their own is a fairly interesting problem highlighted here, but I think it's wishful thinking to claim that the perfect answer is already known. It's not entirely clear to me that private schools would cater…

At the college level, private schools certainly do cater to the individual. I was fast in math, regular speed in everything else. They put me into grad level math and physics classes, while my writing/history/etc classes were still at the normal pace. I don't see much reason why the incentives would be different below the college level. Whenever you want to ask "what would a privatized primary education system do", y…

College level state schools also have many different levels of classes. I think there are other differences at work.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#52

Post by steamer25 » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

ohyes wrote: post #35

How did this article hit the front page? What is insightful or interesting about it? "This attitude is a natural outgrowth of our decision to operate education as a monopoly." This is blatantly not true, in the US we do not operate education as a monopoly. There are plenty of private schools.

It is monopolistic in the sense that you have to pay for it whether you use it or not. Private schools may only be attended by those who can afford to pay twice and even then, the establishment caste gets at least a full cut.

If I were to set the policy, I'd subsidize students rather than teachers and administrators, etc. I.e., demonstrate learning and we'll pay you $XX,XXX to cover your costs whether tutors or books or online courses or brick and mortar schools.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#53

Post by kenjackson » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:37 PM UTC

Without attribution of who made the original statement and the context, this is completely meaningless. The Wired article is good, but the Cato article is not HN worthy at all. Purely political propaganda.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#54

Post by jbooth » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:38 PM UTC

talmand wrote: post #47

jbooth wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not perfectly fine without evidence, it's just unsupported rambling about how things are going to hell, in direct contradiction of what little anecdotal evidence he has, in order to prop up an ideologically favored argument.

That's why I said "in his opinion". You may disagree with him but there is nothing wrong with him saying he thinks that education was better in his day than what he sees now. He states his opinion, you say he is wrong and then demand he prove himself correct by presenting evidence that supports his ideologically favored argument even though you present nothing to support your ideologically favored argument. And based…

I didn't actually make a point about policy. I was just defending teachers.

He's saying that because of the incentives, most teachers will drift into becoming lazy SOBs who don't fundamentally care about education and will only work to the extent that they're whipped into doing it.

I'm saying that there's something else going on, in most cases. Professional pride, believing in education.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#55

Post by grandalf » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:38 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #3

I suppose it's a Cato blog post, but I was hoping for a more interesting discussion than just a random call for private education, with a market-will-solve it assertion. People learning at different paces and on their own is a fairly interesting problem highlighted here, but I think it's wishful thinking to claim that the perfect answer is already known. It's not entirely clear to me that private schools would cater…

You seem to be picturing "ACME Education" creating schools in the model of factories under some scary privatization scheme.

In fact, the current "public" model of centralized control, standardized curriculum, and cookie-cutter learning objectives is based on an antiquated understanding of human development, social systems, and motivation. In fact, by forcing a child to endure hours of boredom and conformity it prepares its inmates for a life of work in a factory.

If market forces were allowed to act on K-12 education we'd see something quite unpredictable but very much unlike what you seem to be imagining... unless, that is, large companies obtained a monopoly on education in the same way that public schools have thusfar.

Without a monopoly, we'd see innovations like Khan Academy all the time (let's face it, what Khan created is trivial and obvious and it's only remarkable b/c most teachers and curricula are so utterly bad).

You are also overlooking the fact that humans have a natural hunger for knowledge, and any notion that there is a lack of demand for top quality k-12 education is an artifact of our current corrupt system.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#56

Post by jonnathanson » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:41 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #3

I suppose it's a Cato blog post, but I was hoping for a more interesting discussion than just a random call for private education, with a market-will-solve it assertion. People learning at different paces and on their own is a fairly interesting problem highlighted here, but I think it's wishful thinking to claim that the perfect answer is already known. It's not entirely clear to me that private schools would cater…

Furthermore: I think there's enough variance among private schools, and among public schools, that we still can't even draw generalizations about "public schools" and "private schools" as homogenous sets. It alwyas irks me to see education-policy discussions turn into political debates about the merits of public vs. private sectors.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#57

Post by pnathan » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:43 PM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #34

pnathan wrote: post #26

I like the US college system. In each track, you move along at the appropriate speed and levels.

That's not how it worked at my university. I had some choice as far as what order I could take classes in, but everything still worked at the same pace no matter what.

Um.

You can be taking freshman-level courses your senior year.

Or, if you are up to the challenging, junior level courses your freshmen year.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#58

Post by mdwrigh2 » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #37

_delirium wrote: post #3

I suppose it's a Cato blog post, but I was hoping for a more interesting discussion than just a random call for private education, with a market-will-solve it assertion. People learning at different paces and on their own is a fairly interesting problem highlighted here, but I think it's wishful thinking to claim that the perfect answer is already known. It's not entirely clear to me that private schools would cater…

At the college level, private schools certainly do cater to the individual. I was fast in math, regular speed in everything else. They put me into grad level math and physics classes, while my writing/history/etc classes were still at the normal pace. I don't see much reason why the incentives would be different below the college level. Whenever you want to ask "what would a privatized primary education system do", y…

Except that this is _exactly_ what happens at public colleges as well. In fact, my public high school saw that I was fast at math and got me into college classes early, so it even occurs there to some degree.

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#59

Post by grandalf » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:44 PM UTC

ohyes wrote: post #35

How did this article hit the front page? What is insightful or interesting about it? "This attitude is a natural outgrowth of our decision to operate education as a monopoly." This is blatantly not true, in the US we do not operate education as a monopoly. There are plenty of private schools.

If public education is not a monopoly, what is it?

Re: Could You Modify It ‘To Stop Students From Becoming This Advanced?’

#60

Post by pnathan » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:45 PM UTC

sequoia wrote: post #50

I'm a parent of two who does NOT plan on putting his kids in public school because I think they won't be served well there (plan on "home schooling"). My 5yo uses Khan Academy and it seems to be great. Finally, I basically hate most aspects of public school. That said, I get sick of everyone piling on public school whenever something like this comes up. Public school is set to the following task: "take everyone , eve…

"Sequoia, that's a great question, but it's a bit advanced and I've got 30 other students here. I can't spend a lot of time answering advanced questions when half the class is struggling with basic concepts.""

Yep, that happened when I TA'd CS 1. I managed to coopt some of the brighter students into helping the others, but, well, it didn't do much for them inasmuch they wanted to learn CS (they just got some social polishing).

Really a pity. :-/