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?’

#171

Post by jshen » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 8:13 PM UTC

grandalf wrote: post #144

mkn wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument is essentially "marketing is bad". Which is a shadow argument for "capitalism is bad". While your formulation is deliberately obtuse, the underlying sentiment can be quite damning for a certain kind of free market fan-boy, the kind who insists that buyers in a market are rational in some individual or even collective sense, that they somehow optimize their own happiness or utility function. That notion…

I appreciate your boisterous rejoinder to my comment. I think you are mistaken in your understanding of rationality. Emotion is part of rationality, not separate from it. To make a rational decision, a rational person ought to consider his/her emotional response as input to the decision function, not throw it away. Also, different individuals have different utility functions, and not all are practical, far-looking, m…

Check the study below, and think about the implications.

"Anchoring Bias: Phone Numbers Used as Anchors When Estimating the Prices of Goods"

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

#172

Post by jshen » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 8:14 PM UTC

18pfsmt wrote: post #157

jshen wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If this were an option, parents would be much more critical." I seriously doubt it. Just look at all the sham private colleges that exist right now. Also, I think the problem with our kids isn't the school system, but a culture that doesn't value hard work and education.

Are you aware that the Ivy League[1] schools are all private? So are the most prestigious high schools (the latter was attended by Zuckerberg, for example): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Academy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Exeter_Academy [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_league

Can those private high schools deny problem kids? Are they a non random selection of students? Think about it.

Edit: You are also being selective in your examples. Why not compare Berkley to the University of Phoenix? You have to consider the entire range of private schools, and the overall output. But I'm not as concerned with higher education, I think that is a different system with a different goal.

Primary schools need to educate everyone, as a minimal level of what our society needs to move in a positive direction. Private schools would be incentivized to abandon problem kids that hurt their bottom line by screwing up their average scores and what not. This is even happening in public schools with some of the stupid testing schemes we've implemented, but it would be far worse imo with private schools.

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

#173

Post by sukuriant » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 8:17 PM UTC

wizard_2 wrote: post #67

I've read though most of our comments here and I have a question. Are people concerned with the education of their neighbors kids? I'll be able to afford private schooling for my children. The average demographic here probably can. I relish at the idea of seeing how a Khan Academy Classroom could teach my child (maybe in some sort of "Free school" environment?) and I realize that public education probably wont be abl…

Get the parents involved, get them to help teach their children, or even just point their children to Khan Academy.

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

#174

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 8:18 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…

[deleted]

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

#175

Post by ecspike » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 8:38 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #57

j_baker wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I did that. It was somewhat of a shocker to my RA to have one of his freshmen to be in his Calculus III class.

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

#176

Post by _delirium » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 9:12 PM UTC

jacoblyles wrote: post #169

hugh3 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a simple thought experiment. Look at all the education systems around the world, and ask if the ones with the best results are private or public. That's not a simple thought experiment, it's a massive data-collecting exercise. I'm not sure if there are any countries with wholly-private education systems, are there? Still, there are many countries (the UK and Australia spring to mind) where private schools play…

The Swedes have universal school choice (public or private). And I believe the Netherlands.

Sweden's is an odd hybrid, because it has private schools, but they're heavily regulated: they must charge exactly what every other school charges (which is the value of the school vouchers), and must teach the national curriculum. Schools aren't allowed to charge extra on top of the voucher, so there's no price discrimination at all; in effect they're government subcontractors providing alternate implementations of the standardized product.

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

#177

Post by civilian » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 9:15 PM UTC

chopsueyar wrote: post #152

nkassis wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also I don't think we can assume that teachers are able to give tutoring in all the levels the children might get too using the khan videos. You might say "how hard could it be for a 5th grade teacher to tutor trig?" but they like anyone else (including khan) probably would have to review some concepts (most teachers don't remember heron's formula by heart). This means they have to prepare multiple tutoring subjects…

Why can't the more advanced children tutor the less advanced children?

Sounds great-- are you going to reimburse the advanced children for doing the teacher's job?

I also think that, unfortunately, America kids have an anti-geek attitude that could make tutoring difficult. The statement that "this kid is better than you, and now you have to listen to him/her" might not be taken well by some of the poorer performers.

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

#178

Post by thisuser » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 9:27 PM UTC

maxharris wrote: post #66

thisuser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is politics. But reactionary free-market worship is too simplistic to be allowed here. Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable, not because they have any insightful analysis.

too simplistic to be allowed here. Allowed by whom? Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable And this is somehow not simplistic?

Allowed by the commenting community.

There's a difference between simple and simplistic. Simplistic is pretending the only incentive force at work in a national scale institution is the profit incentive.

Simple is acknowledging that a small institution with the mission statement to advocate for profit incentive as the singular organizing principle of our economy probably believes in its mission statement and operates for the purpose of the private profit of its owners.

I've seen a few _interesting_ notes from CATO, but nothing I would call subtle or anything but free market fundamentalism. They tend to pick up every single news story and view it through a free market, shrink govt, give an individual the profit lens. Which is why they can only write a short, generic paragraph of comment on an interesting story about Khan Academy. OP should have been a link to Wired.

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

#179

Post by thisuser » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 9:31 PM UTC

gdfsnob wrote: post #93

thisuser wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is politics. But reactionary free-market worship is too simplistic to be allowed here. Cato only exists because advocating private ownership of profit turns out to be profitable, not because they have any insightful analysis.

I think you might be experiencing the Dunning-Kruger effect. The CATO Institute has 10 Nobel Laureates in Economics associated with it. http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html

I have serious problems with the policies that CATO advocates. I expect them to explain and justify their policies, not appeal to a committee of Norwegians for authority. I expect the same of you.

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

#180

Post by thisuser » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 9:35 PM UTC

gdfsnob wrote: post #96

bendotc wrote: post #4

Really interesting, shocking quote from the original article, but the Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News, IMO. The original Wired piece is great, though.

"Cato free-market spin is questionable and not terribly well suited to Hacker News" As if Hacker News is somehow more qualified on economic issues than Cato, which has 10 Nobel Laureates? F. A. Hayek Milton Friedman James M. Buchanan Robert Mundell Edward C. Prescott Douglass C. North Vernon L. Smith Gary S. Becker Ronald Coase Thomas C. Schelling http://www.cato.org/people/nobel-index.html

You would think that at least a few of these Laureates would entertain the possibility that under the right conditions a community of technocratic professionals freely debating the merits of various policies could have a better answer than any single individual picked by a committee of Norwegians. It's almost like this is a free market of ideas, and you being downvoted is an invisible hand telling you to have better ideas if you want to make it.