Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Back to public schools. If I look at the international comparisons, American public education burns through a lot of money for mediocre results. This is your money; you should be more critical. Why isn't there any Silicon Valley for education? Because, the fundamental issue with education isn't the quality of teachers. It's the home lives of the students. That's why there's such a big disparity in public education…
Then I am pessimistic if this can be fixed at all. For example, an absent father tends to put a lot of stress on households, which can only to a limited extent be alleviated by extra money. I know, I grew up without father. But no one can really provide new fathers to kids from fatherless families and the culture that frowned upon guys leaving their kids is long dead.
Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
301–310 of 359 posts
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Yes private schools might run better. Shockingly richer and generally two parent families are going to have children that been primed to respect learning and have less trauma so much easier to deal with. Public schools teachers don’t have this luxury. Exactly. OP acts as if it's such a great surprise they're run better. Obviously they would be, because they can pick and choose who they take and usually only get tho…
They only get kids whose families are well off enough to afford it, specifically because only people with a lot of money have a choice. You can either afford to: 1. Pay out of pocket for private school 2. Afford to have 1 parent be responsible for participation in some type of home school education (group or otherwise) 3. Relocate your house to somewhere zoned for a “good school” If you can’t afford any of those thin…
So basically it goes from those 'with a lot of money hav[ing] a choice' to 'those with some money having a choice'. It doesn't fix the underlying problems at all, and would actually make them worse for those who are left behind.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a parent of two kids and I couldn't agree more. I went to mostly black and poor public schools my entire childhood. Back then there were a few teachers who clearly didn't care and were never held accountable. Most of the teachers were pretty good though. It's increasingly shifted towards the opposite. I was blown away by how pathetically run my children's public schools are here in Colorado so I put them both in…
Where in CO? I have always heard the schools were pretty good, especially BVSD, Poudre Valley etc. and some in Denver, Cherry Creek etc.
I live just over the county line from Boulder (I can get to Pearl Street in 13 minutes), and the BVSD is very overrated. They were closed for far longer than other districts were last year. They have a lot of money, but also a ton of wealthy students with overly permissive parents who bring drugs into the schools. (I know the vice principal of Fairview High in Boulder, and the incidence of drug use in the school is mind-blowing, all courtesy of rich kids with rich hippie parents who give them allowances of hundreds a week that they buy drugs with.)
One issue prevalent in all public school systems, but particularly bad in BVSD, is the number of students being falsely classified as learning disabled. Many kids with highly inattentive parents, who are essentially babysat by iPads and video games when at home, are labelled as LD/ADHD/etc when the reality is nobody makes them do their homework or study at home. They are then, due to the disability diagnosis, allocated disproportionate resources and staff to try to bring them up to average level. These resources come at the expense of gifted programs which have fewer seats available than they otherwise would for advanced students with good parents. At the end of the day, most public school systems in the US are investing vastly more resources into bringing poor performers to average than helping gifted students reach their actual potential by actually challenging them.
I view them as institutions which are, at a functional level, primarily incentivized to serve the needs of their employees over those of their students. They are a massive source of union jobs, and these unions are the largest funders of politicians who then increase the budgets that then fund the unions via wages to members. I'm a huge fan of unions in non-monopolized industries, but like FDR, I vehemently oppose unions for public sector employees for this very reason. I pay these idiots whether I want to or not. And my wife and I were emotionally crushed when we saw the horrific, and frankly sloppy, remote learning that was taking place. The curriculum was terrible, the teachers were not engaged, and it just felt like too many were taking advantage of the WFH to fuck off and indulge their hobbies and personal lives. This was a universal sentiment amongst the parents (and hilariously, the middle school students) in my daughter's school. There was not a single remote learning lesson I witnessed that was remotely as effective as a Khan Academy course. We know this because we ended up supplementing her lessons with Khan, and she was very emphatic that she liked them a million times better.
I know many on HN will disagree with my sentiment, but I've noticed that the people in my friend group who don't share my view are disproportionately childless. People with kids in school tend to be pretty frustrated with the structural deficiencies of the fossilized, mid-20th century institutions that are US public schools.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#304Some people seem not get it: dropping homework or objective assessment will not help under-privileged students but hurt them. Homework and object assessment are not used to oppress people (what kind of sick mind would think of that?). They are used to give students timely feedback on what they need to improve upon. Just reading books and listening to lectures will help students learn probably 20% or less, and it is h…
I think that the point is not about lowering standards; it's about preventing unrelated variables to enter the equation. Examples: - A lot of redundant homework is assigned, quantity over quality. Some students with external duties (e.g. family, work) are just unable to deliver all the homework, and thus get lower grades, even though less homework would be enough to demonstrate ability in a topic; - Deadlines are set…
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
> homework This is one issue that I'm passionate about. Research increasingly implies that homework is probably harmful in elementary; of dubious value in early middle school; and only valuable in high school and beyond. > and objective performance assessments I think some of these radical experiments are crazy. But, there's valid reasons to consider e.g. not grading missing absent assignments as a zero. A few of the…
"Research increasingly implies..." Which research?
A small (effectively zero) positive correlation was found between the amount of time a student says they spent on homework in elementary and achievement, but a slight negative (effectively zero) correlation was found when looking at the time parents reported students spending on it.
These measures don't show a causal relationship: "good students" are more likely to do homework. "poor students" are more likely to take a lot of time to complete the same amount of homework.
Elementary student reports of time spent on homework are not reliable. Parent reports are even worse.
The only causal evidence of a benefit in assigning homework in elementary comes from two short-term intervention studies: whether giving a homework take-home worksheet about vocabulary improves performance on the next vocabulary test (it seems so, very slightly). The longest term observational studies show a negative effect.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
yes how dare they take vacation as already negotiated in their contract. Darn those teacher hanging at their mansions Also anyone who works at google should not be allowed to take vacation if they worked from home. Sure that would go over well. The vaccine wasn’t really available till a few months into 2021, and I can understand the hesitation on some to be the first to take a new vaccine. Yes private schools might r…
> Yes private schools might run better. Shockingly richer and generally two parent families are going to have children that been primed to respect learning and have less trauma so much easier to deal with. Public schools teachers don’t have this luxury. Exactly. OP acts as if it's such a great surprise they're run better. Obviously they would be, because they can pick and choose who they take and usually only get tho…
The point being, there is no excuse. The stats on this school district are public, and it's very wealthy.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
They only get kids whose families are well off enough to afford it, specifically because only people with a lot of money have a choice. You can either afford to: 1. Pay out of pocket for private school 2. Afford to have 1 parent be responsible for participation in some type of home school education (group or otherwise) 3. Relocate your house to somewhere zoned for a “good school” If you can’t afford any of those thin…
The thing is, it only expands the choice to those who are borderline on that group already. It doesn't magically make the choice be available to everyone. For instance, say you're a single parent household and you have to rely on buses. You don't really have 'choice' even within a voucher system. All it does it allow those who can transport their kids to take them elsewhere, making the school that's left behind worse…
You don't have kids in school, do you? It amazes me how many people with absolutely no skin in the game comment on this stuff.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a parent of two kids and I couldn't agree more. I went to mostly black and poor public schools my entire childhood. Back then there were a few teachers who clearly didn't care and were never held accountable. Most of the teachers were pretty good though. It's increasingly shifted towards the opposite. I was blown away by how pathetically run my children's public schools are here in Colorado so I put them both in…
>> Name a government agency that's good at hiring, or keeping good talent. How about NASA? I'm not a US citizen so apologies if I got that wrong but I figured NASA always had the goods, in terms of personel, even if they also had some bad apples in there.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is, it only expands the choice to those who are borderline on that group already. It doesn't magically make the choice be available to everyone. For instance, say you're a single parent household and you have to rely on buses. You don't really have 'choice' even within a voucher system. All it does it allow those who can transport their kids to take them elsewhere, making the school that's left behind worse…
Let me guess: You don't have kids in school, do you? It amazes me how many people with absolutely no skin in the game comment on this stuff.
Re: Faced with soaring Ds and Fs, schools are ditching the old way of grading
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's untrue. I'll bet my life that the population of students uninterested in excelling is around 50 people in the entire US.
As a teacher, I can name at least 50 that are uninterested in excelling. Mostly because they've been conditioned to be that way, usually by parents/community who see no value in education. You can work with them and get them interested, but it takes a lot to undo that conditioning (along with all the other stuff they've endured through their education years of being told "Well, you're just not an X person", etc.). It…