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The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

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Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#61

Post by lhnn »

potatolicious wrote: post #57
mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

Are you seriously proposing we go back to pre-public schooling society - you know, the one where the vast major of the population was completely uneducated since education was strictly reserved for the wealthy? Laissez-faire brings out some admirable qualities in people, but it is also an extremely unequal system with many detrimental effects on society (including the rich). There's a historical reason why we invente…

Now that we have things like affluence, the 'primed pump' of an educated society, the NEED for an educated society, and finally, the Internet, I don't see why we need nearly the government involvement in education that we did 50-100 years ago.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#62

Post by potatolicious »

tzs wrote: post #43
mattdeboard wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they definitely do. LoveLinux is basing his/her decision on racial bias, the other guy is not.

What decision? He simple stated, accurately, a fact. How can a fact be racially biased? White and Asian neighborhoods generally generate higher property taxes than black neighborhoods. Schools are largely funded by property taxes. Therefore it should come as no surprise that White and Asian schools are on average better.

His causality is off, way off. That's really the main issue. Both parents here have the same motivation, admirable enough, but one chooses to subscribe to an unreliable predictor for his decision making.

A predictor that is toes a really fine line between statistical reliability and outright bigotry.

In any case, we know that socioeconomic status is a far better predictor of educational success than race. There is a Hugh correlation between race and SES but it's far from causal. I think the main objection here is that he seems to claim it is.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#63

Post by akkartik »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #4
maxklein wrote: post #3

America is still a deeply segregated society. And the segregation is built in such a way that it tends to keep people where they always where.

The segregation is not all systemic. I remember reading an article discussing research discussing how neighborhoods change as a result of very slight preferences of "I'd rather be by somebody of my race than a different race." This applied to black and white neighborhoods. Taken over time and populations, these very slight differences in preference (and, realistically, in the USA, it is unlikely to be "slight") lead…

I know the article you mean but couldn't find it. But the Schelling Segregation Model seems to fit the bill: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Schelling#Models_of_Segr...

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#64

Post by delinka »

jleyank wrote: post #40
mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

If government is not involved in education "at all", then you have the situation that people pay $$ for schools and then have no say in how the money is spent. This would not go down well...

I suppose the Free Market would make sure that their 'customers' had input into how tuition money is spent. After all, if the government isn't involved and you're free (Free Market, remember) to move your student, then the school needs to cater to your expectations or lose tuition money.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#65

Post by viraptor »

guard-of-terra wrote: post #29

AS if anybody cared - how it works in Russia: - There are virtually no private schools, every school is public. - There are better schools and worse schools. In a big city there are a few really good ones and a bunch of mediocre ones. - A school have to accept anyone living in a proximity, but it may also accept anyone else. So the good ones set up entry exams. Mediocre ones enroll everybody. - I guess there are some…

Same process in Poland (start by enrolling anywhere, later exams from the previous school matter), yet the difference was big. High schools in my home town got between 98% and ~10% people advancing higher. I guess 98% wasn't 100 because kids moving to schools abroad were counted as "not on the list of local universities".

For primary school you pretty much started in a mixed, local group, without any visible bias, so chances were really very similar for everyone.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#66

Post by zeteo »

>Ms. Williams-Bolar last year used her father's address to enroll her two daughters in a better public school outside of their neighborhood.

This is not civil disobedience, it's just plain old falsification of records. If she had falsified another crucial piece of information - say, income level on a scholarship application - would Ms. Williams-Bolar still get all of this "end justifies the means" sympathy?

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#67

Post by sidek »

gamble wrote: post #52
aik wrote: post #15

>> In case you needed further proof of the American education system's failings, especially in poor and minority communities, consider the latest crime to spread across the country: educational theft. I'm not sure if it is entirely fair to single out the education system here (once again), or at least batch it in with "yet another failing". I believe more is at fault here. Unless I'm mistaken, tax payers in a particu…

The problem is that American cities are structured to keep the poor and minorities in nominally independent cities or suburbs that are geographically indistinguishable from the richer areas, but just independent enough to ensure that property taxes aren't shared. It's also hard to escape the fact that many, if not most of these suburbs were explicitly set up to keep out blacks, latinos, Jews, and other undesirable gr…

Yes. In Edmonton, although schools have "attendance areas", there's always spots for students outside attendance areas. If a school fills up there's a lottery to determine who gets in from outside the attendance area, but only one high school ever goes to lottery (Harry Ainlay) and there's schools like Lillian Osborne that are just as good as Harry Ainlay. Even students in the Edmonton suburbs can go to any school in Edmonton as long as the school doesn't go to lottery. I've always found this to be a good system.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#68

Post by toyg »

JupiterJazz wrote: post #60
Volpe wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right, poor people shouldn't have an education! That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?

Why would it be in the interest of private schools to hoard their products from me? I only make $18000 (about half the median wage) and food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either. Given that nearly every human being is in demand of an affordable education it makes no sense for companies to not accept low income students. The only reason private schools are expensive now is because the…

your analogy is apt: in your opinion, a poor person will never be able to afford a Ferrari or a Porsche, so they shouldn't be able to afford top-class education either. Ferrari will never be interested in "competing for the low income section of the market"; they'll happily keep making exclusive and expensive cars, reserved to top dogs, popes and the like.

The "voucher" sort of scheme will inevitably result in the State giving everyone enough money to buy a Nissan Micra, with rich parents "topping-up" to get a Mercedes, Porsche or Ferrari. Which is not much different from what you get now, just a bit worse.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#69

Post by jamesaguilar »

mchusma wrote: post #21

Good examples of the effects of government getting involved in education, particularly tying it to location. The solution to this problem is clear but politically difficult: limit government involvement in education to vouchers at most, preferably none at all.

> "The solution to this problem is clear . . ."

It's not clear that this would solve the problem. Particularly, instead of only being able to send their children to bad schools, the poorest would instead perhaps not be able to send their children to school at all.

Re: The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School

#70

Post by theoj »

JupiterJazz wrote: post #60
Volpe wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right, poor people shouldn't have an education! That's what you are advocating with "Government shouldn't be involved in education." Is that really what you mean?

Why would it be in the interest of private schools to hoard their products from me? I only make $18000 (about half the median wage) and food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either. Given that nearly every human being is in demand of an affordable education it makes no sense for companies to not accept low income students. The only reason private schools are expensive now is because the…

>> Food companies don't price me out of the market. Car companies don't either.

Do you think that you get good nutritious food by paying bottom dollar? You think those nitrates and high fructose sugar and other junk are really good for your health? You think that a low cost diet that lacks "expensive" fruits and vegetables has no impact on your health?

The problem with a cheaper second tier education is that it perpetuates the affordability problem from generation to generation. The poor parents who could not afford to send their kid to the rich school will have a son or daughter with a second tier education who will only be qualified for low paying second tier jobs. This system creates a stratified society with low mobility and represents a waste of human potential -- the brilliant kid whose parents couldn't give him a first rate education cannot reach his full potential, while the lazy dumb kid with rich parents takes up a spot in a class in which he simply does not deserve to be (from an academic perspective).

Thinking that the market is a solution to everything is a popular fallacy nowadays. There are places where the market does not produce good outcomes -- education is one of them. You cannot trade human intelligence and aptitude. You cannot have different high standards for different prices -- there are no low tier high standards and top tier high standards. People who are motivated by greed do not make good educators.

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