The Latest Crime Wave: Sending Your Child to a Better School • Hacker News Board

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

#131

Post by guard-of-terra » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 9:41 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #65

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…

I would argue that it's more because of self-selection, not because of good schools being that good:

Those who have the motivation and background to continue to higher education also tend to shift towards "good" schools. They would continue even if they didn't go to a "good" school.

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

#132

Post by _delirium » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 11:56 AM UTC

dlokshin wrote: post #46

mattdeboard wrote: post #5

I'm not sure if, as I progress through my 30s, I am becoming more liberal, more cynical or more jaded, or what, but it seems like every day I read some article about the United States which elicits a, "What the FUCK?" from me. This is one of those articles. Seriously? Prison ??

Why do you associate this with becoming more liberal? Seems the reverse should be true.

One of many reasons the single-axis scale is misleading. :)

It does somewhat fit the traditional fault lines over school districting, though. Traditionally, conservatives quite strongly opposed to allowing school attendance to cross boundaries, supporting separate districts in which each district was funded exclusively by local taxpayers and attended exclusively by children resident in that distrct. Mix of reasons, ranging from (on the nicer side) federalism/decentralization to (on the less-nice side) maintaining de-facto segregated schools.

In addition, liberals have tended to be the main ones behind aggregation-with-choice programs, in which many smaller districts in a metropolitan area would be aggregated into one organizational district, where parents could choose to send their kids to any school in the district. Conservative suburbanites have tended to prefer keeping their schools separate, without cross-boundary enrollment permitted.

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

#133

Post by halostatue » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 1:12 PM UTC

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 mother used the (divorced, non-custodial) father's address. The father is funding the school they were sent to, even though the children (who don't pay taxes, obviously) don't live at the father's address.

Not only should she never have been punished, but the very idea that this is a 'grand theft' felony is offensive.

That said, I think the article is a confused mishmash. It went from talking about the abuse of the legal system by the school authorities to railing against teachers' unions to suggesting that the two groups (school authorities and teachers' unions) are working in cahoots to keep parents out of the loop on their children's education. Real educational reform is required in the U.S., for certain. But blaming the teachers isn't reform: it's scapegoat-ism.

Laws like the one that opened the article need to go away. Quickly, as they're offensive to everything that America claims it holds dear.

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

#134

Post by halostatue » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 1:25 PM UTC

Turing_Machine wrote: post #124

ojbyrne wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was mostly with you till that Canada/Minnesota comment. Perhaps Minnesota is exceptionally diverse... Because Canada is very definitely more diverse than the US.

Wikipedia puts the "Visible Minority" population of Canada at 16.2% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_... and the (at least partially) non-"White" population of the U.S at 27.6%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...

The absolute numbers don't tell the whole story, and illustrate part of the difference between the U.S. and Canada on this.

The Wikipedia article on Canada is horrible on one point: "Black" isn't a single minority group in Canada. We have people from the Caribbean and people from many different regions in Africa and, yes, like U.S. we also have descendants of black slaves (in sometimes surprising places). But while they often share similar skin colourings, that is often the only thing they share in common. Many of the Ghanaians, Nigerians, South Africans, and Caribbeans I know have nothing in common except their skin colour—and their love of partying, at least the ones that I've come into contact with over the last ten years.

So, the 2.5% Canadian "black" population is a substantially more diverse population than the 12.6% U.S. "black" population, which is primarily descended from black slaves. This group may be less diverse, but it's also something that the U.S. must come to grips with as much as Canada must come to grips with its treatment of its Aboriginals (which, to be honest, the U.S. must do, too, but they're not as visible to most Americans).

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

#135

Post by adrianN » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 1:30 PM UTC

mattdeboard wrote: post #35

LoveLinux wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have mixed race children and do whatever it takes to make sure that they are in schools that made up of mostly white, Asian, or Indian (India) students. Black and Hispanic students have shown no signs of valuing education and the schools usually plagued with violence. I'm not alone in this thinking; every single Asian family I know does the same.

>Black and Hispanic students have shown no signs of valuing education and the schools usually plagued with violence. ALL of them? Almost certainly not. You're just being plain, old fashioned racist. You also sound ignorant and naive to claim to have never met a black or Hispanic student who shows a single sign of valuing education. Do you live in the Bay Area? If so, take a trip over to San Jose and visit some of the…

It doesn't have to be all of them. Just a few are enough to disturb the learning environment.

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

#136

Post by wyclif » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 2:33 PM UTC

rue wrote: post #130

wyclif wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canada is not more diverse than the USA. My grandparents were Canadian, but there's a real reason why the US is called "the melting pot."

I won't assess whether you're correct or not, but want to point out that things in a melting pot don't diversify, they blend.

It's simply not a matter of your assessment. Canada's non-white population, at 16.2%, is less than the US 27.6%. I have spent a lot of time in both Canada and the US. I'm not just quoting the figures, although that should be enough to make my case. Canada is noticeably whiter.

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

#137

Post by bconway » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 2:52 PM UTC

guard-of-terra wrote: post #25

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…

Her father, registered in that school district, obviously pays the taxes; So there's no reason why it would not cover the tuition of her chidren. You're just dropped back from "it's fair that way" to "the rules say that way". It's not like that his taxes are of a different color than her taxes, right? So it should not matter where the children go to school, it's still fair.

Many states allow you to opt out of paying for schools in your property taxes after a certain point (usually retirement age). It drops the tax rate significantly for older folks, obviously shifting the burden to those in child-rearing years.

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

#138

Post by aik » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 3:53 PM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #88

My state has a more rational state law. For more than twenty years now, all public schools anywhere in the state offer open enrollment to all students anywhere in the state, up to the limits of the capacity of each school district to receive students. http://education.state.mn.us/MDE/Academic_Excellence/School_... Funding of course is based on enrollment. http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hrd/pubs/mnschfin.pdf More st…

Very interesting. It's clear that Missouri (where I used to live) doesn't have open enrollment. A huge amount of resources are spent on ensuring students do NOT cross district lines. As a personal example, certain ESL students in my mother's class are visited at home very often to validate that they truly do live where they say they do.

When schools have to serve students that they're not getting paid for, the incentive to keep those students out is surprisingly strong.

tokenadult, Are you aware of any downsides/negatives to the open enrollment system?

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

#139

Post by anamax » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 4:00 PM UTC

halostatue wrote: post #134

Turing_Machine wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia puts the "Visible Minority" population of Canada at 16.2% http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Canada#Visible_... and the (at least partially) non-"White" population of the U.S at 27.6%. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...

The absolute numbers don't tell the whole story, and illustrate part of the difference between the U.S. and Canada on this. The Wikipedia article on Canada is horrible on one point: "Black" isn't a single minority group in Canada. We have people from the Caribbean and people from many different regions in Africa and, yes, like U.S. we also have descendants of black slaves (in sometimes surprising places). But while t…

> So, the 2.5% Canadian "black" population is a substantially more diverse population than the 12.6% U.S. "black" population, which is primarily descended from black slaves.

Maybe half of the US black population is descended from slaves. The rest, which is about 6% (from your numbers) comes from the same places Canada gets its 2.5%.

And then there are all of the different groups under the hispanic label.

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

#140

Post by anamax » Mon, Oct 03, 2011, 4:13 PM UTC

gamble wrote: post #109

anamax wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 groups. Actually, it's pretty easy to escape that "fact" because it simply isn't true. Yes, there were some covenants like that, but they were relatively rare. And, most of the housing stock is newer than that, so even if such covenants were somewhat common and we…

Restrictive covenants were not rare, especially in the post-war suburbs. The first modern suburb, Levittown, NY, was racially segregated. It wasn't called 'white flight' because the people fleeing the inner city wanted to live with blacks. Restrictive covenants didn't end up the Supreme Court because no one was interested in enforcing them.

> Restrictive covenants were not rare, especially in the post-war suburbs. The first modern suburb, Levittown, NY, was racially segregated.

Pointing to an instance doesn't make the "not rare" case.

Levittown takes good pictures, but it isn't representative of post WWII housing development.

Moreover, you're still ignoring the fact that even if covenants were't rare before, the affected housing is a very small part of today's housing stock. As a result, covenants which haven't been enforceable for 50 years can't have much, if any, effect today.