Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education • Hacker News Board

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#101

Post by 9530jh9054ven » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:17 PM UTC

chowells wrote: post #41

black6 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parents. Offloading the responsibility of raising children is a large part of the problem.

Absolutely 100% incorrect. If the parents aren't willing or able to raise their children, someone has to. "Throw them away" is not a moral, ethical, or utilitarian answer.

Why isn't it an answer?

At least from a purely utilitarian point of view, cost of educating and raising a child is exorbitant (teachers, food, clothing, shelter, etc) compared to euthanizing them (1 to 5 bullets, executioner pay, and burial costs). Benefits are going to be somewhat iffy; yes they could turn out okay but it's just as likely they could turn into criminal offenders that will chew up resources of the criminal justice system which is quite a lot more expensive.

I will emphasize that this is strictly from a utilitarian point of view. I make no comments on the moral, ethical, and legal issues.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#102

Post by red-iron-pine » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:17 PM UTC

ethbr1 wrote: post #24

Spinnaker_ wrote: post #8

I think this can be misleading in the same way some charter school results are. The easiest way to improve a school's results isn't to improve the education provided, it's to get rid of the worst performing kids. Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday. So the only kids who go there have two parents, one who probably is stay at home and can pic…

From the article, >> But there are key differences. For starters, families have access to housing and health care through the military, and at least one parent has a job. >> “Having as many of those basic needs met does help set the scene for learning to occur,” said Jessica Thorne, the principal at E.A. White Elementary, a school of about 350 students.

so is it because military folks are better, or that society is skewing to unemployed single parents?

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#103

Post by SaintGhurka » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:21 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39

HDThoreaun wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is mostly about your peers. It's obviously true for prestigious universities but it's just as true for elementary schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools. Almost all of them under the poverty line. It's not like they're…

> Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students. > and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will…

> ending school at noon on Wednesday are going to apply selection bias.

That's not unique to charter schools. My daughter's public elementary school in CA let out at 12:50 on Wednesday.

https://wagonwheel.capousd.org/School-Info/Bell-Schedule/ind...

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#104

Post by femiagbabiaka » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:22 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #78

femiagbabiaka wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell me you only follow policy in the US without telling me: exhibit one. The public school “experiment” has been purposefully sabotaged is more like it.

The article is about US schools.... so? How can one sabotage a house of cards? Failure was inevitable.

I don’t believe that public schooling, an actually lindy institution worldwide, an institution that was working quite well in the US up until about the 70s and 80s (wonder what happened then hmm) that has produced world renowned schools in the US in particular, is more of a house of cards than the Potemkin village that is charter and private schools.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#105

Post by HDThoreaun » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:24 PM UTC

lukeschlather wrote: post #99

HDThoreaun wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will be the best. You're implying that individual results don't change by grouping the good students together. In your vision the good students stay good and the bad stay bad. I don't agree. The good students become great by surrounding them with other good students.

If that's true then the converse is also true: bad students become bad by surrounding them with other bad students. And the charter school gets to take credit for the "good" outcome while the public school gets blamed for the bad outcome that is a direct result of the good outcome. Which, if we accept your premise, suggests that the charter schools aren't providing any net benefit, they're just taking credit. If this…

I do think that the students who don't get accepted into the selective schools need better options. It's just when the options are keep all the students together or separate them and some will become better and some will become worse I think providing the students who want to succeed with a way to accomplish their goals is the correct choice. Hopefully there will be another option that isn't so exclusionary in the future.

I'm not super interested in who gets the credit here. If the public schools were able or willing to kick out problematic students like the charter schools then I think we should be doing that instead of charters. But that's not the reality. So yes, I do think that outcomes overall are better, at least in my district, because of charters.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#106

Post by red-iron-pine » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #48

According to the article, the Dod educates 66k students. That's less than half the size of my county. Yet, the comparison is DoD vs states, not the more useful DoD vs counties (or some unit closer in size). I'd love to see how DoD schools compare against top-notch school systems. And average school systems (in case the quality of country school districts isn't a bell curve for some reason).

The #1 public school in the US is Thomas Jefferson in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). FCPS is a suburb of DC, and a fantastic amount of the kids there are children of military servicemembers and FedGov civilians.

A lot of those well paid contractors are former military as well.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#107

Post by AlgorithmicTime » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:27 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39

HDThoreaun wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is mostly about your peers. It's obviously true for prestigious universities but it's just as true for elementary schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools. Almost all of them under the poverty line. It's not like they're…

> Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students. > and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will…

[dead]

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#108

Post by logicchains » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:27 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #72

ameminator wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing. Maybe the public school system is failing its students. However, it always seemed unfair to trap parents who would otherwise have other options in a failing system. Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their obligation…

> I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing. I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of course. But...personal optimization != societal optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society, things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income inequality). > Yes, this does suck for th…

>I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of course. But...personal optimization != societal optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society, things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income inequality).

Good intentions but empirically it doesn't work; forcing troublesome kids to be in school with the kids who genuinely want to learn drags down the score of the kids who want to learn and doesn't improve outcomes for the troublesome kids. Countries with school choice like Sweden have much better educational outcomes than the US.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#109

Post by ecshafer » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:28 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #39

HDThoreaun wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Education is mostly about your peers. It's obviously true for prestigious universities but it's just as true for elementary schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools. Almost all of them under the poverty line. It's not like they're…

> Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students. > and it absolutely can improve the education for those that remain. It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so your results will…

> If you kick out the problematic students, the only students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students.

Maybe the negative effects of having problematic students is enough that its a worthwhile endeavor? By Middle school or high school "problematic students" involves people that not only are noisy and disruptive in class, but people that deal drugs, rob people, steal, join gangs, bring weapons to school. Just calling them problematic is really underselling the situation. And the effects of a student that routinely swears at a teacher and causes fights disrupts a large number of students preventing them from learning things.

Re: Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in public education

#110

Post by logicchains » Thu, Oct 12, 2023, 7:29 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #70

ameminator wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how their children are taught could be a bad thing. Maybe the public school system is failing its students. However, it always seemed unfair to trap parents who would otherwise have other options in a failing system. Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their obligation…

The philosophical issue is charter schools use public resources yet are not accountable to the public. Adding to that, having public education system that is available to the public is kind of the key part here. So, the practical issue is that if some students are being excluded, that misses the point of public education terribly (other practical issues involve profiteering by the charters, just like with private pri…

>The philosophical issue is charter schools use public resources yet are not accountable to the public.

They absolutely are accountable to the public in their school district, who can choose to send their kids not to that school if they don't like the school, depriving the school of revenue.