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School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

nytimes.com

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Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#391

Post by anon291 »

jajko wrote: post #374
gravescale wrote: post #32

I think some parents and kids have realised that much of that slog is ever less about the education and more about using children as tools for buffing the school or district stats in the best case or it's just riot control in the worst case. Miss a day or two of school and now you're "behind" because you don't know some trivia¹ that's on your next standardised test. Mostly irrelevant to the student, but highly worryi…

You are missing forest for the trees - states dont want to raise a generation of alpha males with big ego and unsatiable drive to success. Thats not what the core of any population is, and hence not much catered for, not in public state funded institution. Now another topic is whats good for any individual kid and society long term, those can be quite different matters. I see those points in same way you do, but cons…

> states dont want to raise a generation of alpha males with big ego and unsatiable drive to success.

It's unfortunate because regardless of what you think, the so-called 'alpha males' with an insatiable drive for success are the ones representing the vast majority of the tax revenue.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#392

Post by anon291 »

albrewer wrote: post #295
kwhitefoot wrote: post #55

Perhaps it's because most schooling seems irrelevant to many of the students? I went to very good schools and actually enjoyed quite a lot of my schooldays but even while I was there I could see that a lot of it was a complete and utter waste of everyone's time. I spent six years attending French classes and three of Latin. I can't read, write, speak, or understand either one. I moved to Norway fifteen years later an…

> I spent six years attending French classes and three of Latin. I can't read, write, speak, or understand either one. I spent ~4-ish years learning Spanish in high school and was the same. HOWEVER, after visiting Puerto Rico for the first time, I was genuinely surprised with how much was still rattling around in my head and how quickly I picked up new words and phrases. I was eventually able to navigate a restaurant…

Again... this is completely unsurprising. Being forced to use language is a surefire way to learn it. Being surrounded by it will mean most adults will be able to speak it in a few months. There is no way to replicate that in a school environment that is predominantly being taught in another language. You have your spanish teacher for what... an hour... and then go right back to English. As I said above: what's the proposed solution here? International trips for every student... that's just not worth it.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#393

Post by fullshark »

anon291 wrote: post #389
fullshark wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well at least 5 years ago it became clear you should value those tickets at ~$0 at most startups when making career decisions, so those tickets come at significant opportunity cost even if the other money is "good."

I've always valued equity at zero and am clear I want cash. Most companies have obliged and some of my equity has panned out. That's the point of job-hopping -- to acquire as much equity as you can. In my case, I've bounced around many AI startups and have my hands in many pots. You gotta be smart about how this works. If there's a certain industry you think will do well, doing a year or two at all the startups in th…

I'd claim you've been wise enough to understand there's a cost to letting your skills languish at a mature tech company that pays you liquid RSUs, limiting your future earning potential vs working in startups in fields with growth potential and where you can develop highly specialized and coveted skills. That's the real story I'd argue as to why your strategy is a good one v. diversifying with these startups.

I don't know maybe one of your startup journeys hit or will hit massively (versus comfortably positive) and I'm wrong but at the end of the day it's about your risk tolerance and understanding the distribution of potential outcomes. The distribution had fewer massively positive outcomes than we all thought in the economic expansion/zero interest rate days of 3-10 years ago I think, and that motivated people to stay late, play ping pong with coworkers, leetcode for sideways promotions, etc. That was my initial point, it wasn't the free food and ping pong it was the hope of a ridiculous (instead of decent) exit.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#394

Post by gravescale »

jajko wrote: post #374
gravescale wrote: post #32

I think some parents and kids have realised that much of that slog is ever less about the education and more about using children as tools for buffing the school or district stats in the best case or it's just riot control in the worst case. Miss a day or two of school and now you're "behind" because you don't know some trivia¹ that's on your next standardised test. Mostly irrelevant to the student, but highly worryi…

You are missing forest for the trees - states dont want to raise a generation of alpha males with big ego and unsatiable drive to success. Thats not what the core of any population is, and hence not much catered for, not in public state funded institution. Now another topic is whats good for any individual kid and society long term, those can be quite different matters. I see those points in same way you do, but cons…

In that case, that "core" of the population also doesn't need to know about benzene molecules, river erosion processes, history of some ancient kingdom and all the other trivia they load you up with at school. So, to me, it doesn't really follow that the curriculum is designed deliberately to churn out low-to-mid skilled workers. If anything it seems like it was intended to produce people along the road to being relatively highly-skilled people, but the implementation is as if by people who think that advanced skills are just the result of coagulating enough trivia (though I think it's actually an iterated "you get what you measure" outcome, rather than educationalists who actually think that).

Just like sometime who "learns" a language by drilling only vocabulary, this ends up serving no one particularly well - many people who would otherwise end up in trades have few practical skills taught and couldn't care less about benzene. Many people who would end up being PhDs in organic chemistry are bored rigid by the tedium of the process.

As you say, it is a parental responsibility. But the school system has spent decades telling engaged parents that the correct way to fulfill that responsibility to provide rounded education to their children is by sending them to school, and it's becoming clear to some parents that the school system isn't actually upholding that promise.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#395

Post by vasilipupkin »

ptero wrote: post #342
vasilipupkin wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you can't teach very well if 20% of the class is absent, it just creates an absurd situation for the teachers it's not that hard, if you commit to going to school, then just try to go and do vacations during school holidays otherwise, just home school

> you can't teach very well if 20% of the class is absent, it just creates an absurd situation for the teachers Why is this? If true, why this problem is not appearing in private schools that pretty universally do not object to parents taking their kids away for vacations or family events as long as kids master the material. The teacher needs to have a program of study with specific topics covered, recommended exerci…

because what's going to happen is if enough students are absent, there will be a big number of them who thought they would master the material no problem, would turn out to be wrong and then would bug the teacher incessantly to let them retake or do something to avoid bad grades. in most high schools in America or in many there are multiple difficulty courses, if your kid can master it no problem even when being absent, it is likely that this kid is not taking serious enough courses.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#396

Post by nothercastle »

freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #360
nothercastle wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you care? Most public schools are so slow now you could miss a month and they would still have not covered more than a week of material

If you really think that, then you don't have a kid or worse: you have an abysmal school district. Part and parcel why I purposefully bought a house where the district was highly rated. Missing several weeks is a serious blow.

I do have a kid in school. he’s a year ahead in Math simply by taking 1 class a week in supplement math school. Sure we have to do 15 homework day but that’s just an example of how slow they go. My kid is also pretty darn average so it’s not a natural talent thing. I have to drill flash cards with him cause school fails to teach those. All they seem to do is play games on the tablet. Maybe they learn something but it seems more like politically correct tv time.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#397

Post by freitzkriesler2 »

nothercastle wrote: post #396
freitzkriesler2 wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you really think that, then you don't have a kid or worse: you have an abysmal school district. Part and parcel why I purposefully bought a house where the district was highly rated. Missing several weeks is a serious blow.

I do have a kid in school. he’s a year ahead in Math simply by taking 1 class a week in supplement math school. Sure we have to do 15 homework day but that’s just an example of how slow they go. My kid is also pretty darn average so it’s not a natural talent thing. I have to drill flash cards with him cause school fails to teach those. All they seem to do is play games on the tablet. Maybe they learn something but it…

Trust me, you're kid is smarter than average simply by virtue of you posting here.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#398

Post by dude187 »

archagon wrote: post #359
seneca wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, a surprising number of my wife's friends from church have opted for homeschooling, so they can teach their kids from the Bible and skip all that science and math "liberal indoctrination". I can assure you, the people newly complaining about "liberal indoctrination" in schools don't mean science and math. It's fine to disagree with people about what should be taught, but it's not productive to ignore how much e…

I'm pretty sure most of them have no real idea what they're complaining about, other than what the angry man on TV told them. See the giant, nonsensical hubbub over "critical race theory" a few years ago, as well as stuff like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/desantis-florida-ap-af... There are probably legitimate criticisms of recent changes to public education, but it's never the things that Republican p…

Critical race theory is not some made up Boogeyman. It's real, it's used to influence the curriculum being taught, and it's just as bad as described

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#399

Post by archagon »

dude187 wrote: post #398
archagon wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure most of them have no real idea what they're complaining about, other than what the angry man on TV told them. See the giant, nonsensical hubbub over "critical race theory" a few years ago, as well as stuff like this: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/desantis-florida-ap-af... There are probably legitimate criticisms of recent changes to public education, but it's never the things that Republican p…

Critical race theory is not some made up Boogeyman. It's real, it's used to influence the curriculum being taught, and it's just as bad as described

Bullshit:

"Opposition to what was purported to be critical race theory has been adopted as a major theme by several conservative think tanks and pressure groups, including The Heritage Foundation, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and organizations funded by the Koch brothers. [...] In 2021 [Christopher Rufo] wrote on Twitter, 'The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think 'critical race theory'' and 'We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.'"

"The Economist and Reuters have conducted polls on how much the general public understands CRT, a 'once-obscure academic concept', and they found that most people are unfamiliar with CRT and misunderstand it."

(From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020s_controversies_around_cri....)

It is absolutely a conservative boogeyman and (for the most part) has never been a taught subject outside of college.

Re: School absences have ‘exploded’ almost everywhere

#400

Post by dude187 »

archagon wrote: post #399
dude187 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Critical race theory is not some made up Boogeyman. It's real, it's used to influence the curriculum being taught, and it's just as bad as described

Bullshit: "Opposition to what was purported to be critical race theory has been adopted as a major theme by several conservative think tanks and pressure groups, including The Heritage Foundation, the Idaho Freedom Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and organizations funded by the Koch brothers. [...] In 2021 [Christopher Rufo] wrote on Twitter, 'The goal is to have the public read somethin…

CRT is mainstream, and the foundation of tainted beliefs like "whiteness" being "evil" and somehow being the root of problems. It's a foundation in what teachers learn in training and apply in their teachings.

I would assume you also oppose teachers getting their Master's in education? After all, that's not a subject that has never been taught in any primary school ...

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