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Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

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Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#91

Post by qdog »

I live in Oregon, although this might limit some of the funding for certain schools, when I was moving between school districts for my son, I could not start him in the new school district until I was a resident. The only public school we looked at that actually followed this method was Riverdale (www.riverdaleschool.com), and it was about $3k/year. Most of the public schools won't let you attend unless you live in their boundaries.

There are a lot of public schools in Portland that have special programs, and you enter via a lottery, so that's kind of cool. However, it's my experience that Portland Public Schools are crippled vs. the surrounding suburban school districts. I don't really understand it, since PPS has a higher funding per kid. Also the facilities in suburbia (sports fields, buildings, etc.) are generally newer and bigger. If I had it to do over again, I'm not sure what state I would try and move to for education.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#92

Post by irrelative »

ams6110 wrote: post #71
fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #26

Bake-sale style funding for the military instead of for schools. That is a fantastic idea. I love it.

This bumper sticker has been seen on Volvos since the 1970s.

Indeed it has -- for those less familiar:

http://www.northernsun.com/images/imagelarge/Bake-Sale-Bumpe...

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#93

Post by tolmasky »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #86
tolmasky wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so bad about different children learning different things? At the end of the day, someone always ends up deciding what they learn, and the reality right now is that that curriculum is often highly politically motivated. Even if it wasn't, in an ideal world where everyone working on putting together course plans had the best intentions -- still, who decides what's right to teach and what's wrong? There is no r…

I'm more conservative, I think it's fine that you have to make an argument and persuade if you want CS taught in schools because such decisions should be made after strong consideration by parents, teachers and other experts. My problem isn't so much with parents who might teach their kids extra programming classes or whatever. It's with parents who may be incapable of (or unwilling to) teaching their kids anything (…

I think the problem is that you are interpreting my statements through the vector of convincing others to teach their kids certain things. For example, you are seeing me as wanting everyone to learn CS. This isn't the case at all, I simply want a system where those that want to have their children taught CS can easily do so, which is the opposite of the system we have today. The problem is that the "strong consideration" of the individual parent is largely inconsequential because the decision making process has been largely collectivized.

I can agree that if we are going to force other people's children to learn certain things then it might merit some big conversation but that's not what I want. Ironically, I think this very process has perpetuated the dilemma you fear: it encourages and perpetuates a culture of not worrying about your child's education and "leaving it up to the experts".

Secondly, having every parent teach their kid is not the only alternative to the public school system we have today. There are a spectrum of possibilities, from simply having less state/federal standards (I don't really care what Senator X from state that I have no representation in thinks about our education), to private schools. But, if we are focusing solely on "homeschooling", a friend of mine for example was "neighborhood-schooled". Each parent had a day with them, and each parent taught them what they were good at.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#94

Post by jiggy2011 »

tolmasky wrote: post #93
jiggy2011 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm more conservative, I think it's fine that you have to make an argument and persuade if you want CS taught in schools because such decisions should be made after strong consideration by parents, teachers and other experts. My problem isn't so much with parents who might teach their kids extra programming classes or whatever. It's with parents who may be incapable of (or unwilling to) teaching their kids anything (…

I think the problem is that you are interpreting my statements through the vector of convincing others to teach their kids certain things. For example, you are seeing me as wanting everyone to learn CS. This isn't the case at all, I simply want a system where those that want to have their children taught CS can easily do so, which is the opposite of the system we have today. The problem is that the "strong considerat…

I'm more concerned about the bottom end than the top end. Whether or not you teach kids CS at school is a minor point in the scale of things especially since you can always teach them extra stuff after school.

Responsible parents will make sure that their kids get a decent education by selecting a good school or by homeschooling.

The problem is, if a parent decides "I don't want my kid to bother learning math" then you completely close off a huge number of potential high-earning careers to the child.

Or worse, parents who are apathetic towards education and who's kids are unlikely to learn much of anything.

In other words, I would disagree that parents are necessarily better at selecting an education for their children.

This is especially important because education is important to social mobility. For example the potential for a kid brought up in some redneck park/council estate who goes to school and finds that they are good at math and goes on to become a programmer/banker or whatever.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#95

Post by sachingulaya »

adamgray wrote: post #89
rayiner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the city of Chicago isn't very expensive. It's cheaper than the suburbs of say DC or NYC or SF by a good margin. $70k is a very good salary in the city. You can get a nice 2BR apartment in Lincoln Park (one of the more expensive areas) for only $1,600 per month. My studio Westchester costs almost that much! Chicago teachers start around $51k with a bachelors. You can live better with that salary in Chicago t…

That's not true anymore, the average 2BR cost has gone up to $1800-1900, even higher in places like Lincoln Park.

I paid 1600 for a two bedroom 1100sqft apartment in a nice area(wicker park) in 2011-2012. With no need for a car or car insurance it was more affordable than I expected.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#96

Post by rayiner »

adamgray wrote: post #89
rayiner wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but the city of Chicago isn't very expensive. It's cheaper than the suburbs of say DC or NYC or SF by a good margin. $70k is a very good salary in the city. You can get a nice 2BR apartment in Lincoln Park (one of the more expensive areas) for only $1,600 per month. My studio Westchester costs almost that much! Chicago teachers start around $51k with a bachelors. You can live better with that salary in Chicago t…

That's not true anymore, the average 2BR cost has gone up to $1800-1900, even higher in places like Lincoln Park.

Where are you getting your data? I just moved from Chicago last year and my friends in Lincoln Park were paying around $1600 for a 2BR at Clark/Fullerton. Trulia suggests that this is not uncommon: http://www.trulia.com/for_rent/Chicago,IL/16_zm/41.920751,41...

Also, the average for places like Lincoln Park is skewed up by all the high-end housing in the area. Places like Andersonville and Edgewater are even cheaper, and very safe and family-friendly: http://www.trulia.com/rental/3102177710-5406-N-Kenmore-Ave-2...

Heck, last year I was paying $1450/month for a 1BR in a full-service high-rise in Streeterville with a 28th-floor view. My wife paid just around $1100 a month for a huge 1BR in Streeterville a couple of years ago. If you've got a roommate, it's totally possible to live in River North on a teacher's starting salary.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#98

Post by socillion »

joelhooks wrote: post #82
jiggy2011 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely with homeschooling kids are going to get even more inconsistent results due to radically varying teaching abilities and knowledge of parents? Not to mention severely biased curricular, I'm sure HN kids would all know haskell by the time they were 9 but what about poetry , sports and history?

We have been home educating our four kids. The oldest is 15, enjoys poetry, plays basketball competitively, likes to tinker with computers, reads history, does math, etc. He isn't handicapped by our abilities or knowledge because we provided him with tools to learn. We've made it clear that his education is ultimately his responsibility. It is his job to learn. We serve as mentors and facilitators by providing opport…

From personal experience, I would say optimizing for higher IQ at the cost of lower EQ to the extent that homeschooling makes possible is a very poor tradeoff - and it is also an extremely easy one to make.

> The oldest is 15, enjoys poetry, plays basketball competitively, likes to tinker with computers, reads history, does math, etc.

FWIW, that sounds like me at 15 and I regret having been homeschooled.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#99

Post by linuxhansl »

I can relate a story of a coworker of mine who recently moved back to Germany with his two kids after living the US for many years.

They looked at some houses and ended up touring the local school and talking to the principal. The conversation went something like this:

  Coworker: You ave a nice school.
  Principal: Thanks.
  Coworker: Do you have space for my kids?
  Principal: ?
  Coworker: Do you have space for my kids?
  Principal: What do you mean with "space"?
  Coworker: Do you have space for my kids?
  Principal: Your kids are required to go to school. We will have space.
The question of space/waitinglists/applications/etc did not occur to the principal.

Re: Linus on Oregon HB 2748 and US education in general

#100

Post by smsm42 »

Something that I didn't understand - why Linus thinks it is completely nuts that people help finance their kids' education locally? Why the only sane thing is to give money to some anonymous amorphous central government, and then ask for some of it back to build the school and hope some bridge to nowhere or festival of cowboy poetry or some bigwig's 500K/night hotel bills don't come first? I understand you can disagree which way is more efficient - but why the local way is described as insane "to any sany person"?
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