Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

iamjwal.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 273 posts

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#201

Post by bglazer »

joshAg wrote: post #98
aerique wrote: post #84

Honest question: We lived with one car (a car that was given to us) for 4 ½ years. During that time, I walked or rode my bike to school to save on gas. We recently bought a second car with money I saved from my web design business. Is the US really structured so that owning one car is (seen as) a problem?

Outside of downtown urban centers, somewhat yes. Generally you need one car per worker. Part of the reason cities are becoming popular again is because people don't want to have to deal with all this bullshit, and be able to walk/bike/public transit to work in less than 30 minutes. Here's some of the reasons why it feels like you need one car per worker: You don't live super close to work because either you can't aff…

Here's what Google maps gives me for my roughly 15 mile commute in Memphis TN

Driving- 24 minutes (from experience this is fairly accurate)

Public transit- 2 hours 15 minutes. Involves two buses with the second going through one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city and eventually leaving me 6 miles from my office.

Biking- 1 hour 30 minutes. This would be an adventure, but I've actually considered trying.

So, it's basically impossible for me to get to work any way but driving. I could car-pool but I've yet to find a co-worker who lives near enough.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#202

Post by debacle »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #183
rossta wrote: post #127

I taught middle school science in Houston for five years. I decided to leave the traditional public school system for many of the same reasons the author makes about his experience. This was over a decade ago so it's sad to hear the same problems persist. Alternatives like charter schools have not always fared well, but some, like YES College Prep ( http://www.yesprep.org/ ), are serving low income areas and achievin…

Actually, we do have a shortage of Doctors, especially Primary Care. Caps are set in place by Medicare to limit the number of residents in an academic program. Academic hospitals would love to increase their slots but Medicare won't allow that. I think last year something like 23k students applied to residency programs and only 6k got accepted. What happens to the rejected 17k students as they wander aimlessly to fig…

Medicare has nothing to do with it. The AMA doesn't want doctors flooding the market. They are a very powerful union.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#203

Post by cmsmith »

akshatpradhan wrote: post #183
rossta wrote: post #127

I taught middle school science in Houston for five years. I decided to leave the traditional public school system for many of the same reasons the author makes about his experience. This was over a decade ago so it's sad to hear the same problems persist. Alternatives like charter schools have not always fared well, but some, like YES College Prep ( http://www.yesprep.org/ ), are serving low income areas and achievin…

Actually, we do have a shortage of Doctors, especially Primary Care. Caps are set in place by Medicare to limit the number of residents in an academic program. Academic hospitals would love to increase their slots but Medicare won't allow that. I think last year something like 23k students applied to residency programs and only 6k got accepted. What happens to the rejected 17k students as they wander aimlessly to fig…

These are the same hospitals which charge markups of tens of thousands of dollars per patient. If the Medicare number of residents was really suboptimal, then more residents should allow them to treat more patients and make more money.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#204

Post by [deleted] »

sitkack wrote: post #51
anigbrowl wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now you're talking about school choice and maybe admission exams, both of which are anathema in US educational politics. As a Euro living in the US I can see why the busing policy implemented following Brown v. Board of Education seemed like such an urgent necessity, but it seems to have ended up as an unworkable mess, with those who can afford it (most of whom are white) sending their kids off to private schools and…

Bussing is stupid, having rich neighborhoods get better schools is more stupid. All schools should get the same. We fund all schools equally, across the board, no questions. The fact that property taxes funded schools IS THE CRIMINAL construction. It sounds democratic, but so does pulling ones self up by their bootstraps. It only cements the class order.

[deleted]

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#205

Post by timdiggerm »

amorphid wrote: post #117
aerique wrote: post #84

Honest question: We lived with one car (a car that was given to us) for 4 ½ years. During that time, I walked or rode my bike to school to save on gas. We recently bought a second car with money I saved from my web design business. Is the US really structured so that owning one car is (seen as) a problem?

I just moved from San Francisco, CA to the Washington, DC area. I'm currently staying at my dad's place in Alexandria, VA. San Francisco has a very good public transit system, at least compared to any other suburb in which I've lived. In San Francisco, I could be most places I cared to be within 30 minutes. There was literally a bus station outside of my apartment window, and I could catch probably a dozen different…

Correction: The DC Metro is not a lightrail system.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#206

Post by talmand »

darkr wrote: post #99
aerique wrote: post #84

Honest question: We lived with one car (a car that was given to us) for 4 ½ years. During that time, I walked or rode my bike to school to save on gas. We recently bought a second car with money I saved from my web design business. Is the US really structured so that owning one car is (seen as) a problem?

Depends where you are. Larger northern/coastal cities are often almost European, but elsewhere.. Subjectively speaking, I noticed two main issues: 1) Practical: cities/towns are often extremely spread out/car oriented, often with no footpaths connecting different areas forcing you to walk in the road, and occasionally you'll find that there is no way to travel between two points other than highway/interstates (which…

I'm from the South and I have no idea what you're talking about. Those are just people who don't have a car, which is common in the poorer rural areas of the South.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#207

Post by js2 »

rossta wrote: post #127

I taught middle school science in Houston for five years. I decided to leave the traditional public school system for many of the same reasons the author makes about his experience. This was over a decade ago so it's sad to hear the same problems persist. Alternatives like charter schools have not always fared well, but some, like YES College Prep ( http://www.yesprep.org/ ), are serving low income areas and achievin…

I've often felt if the teaching profession was prestigious as, say, law or medicine, we could eventually solve the problems in education.

Indeed: "In all of the systems we studied, the ability of a school system to attract the right people into teaching is closely linked to the status of the profession. In Singapore and South Korea, opinion polls show that the general public believe that teachers make a greater contribution to society than any other profession. New teachers in all of the systems studied consistently reported that the status of the profession is one of the most important factors in their decision to become a teacher."

http://mckinseyonsociety.com/how-the-worlds-best-performing-...

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#208

Post by debacle »

tokenadult wrote: post #176
waynemr wrote: post #9

The sad and infuriating thing is that good teachers leaving public service is precisely what conservative groups strive for, in their "starve the beast" agendas. As more quality staff leave, they [conservative groups] can claim greater and greater failures in the public system and siphon more tax dollars into private voucher schools.

The sad and infuriating thing is that good teachers leaving public service is precisely what conservative groups strive for I challenge you directly to find any example of a conservative person saying that they want good teachers to leave public service. Most voters and taxpayers who have considered the issue want bad teachers to leave the public payroll, to make more room for good teachers. Young people from poor fa…

There are many wide-right libertarians who want to completely dismantle the public education system. Reducing the overall quality of public school teachers advances their cause.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#209

Post by cantankerous »

panzagl wrote: post #169
waynemr wrote: post #9

The sad and infuriating thing is that good teachers leaving public service is precisely what conservative groups strive for, in their "starve the beast" agendas. As more quality staff leave, they [conservative groups] can claim greater and greater failures in the public system and siphon more tax dollars into private voucher schools.

"Starve the beast" refers to Federal government. Schools are run at the most local level of government. Conservatives disagree with the growing role of Federal government in schools, not the idea of schools in general.

While I think you're right in principle, I think the parts of the GOP and Conservative groups pushing the "starve the beast" line have completely lost control of the message. I see the same mentality applied to all levels of government in my home state, pretty much invariably in every local area.

Basically: taxes==always bad, government==bad at doing anything (on any level), private sector==always good, thus should to pay fewer taxes year after year....so it can create jobs?

It's very troubling, especially in suburban areas where community fixtures like good school programs buttress property values, when people don't understand that their private lives are very much reliant upon well-funded, and well-run civil structures that may be completely orthogonal to their lives.

Re: The Tough Decision to Leave the Classroom

#210

Post by NoMoreNicksLeft »

jschwartzi wrote: post #187
NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Many students come poor and/or bad families. No new "Common Core" tests are going to help that child learn if they are afraid they might not eat dinner that evening or they will be beaten up by their drunken family members. Just flogging the teacher to teach harder won't work. This sounds true if you don't think about it too hard. But why is it that kids who don't suffer get about the same (horrible) education as t…

If you want to attract someone competent to a profession, generally it has to be seen as a desirable profession. As long as teaching is seen as a last resort people wont respect it and you'll keep attracting large numbers of teachers whose only qualification was that they couldn't find a better job somewhere else. To put it bluntly, teaching has been made into an objectively shitty profession, which is why you can't…

> If you want to attract someone competent to a profession, generally it has to be seen as a desirable profession.

This is flawed logic. You're selecting for status-seeking personalities, not competence.

> As long as teaching is seen as a last resort people wont respect it and you'll keep attracting large numbers of teachers whose only qualification was that they couldn't find a better job somewhere else.

This is flawed logic. You don't even seem to consider the possibility that you've already managed to recruit as many competent teachers as can exist, and that you have so many incompetent ones because your demand outstrips supply.

If there are only 20,000 good teachers, and you need 1 million... then no matter how much respect they get, you'll never get more than 20,000 good teachers. You'll just fill the remainder with jackasses.

> To put it bluntly, teaching has been made into an objectively shitty profession,

They're being rewarded commensurate with their results.

> If you want good teachers, you need to pay them more

You're selecting for greedy people, not competence. Again, flawed logic.

> You need to: * Pay top dollar for talent. *

Flawed logic. If you are an individual who wants a small number of good teachers (say, as tutors for your son Richie Rich), then this is an effective strategy. You're using your immense wealth to lure good teachers away from other jobs.

This is not just an ineffective strategy for a large nation-state, it's an economically and educationally disastrous one. You can't afford it, and you will incentivize a large number of incompetent assholes to become teachers for the "top dollar" pay. Your tests and qualifications can't weed them out because they will attempt to game any tests you present. They will become teachers, fuck it up not just with their incompetence, but also with their toxic personalities.

Do you even think about this stuff, or do you just repeat what you've heard other people say (people who haven't thought about it either)?

Post reply on HN