A letter to my students • Hacker News Board

Re: A letter to my students

#141

Post by hugh3 » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 4:51 PM UTC

aliston wrote: post #107

joe_the_user wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe California currently spends a similar amount on prisons as on education. I don't believe that was the case in 1962. That would effect total spending. Whether that means California is doing more for its citizens in this way is a question one can ask.

I've heard this point made on a per-individual basis. The numbers I found actually make it look even worse: California per-pupil spending 2008: $9,015 California’s Annual Costs to Incarcerate an Inmate in Prison: $47,102 http://blogs.sacbee.com/the-public-eye/2010/08/california-pe... http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/...

California per-pupil spending 2008: $9,015 California’s Annual Costs to Incarcerate an Inmate in Prison: $47,102

Why should those be, in any way, comparable?

Prisoners need cells, three meals a day, healthcare, clothing, and constant supervision, 24 hours a day. Schoolchildren only need classrooms and supervision for six hours a day five days a week. And prisons can't get away with a 30:1 inmate-to-guard ratio, either. It makes perfect sense that a prisoner should cost more than a schoolkid.

Of course I'm sure California prison guards are still ridiculously overpaid. My personal solution to this conundrum is to outsource California's prisons to Mexico.

Re: A letter to my students

#142

Post by Daniel_Newby » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 5:17 PM UTC

kenjackson wrote: post #132

gwern wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why those ethnicities then go on to have perfect 4.0 GPAs and rack up countless patents & inventions and start tons of successful new companies, thus proving those standardized tests wrong in the most effective way possible.

Accept of course those standardized tests are the gatekeepers to the best schools, best programs, best networks, and likely even confidence and motivation. A better way to show that standardized tests mean nothing is to have every student take them, but then store them away for the next 40 years. No one knows the results. And then in 40 years correlate the results of these tests with "life success". We've already see…

You are lying with statistics, albeit possibly unknowingly.

That article comes right out and says that IQ does not have an effect on life outcomes, if life outcomes are normed for educational attainment. It then goes on to say that IQ does not predict career success, if career success is measured by money and normed for career type. That's like saying air temperature has no effect on snow cover, if snow cover is corrected for season. And altitude.

Re: A letter to my students

#143

Post by mattmanser » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 5:18 PM UTC

mkr-hn wrote: post #11

KevinMS wrote: post #7

Perfect timing for this http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100822/ap_on_re_us/us_taj_mahal...

"In Los Angeles, officials say the new schools were planned long before the economic pinch and are funded by $20 billion in voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget." Even in good times that's a lot for a school that will only house 4200 students. That's almost $140k for every student it holds. I wonder how long it's going to take for students going through it to generate enough economic activit…

$140k per student? Is the school only going to stay open 1 year then?

Re: A letter to my students

#144

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 5:27 PM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #142

kenjackson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accept of course those standardized tests are the gatekeepers to the best schools, best programs, best networks, and likely even confidence and motivation. A better way to show that standardized tests mean nothing is to have every student take them, but then store them away for the next 40 years. No one knows the results. And then in 40 years correlate the results of these tests with "life success". We've already see…

You are lying with statistics, albeit possibly unknowingly. That article comes right out and says that IQ does not have an effect on life outcomes, if life outcomes are normed for educational attainment . It then goes on to say that IQ does not predict career success, if career success is measured by money and normed for career type . That's like saying air temperature has no effect on snow cover, if snow cover is co…

Actually the analogy you made is very appropriate. If you do control for season and altitude, and snow cover is not correlated with temperature still, you have a problem.

But sticking with just the article. The point he makes is that its the educational attainment that people pay for, not the IQ score. Now you're saying, "But educational attainment is a product of IQ score". Possibly, but in controlling that factor you can attempt to tease out the extent at which it really is the educational attainment rather than simply the IQ.

A better way to put is that if IQ was in itself the key to life success then it wouldn't matter if you went to college or not. Rather, what the data seems to show is that those with high IQs seem to at least have the wisdom to know that educational attainment will be the key their life success. Quite possibly being tracked into by virtue of a higher IQ.

BUT the data should show that regardless of credential, higher IQ yields more success. But it doesn't show that.

Now there are a lot of factors that potentially come into play. And that was my original point. One can't look at SAT scores and then say, "those with high SAT scores do better in life", when there are so many comingling factors that complicate the equation, and are ridiculously difficult to control for in the real world.

Re: A letter to my students

#145

Post by mkr-hn » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 5:28 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #143

mkr-hn wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"In Los Angeles, officials say the new schools were planned long before the economic pinch and are funded by $20 billion in voter-approved bonds that do not affect the educational budget." Even in good times that's a lot for a school that will only house 4200 students. That's almost $140k for every student it holds. I wonder how long it's going to take for students going through it to generate enough economic activit…

$140k per student? Is the school only going to stay open 1 year then?

Last two sentences.

Re: A letter to my students

#146

Post by kenjackson » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 5:33 PM UTC

Daniel_Newby wrote: post #142

kenjackson wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accept of course those standardized tests are the gatekeepers to the best schools, best programs, best networks, and likely even confidence and motivation. A better way to show that standardized tests mean nothing is to have every student take them, but then store them away for the next 40 years. No one knows the results. And then in 40 years correlate the results of these tests with "life success". We've already see…

You are lying with statistics, albeit possibly unknowingly. That article comes right out and says that IQ does not have an effect on life outcomes, if life outcomes are normed for educational attainment . It then goes on to say that IQ does not predict career success, if career success is measured by money and normed for career type . That's like saying air temperature has no effect on snow cover, if snow cover is co…

And of course, no argument is complete with an anecdotal Feynman story.

Two grad students at CalTech were having a discussion about what Feynman's IQ must be. They bandied 180... maybe even to 200. When coincidentally Feynman walks right past them.

One of the students pipes up and meekly asks Feynman, "Professor Feynman, what is your IQ?"

Feynman turns around and responds, "120". The grad students have a look of disbelief. To which Feynman adds, "but its all in Physics".

Re: A letter to my students

#147

Post by pmb » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 6:11 PM UTC

ryanhuff wrote: post #68

pmb wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"As technology improves, we should expect higher quality teachers for less cost" --- if and only if we know how to use technology to increase instruction quality. I contend that we have almost no idea about that. He is right to blame all of California's ills on tax cuts. They and Oregon have had the worst abuses of the proposition system of all the states. Both used to be prosperous with balanced budgets, but had sne…

What tax cuts are you talking about? My California state income tax bill (or sales tax) certainly hasn't gone down in recent years. You might be right, but your comment is seeded with anecdotal examples that seem politically partisan ("sneaky?"). "I know a guy who" isn't the best way to prove a point. Instead, numbers showing tax revenue and spending would help illustrate how the financial ills are caused by lower ta…

Property taxes. Income tax and sales tax has had to rise in response. Unless the income tax rate is highly progressive, the net effect is a more regressive tax system.

Re: A letter to my students

#148

Post by etal » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 6:12 PM UTC

byrneseyeview wrote: post #139

krschultz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has not more than doubled . Don't throw around numbers if you haven't actually looked at them. Population in 1960: 15,717,204 Population in 2010: 36,961,664 $28B for 15.7M people is $1783 per person $119B for 37.9M people is $3140 per person. And the costs have increased far faster than inflation, so comparing constant dollars is not an apples to apples comparison. Inflation includes a lot of things, but not every…

The state spends a massive portion of its revenues on education and healthcare, those are two things notoriously increasing in price faster than inflation. I would assume that the government is disproportionately likely to spend on these categories. So isn't this another way to illustrate inefficiency? If there's a correlation between government being a customer, and prices rising while the quality of the end product…

Those sectors are also much harder to automate, relative to the rest of the economy, since people want individual attention from doctors and teachers. So as the cost of everything else drops thanks to improved automation and technology, the proportion of our wealth that we spend on necessary but less-automated services increases.

(There's a term for this effect, but I'm having trouble finding it again.)

Re: A letter to my students

#149

Post by anamax » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 6:55 PM UTC

parfe wrote: post #134

hammmatt wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on many of your points. I would have to say I agree with you that the world will keep on improving, but to say that there aren't at least a FEW flaws with California's financial system and educational is not very conducive with the evidence. I can't find a reasonable human being that can agree with the pension system for state employees (I am actually unsure if it applies to teachers), which has to b…

>I can't find a reasonable human being that can agree with the pension system for state employees (I am actually unsure if it applies to teachers), which has to be the biggest money whole I could ever conceive. The issue with pensions is that everyone used to do it. Private and public sector both. It's just easier for the private sector to declare bankruptcy and throw away their obligations. Pensions themselves are a…

> The issue with pensions is that everyone used to do it. Private and public sector both.

No, everyone didn't do it. At its peak, which was decades ago, 30% of the private sector was covered by pensions and many of them were pretty crappy. Pensions are now fairly rare in the privat sector.

Re: A letter to my students

#150

Post by lutorm » Wed, Aug 25, 2010, 7:15 PM UTC

hugh3 wrote: post #141

aliston wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard this point made on a per-individual basis. The numbers I found actually make it look even worse: California per-pupil spending 2008: $9,015 California’s Annual Costs to Incarcerate an Inmate in Prison: $47,102 http://blogs.sacbee.com/the-public-eye/2010/08/california-pe... http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/laomenus/sections/crim_justice/...

California per-pupil spending 2008: $9,015 California’s Annual Costs to Incarcerate an Inmate in Prison: $47,102 Why should those be, in any way, comparable? Prisoners need cells, three meals a day, healthcare, clothing, and constant supervision, 24 hours a day. Schoolchildren only need classrooms and supervision for six hours a day five days a week. And prisons can't get away with a 30:1 inmate-to-guard ratio, eithe…

Of course it's reasonable that prisons are more expensive on a per capita basis. The real question is which of those are most const-effective in making CA a better place to live. Putting all those people in prison was a choice.