It would be awesome to also have services available to the parents of the kids: relationship/job/parenting counseling/classes/etc...
How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
351–360 of 474 posts
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#352Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure you're not actually saying "poor parents shouldn't be allowed to raise their children"?
Ideas like this are always presented as a "common sense" solution like "let's reduce welfare fraud" and no one would disagree with that, and then in actual implementation it ends up being "let's target poor people, people of color, and immigrant families" even if that's not what was intended from the start. I fail to see how fixing broken homes (which we don't have a ready-made solution for) is an easier solution tha…
Yeah, you rarely see proponents of this considering the toxic households in Orange County or Beverly Hills for interventions.
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#353Earlier quoted context omitted.
A friend of mine was ranting about how evil Bezos and Musk are. I generally don’t see those two as the worst of the worst, so I spent some time listening to her thoughts. Her basic assertion was that the simple accumulation of that much wealth is itself evil. They could do many things like build schools and since they choose not to they are evil. I mentioned to her that they can’t sell their stock without ceding cont…
The profit comes from the labour of people who work for you. Any profit you make is the difference between what their true labour is worth and what you pay them. So unless the owners are adding billions in value by themselves they are paying people less than the true value of their work. The extent at which this happens is where some ethical issues lie. If you keep wages low while making large profit there is a point…
Musk and Bezos haven’t made any profit tho, just grown equity. Is that a relevant distinction here?
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#354Earlier quoted context omitted.
so if I'm an engaged and interested parent, and I want my child to succeed, looks like charter schools are the correct answer about where to send my kids.
1. No. Charter schools select the best students but that doesn't say that they're actually better at educating them than a normal public school. 2. You don't believe that kids should share an environment with the less-advantaged? Even if we said that your child may be more likely to 'succeed' when they are placed in an environment where almost no kids are materially wanting or have special needs - what kind of person…
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Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#355Earlier quoted context omitted.
Anecdotal experiences are near worthless when discussing policies, though. Feel insulted all you like; statistically speaking, these resources are wasted. Chances are you'd be equally well off without them.
And this is where you drop in the links to prove these programs aren't working. BTW, one data point holds more value than zero.
There's no reason to assume that they work to begin with; pretty much nothing ever does in education. But you can examine the failure of Head Start and the general trends in education costs vs. results to see that the room for improvement is largely used up.
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#356Earlier quoted context omitted.
The profit comes from the labour of people who work for you. Any profit you make is the difference between what their true labour is worth and what you pay them. So unless the owners are adding billions in value by themselves they are paying people less than the true value of their work. The extent at which this happens is where some ethical issues lie. If you keep wages low while making large profit there is a point…
Musk and Bezos haven’t made any profit tho, just grown equity. Is that a relevant distinction here?
It's relevant in many cases of many large companies, even profitable ones:
https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/2/16842876/google-double-iri...
Bezos in particular chooses to actively avoid making profit and hide profits to deliberately avoid paying tax. When Amazon makes a profit they still don't pay tax:
https://splinternews.com/amazon-made-5-6-billion-in-profits-...
He's not doing it innocently, it's tactical. They lobby to keep the loopholes open. Although its not illegal, it could be considered unethical which I believe is the context of the original discussion.
This kind of sums it up:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/03/bezos_billions_spac...
He has a lot of power to do more for other humans on this planet and doesn't.
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#357wow, the linked related article about NYC school segregation was depressing: https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city-schools... especially the part about charters having two times during the year when low-performing students are forced out into the public school: one in October after per-student funding is allocated to the school, allowing them to grab the funding while pushing a now-unfunded student ont…
the lie perpetuated through the decades that segregation was a Southern thing may never really truly come to light as people really are shy on learning things they don't want to believe. the laws to stop it were written to block any attempts to desegregate Northern schools, or more to the point NYC
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/new-york-school-desegre...
https://www.vox.com/2016/2/16/10980856/new-york-city-schools...
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#358Earlier quoted context omitted.
Warren is not a great thinker on Economics issues. Good or bad school districts only change the relative prices. It doesn't alter the total amount of housing per population. In other words, anyone moving to a house in a good school district leaves an empty house in a worse one.
> In other words, anyone moving to a house in a good school district leaves an empty house in a worse one. Exactly. More demand for a fixed supply in the "good" school district, reduced demand for a fixed supply in the "bad" one. Property taxes are in some part based on the demand for houses as reflected in the assessment price. So even assuming that the market keeps those houses occupied by owners, long term the tre…
(sorry this post got long, I mostly wanted to stress how valuable it is for a community to equalize funding per student)
In Alberta the conservative government in the 1990s controversially consolidated county school districts into much larger ones and pooled property taxes. This basically resulted in the same dollars being spent per student regardless of where they lived. I recall a lot of limousine liberals complaining about how their schools canceled their dance programs due to the mean old conservatives, but it was a profoundly liberal move, and it resulted in an influx of resources into poorer districts. At the same time it emphasized the conservative positions of local accountability and choice.
It’s worth noting that Alberta compares favorably with Finland for math and science scores[1], and has the lowest private school enrollment in Canada. There are other factors that contribute to this, but the tax reforms in the 1990s stand out as a big factor, contributing to the provincial economy and its increasing profile in academic research.
The districts had a lot of room to experiment, and Edmonton went the furthest by basically eliminating catchment areas and making schools first-come, first-served (most parent still choose schools close to them for convenience especially in elementary, high school kids could also get free city transit passes iirc). If a school’s enrollment dropped too low it could be closed and the building would be made available for a new standard or charter school to use. They also allowed for a plethora of public charter schools based on parents and principals making proposals for empty or underutilized buildings and proving they could get enrollment. This included a school that focused on hockey, one that had a focus on cadets and Canadian history, and a high school that dispensed of organized sports in favor of excellent arts facilities. None of these schools could discriminate on enrollment (except two cases I’m aware of that got an exemption, an all-girls jr high developed to test the idea that girls would do better in STEM classes without boys present, and a school for First Nations kids that focused on their culture).
I’m always puzzled that I do rarely see governors and mayors pushing through similar proposals.
[1] https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2006/09/21/clever-red...
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#359Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure but that's not how I interpret "longer school days" which sounds like more time butt-in-seat.
I don’t see why that would be presumed. It’s less expensive to give kids supervised free time than to teach lessons.
Ratios for structured play tend to be 1:8 adults to children (in UK), whilst classrooms are 1:30. Teachers are usually paid more, but not 3½ times more.
NSPCC recommend 1:6 ratio for 4-8 year olds doing activities.
I'd say max 1:3 if you want to give parent level care engaging with a child in activities the child is choosing in a meaningful way.
Re: How LeBron James' new public school is the first of its kind
#360Earlier quoted context omitted.
Growing up in Upstate NY, I always assumed part of it was also due to the fact that breaks during the winter basically translate to hours spent cooped-up inside, watching TV or playing on the computer. I know that the 3-month summer break stems from historical harvest/planting schedules... but when there's 20 inches of snow outside and the wind chill is -10 F, I'll take 3 months of summer vacay over 6 weeks of summer…
Winter break is to save money on heating. Which is why it doesn't exist in lower latitudes of the US.
Winter break very much exists in the bottom half of the US.