491–500 of 925 posts
The only possible counterpoint I’d say is SAT math is quite trivial and also can be prepared for? Not that I think there are better alternatives out there.
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California had below average (for US states) school funding per student until recently: https://edsource.org/2026/california-education-funding-rise/... At times, it was ranked second-worst. I would argue that with California's high cost of living, "average" funding in California is still low relatively speaking.
True, but I was responding to a comment blaming the children for their under-performance. The funding gap isn't somehow due to those kids not wanting to learn, problems at home, etc.
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They got rid of paper because teachers are lazy and do not want to spend time grading things by hand. I’ve spoken to the head of curriculum at a school asking why when given the choice of paper or digital format of a math exam, they picked the digital. I specifically mentioned it’d be inferior as students would not be able to draw atop geometry problems or cross out numbers when simplifying expressions. The response…
> teachers are lazy Teachers don’t make those decisions, school boards do. School boards are elected or appointed political entities. Teachers are humans just like you, and like or dislike work for the same reasons you do, including your unoriginal display of classic American anti-intellectualism.
So even a willing school board is unable to do more than rubber stamp the status quo.
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I wasn't underprivileged but I did go to a terrible evangelical high school that had no honors or AP classes (AP bio at a place teaching creationism would've been something else...) and I think I only got in to a decent college on the strength of my SAT and ACT scores. My grades were OK (except in bio, where I refused to acknowledge young Earth creationism) but not amazing.
> My grades were OK (except in bio, where I refused to acknowledge young Earth creationism) but not amazing. This is... Wild.
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I wasn't underprivileged but I did go to a terrible evangelical high school that had no honors or AP classes (AP bio at a place teaching creationism would've been something else...) and I think I only got in to a decent college on the strength of my SAT and ACT scores. My grades were OK (except in bio, where I refused to acknowledge young Earth creationism) but not amazing.
Who gets to set the curriculum is a much bigger deal than given credit for. So many teachers complaining about the shit they have to teach. I remember one who didn't necessarily disagree but wondered why Al Gore should be the one to decide what goes into the [mandatory] documentary (in the Netherlands)
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Charter schools deliver results the same way that private schools deliver results: selection bias. It's really easy to have good outcomes when you have the ability to curate your student population. And though charter schools are regulated to make it harder for them to curate their student population, the statistical evidence is pretty unequivocal: they serve different populations than public schools, and their "bett…
> Charter schools deliver results the same way that private schools deliver results: selection bias. Wasn't there a failing neighborhood school in LA that got turned into four charter schools that basically rescued the district, without removing any students?
I'm saying that people make claims about the systemic superiority of charter schools that, under examination, don't hold up, and it doesn't make sense to direct extra funding to schools that are already getting better results by making their own job easier. For that matter, many (certainly not all) of the "best" public schools are benefiting from a similar phenomenon, which is exactly why California has its complicated redistribution funding scheme, to avoid rewarding schools with an easy job and punishing schools with a harder job.
And people love to come into a system that they don't understand, regurgitate the most naive, obvious approach that we have specifically moved on from because these systems aren't actually that simple, and think they solved the problem: "What if we rewarded success?" Wow, what a genius, nobody's ever thought of rewarding success, let's call the NYT, let's call the Nobel committee, you've finally solved education, thank god we have you since nobody has ever thought of giving more funding to schools that are already doing well by taking it away from schools with struggling populations. Thank god we have someone here to tell us that we should financially incentivize good metrics, maybe you can solve American health care next, and possibly, if you can find the time, you could address world peace after that.
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You’re making this about yourself
yes, obviously, because you called me out specifically. and you are using what i said, without necessary context, and extrapolating it generally to "educators". i'm not cool with either.
Feel free to take further offense, but I’m not expecting any substantial replies
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They got rid of paper because teachers are lazy and do not want to spend time grading things by hand. I’ve spoken to the head of curriculum at a school asking why when given the choice of paper or digital format of a math exam, they picked the digital. I specifically mentioned it’d be inferior as students would not be able to draw atop geometry problems or cross out numbers when simplifying expressions. The response…
> I specifically mentioned it’d be inferior as students would not be able to draw atop geometry problems or cross out numbers when simplifying expressions. All digital tests I have seen allowed paper and pen. You would draw and calculate on paper and submit the result.
It’s much easier to cross out a 4 and 8 to divide the latter (replacing it with a 2) then it is to copy the whole problem from scratch. Even more so for filling in angles or areas in a geometry problem.
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The most important factor isn't the schools, it is the kids themselves.
California used to have the best schools in the country, and roughly a third of our urban population is Silicon Valley. It's home to the largest economy in the US by a large margin, and is one of the richest states. Yet, somehow, for math: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/profiles/stateprofile?sfj=... the only states/territories doing worse at math are DC, Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and Alabama. I'm not sure what Alab…