531–540 of 925 posts
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The number 1 predictor of educational outcome is IQ by a long shot, which is hardly affected by any of the factors you listed. Yes, high IQ kids usually have high IQ parents who are likely to prevent those things, partly because they are likely high income, but none of those are as important as how smart the child is.
It's actually zip code.
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This is absurdly problematic. Your solution is basically handicapping the schools with kids that perform worse and then potentially closing them? That doesn't solve the problem, this is just pro-Charter School propaganda that ignores the real-world effects of these positions. You've identified a real issue with the 'equality' vs 'equity' concept, that doesn't lead to 'Close public schools and switch everything to Cha…
What is your issue with redirecting funding from sucky schools towards ones that deliver results, while allowing school choice for students at the same time? I may be naive but that sounds fairly good
'redirecting funding from sucky schools towards ones that deliver results'
You are advocating for draining public education. That's the position this takes. And you believe it's better to give it to private education, all for-profit entities. So you have to recognize that the position here isn't "give more money to better schools" it's "give money to private for-profit companies and take it directly away from public education"
'allowing school choice for students'
But the bigger problem is that it directly harms public education. So then what happens is that public education gets _worse_ at the expense of the people who can afford private schooling.
So all this to say, defunding public schools is not a good position, and they are doing everything they can to try to dress it up and muddy the conversation.
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The number 1 predictor of educational outcome is IQ by a long shot, which is hardly affected by any of the factors you listed. Yes, high IQ kids usually have high IQ parents who are likely to prevent those things, partly because they are likely high income, but none of those are as important as how smart the child is.
Most people are pretty average and plenty of average people make it through a typical Bachelors program just fine. While there may be some concepts that some will struggle with or unable to handle, the VAST majority of school comes down to the effort an individual puts in. You won't pass with zero effort. Some may be able to skate by with less effort because they can reason better, but in the end it will always come…
The root cause of the collapse in math education in California is one bad researcher's work, combined with politics. Briefly, a Stanford-affiliated "researcher" named Jo Boaler produced two deeply underpowered studies claiming to show that putting all students in the same grade-level math course led to better outcomes for everyone — even the kids that would've normally been tracked into advanced math. But she only te…
> since Prop 13 in the 1970s, California has been 49th or 50th in per-pupil funding for public education (excluding college, I think).
This is totally incorrect. California ranked 6th in total per-pupil spending in 2023[0].
California has a formulaic mandate on K-12 funding amounts (Prop 98) and schools are funded through both property taxes (affected by Prop 13) and general funds via the LCFF, which directs extra funds towards schools with more disadvantaged students.
In fact, funding levels keep hitting record after record, with only mandatory Prop 98 spending rising from $59B in 2013-14[1] to $127.1B in 2026-27[2], despite an enrollment decline of ~7% over that period[3].
[0]: https://reason.org/k12-ed-spending/2025-spotlight/
[1]: https://ebudget.ca.gov/2024-25/pdf/BudgetSummary/K-12Educati...
[2]: https://ebudget.ca.gov/2026-27/pdf/Revised/BudgetSummary/TK-...
[3]: https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-k-12-students/
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I'd be fine with that. It would provide an incentive to care about the bottom 75th percentile along with the spoiled rich kids
Just FYI I was dirt poor and from a crap neighborhood and qualified for and benefited from these AP classes. Not all kids who succeed only succeed because of their background.
AP classes exist to pad the resumes of rich kids and justify their being propelled into academic situations that should rightfully belong to others. Prove me wrong
Why do we have such an easy time accepting peoples intrinsic athletic ability and such a difficult time accepting people's intrinsic mental ability? To me this is a 1:1 comparison, but people lose their mind when I make the comparison. College isn't for everyone just like amateur league sport isn't for everyone. I feel like I am going to a minor league baseball game and seeing a shortstop on the field with the motor…
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Also from my link: > factors specific to one's personal conditions should not interfere with the potential of academic success
Sure, but the reality is that such conditions do interfere with the potential of academic success, as much as proponents of equity like to argue otherwise. If I had a severe brain injury as a child, or my mom drank and did a ton of drugs while pregnant with me, or any number of other reasons, I will probably be far less academically successful than in the counterfactual reality where I didn't get a brick dropped on m…
The problem is that the solution that they're proposing is to force _everyone_ to have that brick-on-head. With maybe two or three bricks for especially "advantaged" categories.
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> What sad place do you come from? Do you have an actual argument? Shaming tactics are ineffective on HN. Reality check: in most countries, if you made a public demand of effectively depriving the disabled of the proper care they want and deserve, they would regard you as an inhumane monster, and the education ministry would refer you to state prosecution for violating the constitution.
Regrettably. A place where money rules and brains die
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It’s definitely actively bad to involve a device in the vast majority of education. And, it’s a purely selfish thing by tech companies to insert themselves into education. A student should not see a computer until college or vocational school unless they are taking e.g a high school programming or electronics class.
> A student should not see a computer until college or vocational school unless they are taking e.g a high school programming or electronics class. Are you really trying to put the genie back in the bottle to the extent of making high schoolers write all their coursework by hand? Or maybe we should bring back the typewriter for distraction-free essay writing...
The invasion of tech into the classroom has not produced more capable graduates. There's a lot of empirical evidence to the contrary.
The mind is a muscle, and developing that muscle is the education system's main purpose.
I'm in the SF bay area w/ middle school and high school age kids. Between San Jose and San Francisco, 15%-30% of kids are in private school (it's 30% in SF where the public schools are extra dysfunctional). That's far above the California statewide average of 8% in private school. Among our peers, somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of kids are doing advanced math outside of school, typically either Russian School of Math…
It has only gone downhill since I left, and is now facing something like a hundred million dollar deficit in budget which will likely lead to deeper cuts and worse student outcomes.
I'm not sure what I will do but the deadline to figure it out is fast approaching. Probably we will move, but not sure how to find the right place that isn't too far away or out of our budget but can offer a better future / stronger education for my children. I don't have the solution, but I know other places have done much better than my city sadly. I've read that states like Mississippi have been able to dramatically improve their educational outcomes with certain literacy programs.