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A comment on Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong. Parent comment

Re:Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich k... by adamnemecek on Monday October 24, 2016 @05:47PM (#12783198)
The main issue is that you don't really learn anything in depth. You get some sort of very general overview but your knowledge still has so many gaps. If you make the educational system more efficient, when you leave the reformed high school, you might actually be somewhat proficient at X.
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Re:Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich k... by dragonwriter on Monday October 24, 2016 @06:12PM (#12783368)
Most people agree with this. What becomes more difficult is figuring out what concrete steps make the educational system more efficient.

OTOH, even that would still probably disproportionately benefit those with the best home environments and support to make use of the more efficient system, and increase rather than narrow the gap between the best and worst served. Efficiency and equality are largely orthogonal concerns.

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Re:Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich k... by Kalium on Monday October 24, 2016 @05:56PM (#12783249)
It sounds like your complaint is that the basic primary/secondary educational system does not produce specialists. Have you considered the possibility that neither primary nor secondary education serves the purpose of specialist training, that being reserved for tertiary education?

The purpose of the current design for primary and secondary education is to produce a general foundation atop which any sort of tertiary education can be built.

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Re:Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich k... by adamnemecek on Monday October 24, 2016 @06:03PM (#12783310)
My main issues are the lack of efficiency and lack of educational freedom.

> The purpose of the current design for primary and secondary education is to produce a general foundation atop which any sort of tertiary education can be built.

Yeah, it's not very good at that.

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Re:Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich k... by Kalium on Monday October 24, 2016 @06:08PM (#12783347)
It's relatively efficient compared to alternative currently available approaches. We have not reached a point where Khan Academy and Udemy can replace everything - or even a major part - of education after basic literacy and numeracy.

The model of turning a literate child loose in a library and letting them be for six or eight years should not be assumed as universally useful.

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