When I worked temp jobs there wasn't a place I worked where if you showed up on time two days in a row and worked hard I wasn't offered a job. All of these places paid well over minimum wage you just had to be willing to do hard physical work. Society plays some role but I have zero trust that our institutions know how to help people.
I'd like to go a little further and suggest that more recently there's been a trend of not holding the adults accountable either.
Instead of trying to improve outcomes for all, we seem to have decided to choose the path of collective failure.
Schools cost money to run but taxpayers balk and cry over every cent increase. There are crumbling schools with toxic air and water that lack adequate HVAC paying their teachers unlivable salaries. This is the result of neglect to preserve and invest which is a condemnation of those who allowed such neglect on their watch when they should have championed such plights before they reached these new heights.
Teachers can literally be miracle workers but that makes no difference if the communities their students return to undervalue education or lack the resources to foster healthy environments to grow and learn in. Broken communities create broken school districts.
This goes back to the point I make in another comment on this page. We must invest in underperforming communities to bring them up to the average if we want to see improvements. This necessarily requires such difficult conversations like the poor Hispanic or black majority cities getting some of the education tax from rich white suburbs or something to the same effect.
Every institution in the US has been taken over by careerists and credentialists who produce nothing of value and are a drain on the system.
For a simple example in our area look at twitter: we were told the servers would catch fire, the end times will be upon us and cats will live with dogs. Instead the servers kept chugging along just as well as it did before with a 20th the staff.
At this point everything is so bad I'd support sortition for every public managerial position. You can't do worse than what we have today.
Thereafter, I have only felt (perhaps unfairly) mild contempt for the perennial whining of US critics who blame low funding for educational failing in the public schools. In my opinion the blame lies elsewhere, starting with the family.
For most of school, all you need is paper and pens and a place where to meet. A notebook costs a dollar. You can also do quite a bit of lab science prior to college at home, and music only adds the cost of the instrument.
I have done tutoring in parks and coffee shops and in some of those sessions seen more learning than the most expensive classroom.
It's about the kids and the teachers, not the campus.
If you want a really really good school at a really low price, eliminate the building and all support functions other than hiring new teachers, and redirect all of the extra money to teachers salaries. Then just meet in libraries, parks, coffee shops, and the houses of parents and teachers.
99% of the outcome comes from the teachers (being competent) and the students (being motivated).
Go to school, get good grades, don't borrow money, look after your health, get a job, be polite, pay your taxes - these are all the fundamentals of a good culture and are massively predictive of success. Lots of this advice is millennia old. It's not the role of a liberal government to culturally indoctrinate its people.
Of course if we go back to a one income family women will be rather upset that they can't work any more.
So fuck the kids I guess.
Cool, I learned a new word. Thanks.
At any rate a quick google search give you all the answers you need: https://www.mercatus.org/research/data-visualizations/k-12-s...
Is the whistle you neglected to source.
If you think that every major project from federal to local government being delivered over budget, behind schedule and with fewer capabilities than promised is a dog whistle I have a perfectly functional bridge in Baltimore to sell you.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/05/30/metro/boston-now-spen....
But the outcomes are quite poor.
How can society justify spending more on the same institutions that have miserable outcomes?
In the private sector, less revenue forces belt-tightening, purchasing software and tools that enhance productivity, and ultimately bankruptcy if it can't work. Where in the public sector is anyone held accountable for failure? When will we accept that simply throwing more money down the pit won't solve what is a multi-faceted issue that primarily isn't about money?
Maybe we should be investing ways to get parents to go to church? They would turn into better people.
https://oxfordre.com/politics/display/10.1093/acrefore/97801....
like what problems?
Does that contradict real data that shows holding kids back and suspending them makes them more successful?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03055698.2014.93...
The same holds for suspensions.
https://edsource.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Noltemeyer_W...
B) If a student has a consistent enough problem with antisocial behavior that they require constant intervention, they should be in a non-mainstream classroom or school that can address that problem while still fulfilling their responsibility to educate them.
C) There's a whole lot of punishment doled out in schools for non-violent conduct violations. Caught skipping class? Caught vaping in the parking lot? Dress code violation? Caught copying someone's test? Caught using a phone multiple times when you're not supposed to?
You seem to be deliberately implying that questioning any suspension means you support violence in school, which is completely ridiculous. Everything in life can be turned into a black-and-white issue if you ignore enough details and context.
When I was kid we had people that brought guns to school and were kicked out it seemed reasonable to me. I also think alternate school is a reasonable answer for kids who are violent or have been otherwise expelled. I was suspended for fighting and it seemed like an appropriate punishment.
The only thing I ruined for other students when I was in class was forcing them to look at my stupid haircut. My punishments were for truancy. I went to school, but spent all of my time in the computer lab because with severe ADHD without any academic support rendered class pointless. One crusty old Korean War vet teacher flat-out told me he "didn't believe in IEPs," and the administrators refused to even address the problem. I never once started a fight, brought drugs to school, or had a gun. While people found me pretty intimidating looking at first, I had a genuinely warm, mature, and mutually respectful relationship with damn near anybody I interacted with. No students really had a problem with me, but the adults actually enjoyed interacting with me more. Most teachers, administrators, librarians, etc would stop me for a quick chat to catch up, talk about current events, or whatever if we passed each other. I didn't ruin shit, and neither did a hell of a lot of other kids that were punished because the school didn't hold up their end of the bargain for academic accessibility.
> When I was kid we had people that brought guns to school and were kicked out it seemed reasonable to me.
Whoa there straw man. It's completely ridiculous to lump academically struggling kids or kids with run-of-the-mill behavioral problems in with kids that bring deadly weapons to school. Nobody is arguing that kids who bring guns into school should be sent on their way after a stern talking to.
Also, nobody said that alternative schools weren't on the table. I, myself, graduated in a night school program designed for failing high school students who'd been successful at work, and it was a phenomenal experience. They gave us a lot more leeway and expected us to do schoolwork mostly independently while working at least 20 hours per week, and we'd fail the entire term for all classes if we missed a single assignment. It was precisely the lack of patronizing meddling you're advocating for that allowed hundreds of kids to graduate through that program.
> In both cases
Kids are generally held back because they're struggling with the material, not because they're being disruptive. How exactly does holding a kid back help the system if there's any expense to the child?
> I was suspended for fighting and it seemed like an appropriate punishment.
I'm glad you think so, but that doesn't actually counter any of the data presented.
Kids that have violence/social issue should be removed from kids that are ready to be in school. I know teacher who have kids who have been disruptive and they can not discipline them. Suspensions/ Alternative / Expulsions should be used when appropriate for the benefit of everyone else.
I don't know if you have kids, but mine are in a very liberal school in a very rich area. Very unlike where I grew up, and they cannot run an elementary school. Both my kids are Add/Dyslexic. My wife observed a class and the teacher had no ability to create a calm learning environment. There were emotionally disturbed kids in the same class who screamed / ran out of the room. 2x this year my son was asked to go fetch a kid who ran from the room because the kid that ran likes my son. We had a 504 plan which could not be implemented because there is no bandwidth.
We need to look at how we teach kids fundamentally because what we have been doing for the last 30 years hasn't worked.
I don't actually think we are. If you've made a point I haven't addressed, I'm happy to address it.
> Kids that need help should get help. One form of that help is holding kids back so that they get a second chance to master material they need for the next year. If you progress kids that are not ready you burden the teacher the next year as they have to provide more differentiated instruction. We should reduce the stigma of holding kids back by doing more regularly. Its cheaper than the wide array of tier 1 and 2 interventions.
Did you read the paper in the comment you replied to? Because empirical evidence doesn't support that.
> Kids that have violence/social issue should be removed from kids that are ready to be in school. I know teacher who have kids who have been disruptive and they can not discipline them. Suspensions/ Alternative / Expulsions should be used when appropriate for the benefit of everyone else.
Still betting you didn't read those papers. Suspension/expulsion is absolutely one of multiple ways to remove a kid from the other kids. Unfortunately, it's one that necessarily removes any help or actual behavioral correction the kid could have gotten, and they're waaaay more likely than most other kids to need more intensive help. Suspension is a codified way for schools to abdicate their responsibility to manage the environment within the schools. So you responded to it? Great. You're not the ruler by which everyone is measured, and the data doesn't support your anecdote.
> I don't know if you have kids, but mine are in a very liberal school in a very rich area. Very unlike where I grew up, and they cannot run an elementary school. Both my kids are Add/Dyslexic. My wife observed a class and the teacher had no ability to create a calm learning environment. There were emotionally disturbed kids in the same class who screamed / ran out of the room. 2x this year my son was asked to go fetch a kid who ran from the room because the kid that ran likes my son. We had a 504 plan which could not be implemented because there is no bandwidth.
Zero people here are arguing that kids with disruptive behavioral problems should be in classrooms with mainstream kids. You're the one saying that suspensions et al are the best way to solve that. They weren't when I was in school, and they aren't now. Schools not having the funding or the staff to do what they need to do doesn't turn a harmful non-answer into an answer, or make it less harmful.
> We need to look at how we teach kids fundamentally because what we have been doing for the last 30 years hasn't worked.
Sure. For most of the past 30 years we've been indiscriminately handing out suspensions and failing to offer support for kids that need it. My entire high school career happened squarely within the past 30 years. Maybe we should try looking at the data we have rather than just saying what feels right and doubling down on the back in my day tough love nostalgia.
> I’m talking about stuff like navigating health insurance, paying taxes, budgeting, managing credit, home maintenance, vehicle care.
With:
> We don't hold kids back anymore and we don't suspend kids anymore
is a truely weird logic to me. Is it related ? Or are you offering to let kids get credit lines and suspend them over their mismanagement ?
That could actually be a great idea TBH. And while we're at it, adults could also get suspended or have to attend additional courses, instead of getting thrown into debt spirals.
That has been the direction school has gone and, at least from my perspective, it seems worse. It has lead to a loss of agency among now so-called adults who expect to always be in a situation which guides them toward success. They struggle without a guidebook.
Learning to fail, and crucially, how to handle failure and recover are better approaches.
I would send all 13 year olds to the factory for a good few months. Earnings to be paid when 21. I would also introduce Sunday school if your grades are crappy, 8 hours every week until you are no longer behind. And finally, call in the parents regularly just to annoy the fuck out of them. You don't seem very involved mr Jones. Could you be so kind to explain these grades?
A few months in the factory is nothing compared to your entire life. Stories are no substitutes for experience. Those who go on to get degrees and nice jobs would also benefit from the experience.
Sunday school because if you are sufficiently behind on the material you will never catch up. Never is a long time.
Getting the parents to show up and explain why the grades are bad will force them to consider why that is. I had lots of friends with parents who absolutely loved them but couldn't be any less interested in grades.
I appreciate how anecdotal this all is. How do you see it?
Well isn't that just awesome parenting.
I'm pretty sure he is equally stubborn and hot headed as his dad if not more so. Now that I think about it, he even believes in pulling oneself up by the bootstraps. ha-ha
It seems to me that there can be both a problem with lack of role models and problems with racial issues and that both should be improved.
It seems to me that lack of role models could be exasperated by structural issues (mass incarceration, parents having to work too many hours) and in turn the lack of role models could exasperate the structural issues (unattended kids getting into crimes, kids struggling to get into college since their parents don't have time to tutor them).
The self-perpetuating lie in American life is that all of these get solved by <insert market good/service here>. Silicon Valley has only made it worse because these solutions are just monkey-patching poor "source code". Why learn how to balance a checkbook when Chase online can do it for you?
Our parents' generation had it different. They had fewer health provider options, a smaller tax code, fewer financial products, simpler home setups, engines that didn't have planned obsolescence built into them, etc, etc. We assume that things like 6 different options for MRIs or 2,304 different credit cards mean better products/services, but what is ignored is that these have only made for more complex and yet brittle systems that are harder to navigate and create much greater analysis paralysis.
Banking now is WAY easier. Balancing a checkbook? All your transactions and your balance are available 24/7 on your phone. Your paycheck appears in your bank account automatically. You used to have to get a paper check at work and then take it to the bank (open 9-5, maybe a little later on Fridays, and 9-12 or maybe 2pm on Saturday) to deposit it. Paying for stuff at the store today? Tap your phone. You used to have to carry cash, or a checkbook (if the merchant would accept checks) and hope you had figured your balance correctly.
I don't remember a lot of lessons about managing credit but we did study simple and compound interest in math and talked about how that can work for and against you depending on whether you're borrowing or saving.
Home maintenance and vehicle care --- covered the essentials in home economics and driver's education. Most people then and now paid others to do that, or went to the effort to teach themselves what they needed to know.
Cars back then were much less reliable than today. Today's cars will go 100K miles easy with little more than oil changes and maybe a new set of brake pads and tires. Cars then needed regular tune-ups and generally started having more major problems after only a few years.
Health care does seem worse now. You don't have as many family doctors with their own or small group practices, where getting an appointment was pretty easy and they actually knew you. But overall daily life is way more convenient now than it was 30 years ago.
Did you get taught how credit applications work, how banks determine credit worthiness, how to depreciate an asset, how to calculate lifetime cost of a vehicle, how to draft a bill of materials for a project? All things everyone should be able to do. It’s the lack of these skills and the cost of living crisis that creates ripe markets of ignorant people to exploit for profit through their financial mistakes.
Your school offers home ec? Mine dropped it forever ago. Only the trade school kids learned anything more hands on AP chem.
Cars are more reliable sure, but less maintainable in a home garage. I didn’t bring them up because the best argument I have for cars is repealing cafe and taxing cars annually with a multiplier for wheelbase squared x miles.
I put a percentage of my income into an investment account automatically every payday and forget about it. What I have left is my spending money. That's very simple and tends to work for me.
You get the same info as your spreadsheet, but without any work.
Yeah, getting your engine rebuilt used to be a fairly common occurrence. Now, unless you own a vintage car, it's quite rare.
> You don't have as many family doctors with their own or small group practices, where getting an appointment was pretty easy and they actually knew you.
Very true. The US health insurance industry is to blame for a lot of the consolidation; it's getting harder and harder for independents to survive as time goes on, with smaller providers being less attractive for insurers to begin with and the ones who will deal with them squeezing them more and more. The increasing documentation requirements by insurers are also much harder for independents to meet.
Basic life skills are not taught so it’s up to the individual if their family fails. Importantly, it is unreasonable to expect someone to teach another how to do something they don’t know how to do.
I’m talking about stuff like navigating health insurance, paying taxes, budgeting, managing credit, home maintenance, vehicle care. Mistakes in any one of these domains can have devastating consequences that profoundly change one’s life. Simple things like single payer health care (only complex because of greedy people demanding a tax for the privilege the laws wrote grant them), personal budgeting education, and teaching basic home improvement skills will markedly improve many people’s lives.
We could also discuss more difficult topics like the complete lack of a meaningful social safety net, and the rippling consequences of systemic injustice but that’s less on topic and more likely to get me flamed or trolled.