* Yours is that the bottom 10% are declining. That says nothing about who is in the bottom 10%.
* The GP says the composition of the population has changed, and blames immigrants.
it doesn't say the immigrants are to blame, it just strongly implies that this could be a likely reason, furthermore for some reason to be an immigrant is to not be white which certainly was not the case when I immigrated to America.
American immigrants are no longer white, overwhelmingly.
That doesn't make this argument credible. Is there any credible source?
> rather than that they’re blaming immigrants, which I didn’t see in this post
We know well that the talking points of racism are formed to create ambiguity and use dog whistles. That goes back half a century and probably much longer. These are the talking points.
If, for example, they degraded, then it would indicate there is a problem happening that even the higher socioeconomic status doesn't protect from despite all its benefits (well it might protect relatively better that other SES, but not enough to prevent the downward trend).
If, instead, they improved relative to their past selves, it would indicate the problem causing the overall trend is found entirely within other SES groups (well not entirely, as it is possible the impact still hit this group but that other factors more than made up for it, but to keep it simple, we can ignore such a possibility unless we see even better data that can parse out these more complex relationships).
The most urgent things that need to happen to stop this are:
- Ensuring sick leave, vacation time, and improving wages, especially on the lower end, such that 1.5 incomes are sufficient for 2 child homes so that parents can have time for their children.
- Policies that severely disincentivize vouchers, private, and charter education so that there are fewer incentives to try and create "tides that selectively lift boats."
- Increasing the housing supply.
Americans, overwhelmingly, agree that things are not going in the right direction. What they are split on, is how to fix it, and what is the greatest driver.
About #2 (disincentivize charter education): parents created charter schools because they disagreed on the choices that was made for them in public education. It is very hard to fight this, as 1- they see a huge difference in test results 2- they want to give their children the best chances in life.
Finland solution was to ban all private education. Once rich kids were forced to go to public schools, then suddenly education became a larger part of the gov budget, those parents spent more time asking for reforms, volunteering etc.
They have one of the best performant school systems in the planet. And all it takes is not allowing a percentage of the population think of education as optional
How does the existence of private schools enables this thinking?
Or that's how I interpret what GP said. Happening a bit where I live: richer families don't want their kids go to school in problematic suburbs.
> noisy school-is-boring kids sabotaging the classes for everyone.
It seems that those parents realize that if the system does not care about ensuring that kids in school actually learn things, then they better leave than trying to fix the kids of others (i.e., parents who does not care).
I would argue that it is a net positive for those public schools: those parents still pay local taxes while making sure that there are fewer students -> better student/teacher ratio.
And yes, schools are funded by local taxes, but it doesn't have to be that way: if states really wanted to, they could take that power away from municipalities. The constitution gives the states broad powers to run themselves as they like.
Here is a simple example. There is a family with a combined 6k income, their expenses are 2k on rent and 1.5k on child private school, grocieries etc account for 500, savings another 500 and the remaining 1.5k goes on taxes.
Now the goverment proposes a 10% tax raise to improve public schools. Do you think this family would vote for or agaiinst that bill?
Now lets propose a counter example. Same salary, same expenses minus the private school, which gives the family 2k of savings per month. Now due to shortages in public schools they have volunteered at their kids school, helped with field trips, met other parents and families in their neighbourhood. Now the goverment does a 20% tax raise for public schooling. Would this family be more or less willing than the other family to vote yes?
By simply being involved you and your vote become resposinble for it. If you can pay your way away, specially if you stretch your finances to afford it, then investing in the system goes against your own interests regardless of the social externalities of your position.
We could have a society were parents of privately educated kids voted for a public school improvement, but psicologically and economically we know they by and large dont. Therefore the existance of private schooling comes at the expense of a fair, well resourced, and functional public education
> The extent of the decline seems to be driven by the lowest performing students losing more ground, a worrying trend that predates the pandemic.
> Scores for the highest performing American fourth graders were about the same as in 2019, but the lowest performing students — those in the bottom 10% — saw their scores drop by 37 points in math and by 22 points in science compared with similar students in 2019. The lowest performing eighth graders saw their scores drop by 19 points in math. One in five U.S. eighth graders scored below the low benchmark, meaning they lacked even basic proficiency.
> This gap between high- and low-performing students started to widen before the pandemic for reasons that are unclear. Since then, other research into post-pandemic academic performance has found widening gaps across race and income, even as many middle and higher income students are doing well.
What do we do with this info?