brettcvz

Strongly agree. I’ve been made to multiple times to wake up a sleeping baby that was strapped to my chest and it feels absurd for everyone involved.

I set up a Hermes agent for our company and connected it to BigQuery, Stripe, Amplitude, etc so that our nontechnical teammates can ask and answer their own data questions via Slack. It works great!

I similarly haven’t found it useful to run a bunch of these agents in developing the product, but it’s a nice interface for people who don’t live in their terminal all day.

I did some research into this - the public budget is actually reasonably detailed. The biggest gap between your analysis and the actual expenditures are the SFUSD faces much higher facilities costs, higher admin cost due to Teacher coaching, and specialized programs for English language learners and special education

Finally, I have no idea where people are getting $28k/year; most schools in CA operate on closer to $14k-$16k per pupil

Also this is an area where first principles analysis is likely to lead you astray - I’d recommend starting with SFUSD’s public budget to understand what their cost structure is.

The big thing you’re missing is special education, and to a lesser extent English Language Learners. School districts are obligated to teach every student, some of whom cost the district dramatically more than they receive from the state.

Your admin costs are also low - you need to account for each teacher being coached and managed, running school operations and front desk, facilities management, finance, IT, etc.

This seems like the judicial branch just voted to give itself substantially more power.

Are there any checks against this? Or can justices just keep granting themselves more powers and invalidating any restraints?

> demand decent education

Yes, but with 125k schools in the US and 3.5 million teachers, how do you determine which of them are providing a decent education?

I agree gaming the system is always a temptation with accountability systems.

I’m not sure it would work like how you are proposing, since purposely stunting a student would penalize the school exactly as much as they would “gain” as the student catches back up.

Strong claim! Can you elaborate?

Also, the SBAC test administered in California, Washington, and many others is now adaptive, but still schools are measured based on point-in-time aggregates.

For those interested in this topic, I’d strongly recommend Bryan Caplan’s “The Case Against Education”: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691174655/th.... He does a much more thorough analysis of the value of a college degree than any other I’ve seen, including factoring in dropout rate, majors, meeting potential spouses, opportunity cost, university prestige, etc.

The summary aligns with common sense: college degrees are typically valuable, especially in in-demand fields and from prestigious universities. But the college dropout rate is around 50%, so many people incur the cost of college with little of the benefit.

If you’re a high schooler considering college, it’s worth it if you are “good at school” and so confident you can finish in four years and are going to a high quality state school or better. Otherwise, you’re better off going directly into the workforce.

Your comment made me think as well! I suspect we might be caught in a definitional discussion of the word “feedback” - feedback is a subset of “words someone says to me”.

My working definition of feedback is “things I tell you about something you did with the intent to help you do better next time,” which does warrant the “feedback is a gift” mentality, even if the feedback is poorly delivered, misguided, or wrong. The opposite of love is not hate, it’s apathy.

As other have mentioned, sometimes people say things to you that are not feedback, and are primarily them seeking status, expressing hurt, etc. a caution though that “this person is just having a bad day” is an easy, universal response for dismissing valid but critical feedback.

I understand the phrase “feedback is a gift” differently than the author: people are not obligated to give you feedback. If someone has taken the time to give you feedback, this is a generous act, regardless of whether you agree with the feedback or find it helpful.