Boston Marathon Explosion - Today's Topics: Public Schools

Araysar

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Dumar_sl said:
Here's the problem in the most precise language possible.

There is no market for education. There is no 'commodity' of education. That it to say - every single person, child needs it equally. There is no kid who needs it more or less than another.

But because of how we conceive of ourselves, we create a market for it and let people buy better versions of it. What this does is instead of educating the citizenry, it further socioeconomically stratifies them. Now, because you have this two-tier structure of education, Billy Bob, to provide a chance at social mobility to his kid, not only has to work hard and teach his kid to do the same, but he has send him to a decent university that, thanks to the market system we made for it, costs minimum 20k a year. But then, in order to get in, he has to go to a private high school, and again, thanks to the institutional structure we've made out of it, now has to pay 15k a year for that.

You can get into arguments about scholarships and work programs for the less fortunate, but that isn't the point I'm making at all. The point is those opportunities exist because the system is flawed in the first place. You should not have a tiered system of education (or healthcare) if you want a more prosperous society. And that is precisely the problem, and through that problem, is where you get our crime rates, our incarceration rates, our violence, and crazies who want to blow everything up.

You remove the tiers of that social structure and flatten it out for all. That's step 1, which is what Finland did.
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That's kind of BS. There is a very large meritocracy system built into our university system. If you're smart but dirt poor, you will likely have the vast majority of education subsidized by scholarships, grants, etc.

If Billy Bob is forced to fund his kid's education in its entirety, that's likely a function of Billy Bob making upper middle class money and his kid mustering a whopping 2.6 GPA in High School along with a 22 ACT score.

I like how you preempted me with a disclaimer, that those things are symbols of a broken system but your entire idea of education seems to be to shove the smartest kids with the dumbest morons into a one size fits all academic system all for the sake of equality. Even Soviet Union thought that was idiotic.
 
Pigbenis

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So those people who got their house and property shot up during the shootout are they basically shit out of luck (have to rely on insurance) or will the state help out at all? Not to mention the one dudes boat that Dozeker was camping in.
 
D

Dumar_sl

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hodj_sl said:
This is...a strange way to put things. Children need to be educated to at minimum level for competency in the modern world, meaning, they need a salable skill set, the capacity to engage in daily mathematical and logical endeavours, and they need the capacity to reason through problems they may encounter on a daily basis. [...] The idea that you're ever going to make every person perfectly equal in education, in life outcomes, etc. is nonsense.
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Note that I did say if Billy Bob wants to provide a chance at mobility. I didn't mention useful or equal in life outcomes.

Useful is a broad term that can mean many things. I don't want to murk the waters with nebulous wordplay or arguments on what's useful or what isn't. That isn't helpful. Obviously, yes, equal opportunity to a post-doc position in physics, for example, may not be useful or needed by many people in the population compared to others.

What I'm talking about precisely is, we, as Americans, socially stratify or segregate everything and everyone in terms of wealth, and this stratification extends to every faucet of life, from education and healthcare to VIP seating at a ballgame. I was at a Lakers game awhile back and they had extra-VIP seating in the VIP cocktail lounge, so you be a VIP of the VIP. Huh?

As an American living in American society, you should not have the right to provide for your child a superior level of education based on your wealth vis-?-vis other children in American society. There should not be a market, a social structure, to allow you to do this. Why? Because by creating opportunity based on wealth you deny opportunity based on wealth. This denial is what sets up the socioeconomic stratification that starts as early as kindergarten. I'm sure you're aware there are private kindergartens? There are even private preschools before kindergarten. This type of flawed system is what sets the gears in motion for inequality in all spheres of life for someone, and as you said, even to the point of needing remedial classes just to make it to college. This should not happen and, to be as frank and honest as we all can, is a gigantic flaw and failure of the American social institution.

Society should limit and try to deter the effects of wealth inequality through it's social institutions, not encourage and promote them, which is what America does, and which is why we have the problems we have.
 
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Dumar_sl

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Araysar_sl said:
I like how you preempted me with a disclaimer, that those things are symbols of a broken system but your entire idea of education seems to be to shove the smartest kids with the dumbest morons into a one size fits all academic system all for the sake of equality. Even Soviet Union thought that was idiotic.
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Don't you see? This is part of the problem. Education is not a competition. There's no rush to the finish line. No gold star should be awarded for answering first. A gold star should be awarded for working together. Education is about collaboration and iteration.

The mindset and cultural thinking in America needs changing.
 
Araysar

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Dumar_sl said:
Don't you see? This is part of the problem. Education is not a competition. There's no rush to the finish line. No gold star should be awarded for answering first. Education is about collaboration and iteration.
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I don't see that as a problem. Academic competition and a meritocracy based on that, is what drives kids to achieve.

I wouldn't send my kid to some faggy, set-your-own curriculum, dont-compete, everyone-be-yourselves school. He'd get eaten alive in the real world.
 
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Dumar_sl

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Araysar_sl said:
I don't see that as a problem. Academic competition and a meritocracy based on that, is what drives kids to achieve.

I wouldn't send my kid to some faggy, set-your-own curriculum, dont-compete, everyone-be-yourselves school. He'd get eaten alive in the real world.
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Did you not read the article I linked at all? Finland is succeeding precisely because they're doing the opposite.

It's a flawed and outdated way of conceptualizing what works best, and especially applying it to everything under the sun.
 
mkopec

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Araysar_sl said:
I don't see that as a problem. Academic competition and a meritocracy based on that, is what drives kids to achieve.

I wouldn't send my kid to some faggy, set-your-own curriculum, dont-compete, everyone-be-yourselves school. He'd get eaten alive in the real world.
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I agree. Competition was a huge driving force for me in school. But it does not work for everyone.
 
Araysar

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Dumar_sl said:
Did you not read the article I linked at all? Finland is succeeding precisely because they're doing the opposite.

It's a flawed and outdated way of conceptualizing how things work, and especially applying it to everything under the sun.
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The article states that the Chinese who have a meritocracy based system have higher scores than the Finns.

Subsequently, the article doesnt address how these individuals fare in the real world when they have to interact with people that werent brought up in that exact same kumbayah bubble as they were.

Not to mention the socioeconomic factors which make Finland's population one of the most homogenous in the world, along with a robust social safety net that keeps schools from turning into Harper High School.

it's literally apples to oranges.
 
mkopec

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I agree. There is just so much to fix in this country before public schools are "working" like they should.
 
Phazael

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A lot of this, at least on a philosophical level, is the culture of self worship and greed that sprung out of the 80s and 90s. And if I am to be completely fair, that was a pendulum swing from the culture of everyone is special tree hugging shit from the 60s and 70s, that took things too far the other direction. Our society has literally become a giant pyramid scheme right down to the educational level. And education has become an ideological battleground with many people fighting along its fronts. You have the social/cultural warriors trying to insert their dogma into the system, the plutocrats dumbing it down to a level where it just produces obedient cogs for the economic machine they benefit from, and you have the absent tee parents who treat school like its government subsidized day care who just do not give a shit enough to get personally involved. No one is special, but everyone is special. Cognitive dissonance abounds in our education system at its most fundamental level. The results are really obvious to anyone who has been around long enough to compare small town public education from three decades ago to what it has become. The richer people get to shove their yuppie larvae into nicer schools, but that is just magnifying the problem for the populace at large, which is one of willful ignorance. Just wait until this current batch of fucktards start running the country and watch what happens in two decades.

Araysar, I generally enjoy your spin on things, but you have no idea how far things have slid in the realm of public education, because you are both too young and were not a part of what it was like in the earlier eras. Money has invaded the system, just like every other area of society, starting the widening gap even earlier in life, furthering the two tier state in this country.
 
Araysar

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I'm not sure what you are talking about. I've seen education from the both extremes unlike 99% of the people here. In the 1980s, I went to schools from kindergarten to 5th grade in USSR. Atheism, uniforms, red Lenin sashes, marching, mandatory Pioneer enrollment, the whole nine yards. Then I came to US and went to a private Catholic school from 5-12 and then voluntarily enrolled and graduated from a Catholic university.

I see Dumar's proposal as ludicrous on its face, it works for Finland and that's great. Now imagine establishing one school in Chicago with that kind of approach where you have a typical CPS mix of students: middle class whites, lower class blacks and hispanics, recently immigrated asians and a sprinkling of the rest. They'd be lucky to finish a semester.

I'm by no means a genius and i did my fair share of slacking off and dicking around. According to everyone here, I would have fallen through the cracks long ago and been exploited by the system.
 
fanaskin

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You're lucky the average person is pretty dumb here, and 1/2 of them are dumber than that. Catholic school would be private education. So you went to a private school and you do better than avg? you prove the point?
 
Araysar

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fanaskin_sl said:
You're lucky the average person is pretty dumb here, and 1/2 of them are dumber than that. Catholic school would be private education. So you went to a private school and you do better than avg? you prove the point?
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I went to a public school briefly but my parents were mortified by what they saw. American public schools made Soviet schools look like an educational utopia.

I also find it amusing that a guy who gargles with peroxide to cure brain infections gets to comment on the intelligence of others. Didn't need a private school diploma to peg you for a moron.
 
Phazael

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That does not contradict my point. The quality of public education started a swift nose dive right around the time you came to this country, at least in the Midwest. The coastal areas started the decline earlier and the deep south has never had anything resembling a descent public education system. Consider yourself fortunate for having access to private education. I was mortified in the sharp decline in what I saw in just a five year period when the major decline hit the Midwest.

Edit: I agree in principle that the economic issues need to be addressed before any reasonable improvements to public education are possible, but as long as the general masses keep slipping further into ignorance and conditioned obedience, there can never be the societal fixes needed. Chicken and the egg, as it were.
 
mkopec

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Meh, im not sure the education system is slipping as you are saying. I have 2 kids in public schools and from what I see they are pushing them harder than when I was a kid. The both are doing math and reading at a level way higher than I at their age and they get tons of homework to do, way more than I ever did. sometimes a few hours a night. which IMO is bullshit because they need time to be fucking kids too. 6 hours a day is long enough IMO.

I just dont see how schools are getting worse. Again, judging from my kids and what they are doing in school, I say its getting better.
 
fanaskin

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"and they get tons of homework to do, way more than I ever did. "

that isn't a real metric for learning, a lot of times they give you lots of busy work to teach you what to think to regurgitate for the test and forget, not how to think.
 
Araysar

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Phazael_sl said:
That does not contradict my point. The quality of public education started a swift nose dive right around the time you came to this country, at least in the Midwest. The coastal areas started the decline earlier and the deep south has never had anything resembling a descent public education system. Consider yourself fortunate for having access to private education. I was mortified in the sharp decline in what I saw in just a five year period when the major decline hit the Midwest.

Edit: I agree in principle that the economic issues need to be addressed before any reasonable improvements to public education are possible, but as long as the general masses keep slipping further into ignorance and conditioned obedience, there can never be the societal fixes needed. Chicken and the egg, as it were.
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I find the notion that private education to be unaffordable to be dishonest.

Private education is affordable for a lot more people than you think, but they have to make sacrifices for the sake of education in order to sacrifice their personal wants/needs for the future of their children. A lot of people who could do that, dont place the borderline sacred value that my family and I put on the education and use that money for entertainment, consumer goods, etc. I was raised by a single parent essentially from 6th grade onwards and my tuition for private elementary school was something like $300 a month. Looks like the current tuition is $3,410. That doesn't even match inflation. My mother wasn't some colossal earner either. When she came to US, she tended bar for few years at first and then went to a trade school and learned to become a dental assistant. I think the most money she ever made was in early 2000s and I dont think her salary ever eclipsed $35,000 at the most. Meaning that when I was going to private school in the 1990s, she was probably making somewhere around $25k/year
 
Phazael

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If you are a Midwesterner and catholic, it is affordable to most middle class income people, at least in the 70s. Other situations vary from that. Remember also that wages of families have not kept pace with cost of living for the past couple decades.

As for the quality of education, making kids memorize data is a lot different in teaching them to think for themselves. The former has gradually replaced the latter over the past few decades, all in the name of creating good little worker bees.
 
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