Comment by neilwilson | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neilwilson | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

You can always rely upon economists to exclude any human considerations from the process.

There is no choice here because it fails the 80/20 rule of any hiring system. Any less than 20% capacity spare and there is no free choice.

So since there is no actual choice, why give people one? Is it the same as with toddlers - You can have red juice or blue juice - a way of giving the feeling of control without actually having any.

Giving people a choice and then not giving them what they want causes loss aversion responses. That is worse than not having any choice at all.

Kids want to go to the nearest school and the schools should be sufficiently equipped to cater for all needs in the area.

Every other solution I've seen is more difficult than that one and is based around psychological manipulation rather than solving the problem.

And no the 'free market' won't provide. You're supply side limited by the number of people capable and willing to be teachers. That's why you have to have a mass production system for education.

Why can't capacity expand to adjust for demand? Sure, not always possible, but in many cases it could be.

Kids want to go to the nearest school and the schools should be sufficiently equipped to cater for all needs in the area.

Nearest school to what? I used to go to a school quite far from my home, but within walking distance from my grandparents home, who took care of me for a couple of hours after school. I had friends who went there because it was close to the swimming pool where they trained.

We had that option because it was a non-profit school ran by a socialist cooperative, instead of the local rigid public system (talk about ignoring human considerations!).

Because there aren't enough teachers. Just like there aren't enough medical staff. It just doesn't happen.

You don't need more teachers, since the total demand (total number of children) remains the same. You just need to move them around.

Everybody does live near a highschool, but that way you end with bad and good schools because of economic indifferences.

They are doing this (rather than just basing it on location alone) to spread the pain and more importantly give children born into this world the same chances irregardless of the social economic situation of their parents.

Locality still plays an important role, but we are talking high population density neighbourhood. Most will live near at least three schools in an radius of 30m walk (10min bike ride)

It doesn't give people the same chances. It's a way of making the aggregation look good and sod the individual impact.

Which is exactly what economists are all about. We should be aiming at better than that.

Oh yes. I was arguing the (from the eyes of the government) optimal allocation isn't perse the same as maximizing the preferences of the individuals. Which is similar to your argument, except i'm emphasizing its intentional -- not a mistake. From their perspective they can help students that are not as well off, but not if they are concentrated in a single school.

I wasn't giving an opinion on whether any of this was a good (as in moral) idea or not. Although i understand there is an argument to prevent schools from becoming a political, cultural and racial mono-culture, even if a majority of the students would prefer to be at a school with 'just their kind of people'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com