Comment by eikenberry | Hacker News Reader

Comment by eikenberry | Hacker News Reader

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Seems like there are 2 problems with this.

First is that the federal government doesn't have the legal standing to take over the education system. I believe it would require a constitutional amendment to allow it and I don't think they'd get that passed.

Secondly, I'm not sure it is such a great idea. Currently federal level education direction comes from the teachers union and you can see the fruits of its labors in our current schools. Also I think this will make the current broken system harder to fix as it will institutionalize many of the current practices and make local experimentation much harder.

IMO what we need to do is move away from the industrial revolution era school system. We aren't training a bunch of factory workers anymore and that needs to be reflected in how we teach. We really need to do a lot more trials with alternative educational styles in public school. My understanding is that one of the biggest hurdles to this is the teachers union and their adherence to the current model.

I do think funding is an issue, but even if you could magically fix that you'd still have bad schools. There would just be less disparity between them.

There's not really a lot of debate about what makes for good schools. Small class sizes, and well qualified(paid) teachers. It is that simple. You can try whatever alternative educational styles you want, and it will not work in a class size of 50.

Nor does the federal government have to take over the education system to achieve this, it just has to guarantee equal funding for all students. Or the US can continue to set poor whites against poor blacks as it has now for centuries, and watch itself become increasingly uncompetitive with any country that makes a commitment to equal educational standards for all. "This used to be the greatest country in the world", etc.

The actions of parents are also a huge factor in the success of a school. If your parents make your students do their homework you can move forward with material in class quicker. They also will send children to after-school programs, which has a similar effect.

Parents are also somewhat a defense against bad teachers. There’s nothing quite like a parent hounding you and your principal about their child’s academic performance.

You need teachers who are passionate and regard it as a vocation rather than just another job. Pay and qualifications don't necessarily imply this.

Poor discipline in a school can demoralise a teacher.

You also need to get rid of teachers who are badly underperforming. This can be very difficult, which is also demoralising.

I've gleaned the above from having many family and extended family members in teaching.

I had crappy teachers for the most part.

I knew what I wanted though. Every class had 1-2 students that were hungry to learn, rest were there because easy money or such. Eventually dropped out and had a successful start to a career. Far outpacing those that stayed in.

That was a awhile ago.

I know some school have way better curriculums these days.

Still, I refuse to hire jr develops unless I see that same hunger to get better.

Pay and qualification go a long way to achieve quality in teaching. To get excellent people to become teachers, you need to pay them at least similar amounts as they could get elsewhere and give them some guarantees that their job is safe. Changing back from being a teacher to the industry can be hard so the easiest way to get bright people to become excellent teachers is by educating them as teachers and promising them a secure job with good pay. That makes getting rid of bad teachers harder but that's subjective anyway. Sure, some teachers might be awful but most way to test this focus purely on academic outcomes which don't incentivize teachers to help poor students with little prospects.

There's not really a lot of debate about what makes for good schools

There is plenty of debate about what makes for good schools. Many school districts are large enough to include neighborhoods on "both sides of the tracks". It is the same school district with the same pay, same class sizes, same teacher demographics, but different student body demographics. Result is often a large disparity in outcomes for students. In one school, a student who wants to succeed has to compete with his classmates who want the same thing. In another, the same student would be abused by classmates for trying to succeed. Parents in these latter districts will often make huge efforts to pretend to be living a few miles away to give their children not smaller classes or different teachers but different classmates.

This example feels anecdotal, small classes taught by well paid teachers seems like a hugely impactful improvement. Dismissing that because sometimes students don’t fit in with the environment feels like a straw man.

And saying "if only you give the disadvantaged students this they'll perform the same as the rich kids" feels like wishful thinking to me.

"Sometimes students don't fit in"? Is that really your description of what a kid who wants to be a good student in a bad neighborhood often suffers at the hands of his classmates?

The claim that good schools are good because of small class sizes and higher teacher pay, that it is as simple as that and that there is "really no debate" is false. Pointing out that A and B are not the only factors, it's not as simple as that, that there is plenty of debate, and describing an additional factor beyond just A & B is not "dismissing" A and B.

Consider the scenario I described: a large school district with multiple neighborhoods where the admin, funding, class sizes, teacher pay, etc., are the same but the student bodies differ. You might be able to equalize outcomes by giving the lower-performing school smaller classes and better-paid teachers, or you might not, but even if you did, you would then have to explain why a school with smaller classes and better-paid teachers wasn't doing any better than one without those features. The answer would remain the same: because there are other factors that matter, too. It's not as simple as just smaller classes and better pay for teachers, and there is plenty of debate about what factors matter and how much.

In many low income black areas, the culture among students is that if you’re trying in school, you’re an “uncool nerd” or along those lines.

They didn't say anything about federal direction, only about evening out the funding between schools.

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