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Comment by nineplay | Hacker News Reader

I've really re-evaluated my views of public vs. private schools during this crisis. I like a lot about our local public schools, but the district is strapped for cash and we are wondering if our kids will be back this school year.

Meanwhile I'm browsing private schools websites and starting to notice all the opportunities my kids are missing. Private schools can offer so much more and I'm not sure why we never seriously looked into them. They cost, sure, but we could put the money together if we wanted to.

There's been a steady outflow of parents from public to private around here and I don't think those kids are coming back. I don't know where this ends, but I don't think it ends well for public schools.

It's a pity.

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The real pity is that your local public school is likely spending a similar amount per student as the private schools![1]

Our public school system spends a ton and seems to not get a good value for that spending.

You can believe in government funded education without believing in government run education. After all, we have a food stamp program but few would argue for a government grocery store chain instead of food stamps.

Why is it that the cities in America have such great restaurants but such poor schools?

[1] https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2020/comm/scho...

> Why is it that the cities in America have such great restaurants but such poor schools?

This isn't really accurate, is it?

Food options for the poor in America are pretty notably terrible.

Nutrition-wise, it's not great for most of the middle class either.

If you have a lot of money, you can find people to help you in America, which is true for both food and school. But I'd much rather be poor in a public school - I went to one - than be poor and have to rely on the bottom of the barrel of the US restaurant and food system.

I haven't seen evidence that the private or public school system is particularly GOOD at overcoming a lot of the challenges that many kids face with poverty, but I also haven't seen the free market in the US be good at providing the poor with quality options in other areas.

(Note also that there are many many countries with much more socialized government programs that also have good restaurants too! Ones that might sneer at the chain-heavy state of American restaurants in most US cities!)

Charter school outperform public schools in poor areas by orders of magnitude.

Read Sowel’s Charter School and their enemies, it makes a very a strong argument about the situation https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/50623786-charter-schools...

Families with kids at charter schools choose to put their kids there. Kids left in bad public schools may have less parent support. So there may be some selection bias involved that can't be overcome with any amount of money.

I have a hypothesis that most of the students causing problems at today's public schools are the result of problems at home; be that a lack of resources, parents whom society hasn't given the time to be parents, or a lack of knowledge about how to be a good parent.

Better social safety nets and support for everyone should be an real investment in the future for everyone.

My SO has taught in some rough schools and home issues are part of the picture.

It also seems like especially disruptive kids need to be moved into classes with increasingly smaller numbers of students. That way teachers can more fairly provide for the needs of everyone.

Of course this would all be more expensive. So as a society we'd have to agree such solutions are worth investing in at a scale that will make a significant difference.

That is addressed in the book(this counter argument was my first reaction as well). Charter schools get kids from lottery(demand FAR outstrips supply) well they did research and tracked kids who were in lottery and did not get in. Their outcomes were far worse than those who got in.

My own conclusion from reading it is that few things really make difference: 1. Charters have strict discipline, violence etc is not tolerated in any form. Public school in bad areas are chaos 2. Schools can easily fire teachers who do not perform well. In public school system you need to rape or murder someone to get fired. 3. Shitty charter schools lose their charter and go out of business

>My own conclusion from reading it is that few things really make difference: 1. Charters have strict discipline, violence etc is not tolerated in any form. Public school in bad areas are chaos 2. Schools can easily fire teachers who do not perform well. In public school system you need to rape or murder someone to get fired. 3. Shitty charter schools lose their charter and go out of business

Basically all the same reasons that rent-a-cop type security places never have problems with hot headed jerks the way municipal police departments do.

> Food options for the poor in America are pretty notably terrible.

If you have middle class taste this is true. But the poor don’t have middle class taste. The market provides them with what they want. In areas where the poor are recent immigrant communities that’s cheap decent quality materials to cook at home including fresh produce. Where the poor have been in the US for multiple generations it’ll include a great deal more McDonald’s, KFC and highly processed convenience food.

> The Geography of Poverty and Nutrition: Food Deserts and Food Choices Across the United States

> We study the causes of “nutritional inequality”: why the wealthy tend to eat more healthfully than the poor in the U.S. Using two event study designs exploiting entry of new supermarkets and households’ moves to healthier neighborhoods, we reject that neighborhood environments have economically meaningful effects on healthy eating. Using a structural demand model, we find that exposing low-income households to the same food availability and prices experienced by high-income households would reduce nutritional inequality by only 9%, while the remaining 91% is driven by differences in demand. In turn, these income-related demand differences are partially explained by education, nutrition knowledge, and regional preferences. These findings contrast with discussions of nutritional inequality that emphasize supply-side issues such as food deserts.

https://web.stanford.edu/~diamondr/AllcottDiamondDube_FoodDe...

Yes I lived in a Spanish-speaking neighborhood when I was in college, and there was the cheapest supermarket in town there, and great Mexican food joints that were open 24 hours and extremely cheap. I never understood why people line up at McDonalds at lunchtime when there's so much better food around.

Mostly, i think, because when you see the mcdonald's sign you know immediately what is available there, what it tastes like, and how long it will take to get your food.

If you live in a neighborhood, you'll probably get to know all the local joints, but if you're not familiar and you have things to do, McDonalds is probably the safest bet.

Most people spend most of their time at or near home or at or near work. Everyone except tourists and those traveling for work knows the local joints. McDonald’s isn’t popular for lack of alternatives or uncertainty. People genuinely like it.

> Our public school system spends a ton and seems to not get a good value for that spending.

Our public school systems spends a ton to support low income students and special ed. I don't blame them for being broke but I suppose at some point my egalitarian principles aren't enough and I should do what's best for my kids rather than what's best for our city.

I'd argue those two things are one and the same

I thought most of the funding comes from local property taxes. That means there are little or no cross subsidies. I image special ed is a huge cost, specially for kids that need to be home schooled. But even that is unlikely to explain the high cost of public schools, and it definitely does not explain the increasing costs.

I agree with your concerns, but my motivation would be slightly different. The brightest kids. They will be running this country in twenty years. They will be designing bridges, doing surgeries and writing our laws. We want to invest in them.

I strongly believe that a lot of our brightest kids are languishing in bad schools due to poor family circumstances and I think it should be a source of national shame.

I vote both hands for AP programs in poor schools.

I'm just saying that if we can only retain one of "special needs" and "advanced", I'd pick advanced in a blink of an eye due to the reason explained above.

Disclaimer: my kids don't qualify for either.

> I vote both hands for AP programs in poor schools.

Everyone I have ever met who took AP classes in high school treated them as "get college credit without having to actually learn anything." They seem like a joke to me.

Nobody remembers stuff they don't use. It's more like "get college credits without paying". Having a semester out of the way is an instant 12.5% discount. If you go to a school that has asinine requirements with regard to freshman and on-campus housing it could be effectively a much larger discount.

Many private schools do not provide the same set of services, such as the speech intervention that helped my oldest so much.

The pity is that public schools are now the backstop for real social services that have already failed. Much like police being used to combat drug addiction and mental illness. It's a burden/cost that private schools don't have to deal with.

The solution isn't to go all-in on private or charter schools. It's to get real social programs back up and running so that public schools can just be schools.

Like Denmark!

our two kids (elementary school and pre-school) go to a private school in Bay Area and we are very happy now. They have in-person classes with very strict high covid-related guideliness. When they were required to close they offered an excellent online classes and lowered tuition 35%.

On the other hand, a lot of our friends with kids of similar age are super unhappy about their public schools. The quality of education and online classes is very, very low and they can't re-open in person due to class sizes. I now know several families who basically ran away from public schools to either do homeschooling (with other parents) or private school. Very sad situation to watch

It's just your typical government incompetence, unfortunately.

I'm genuinely curious what "excellent online classes" look like, especially for early elementary school. My second grader in Seattle Public Schools isn't learning a thing (except for how to troubleshoot MS Teams).

for pre-K: music - singing songs with her class, also dancing/gymnastics (project to a bigger screen). story-time after lunch.

for kindergarten: actually a lot of classes: art, second language (most kids in school are bi-lingual En+Ru), basic reading and math, also music, dance, gymnastics (again bigger screen helps here).

I would say it was actually pretty good and easy on us (parents) for kindergaten. But, yes, it is still tough for pre-K kid as she needed much more attention from us.

What we have right now is partially privatized schooling with a public back-up. The private schools don't have to deal with the problem of capacity in general, and in the geographic distribution of capacity in particular. They don't have to provide capacity for special needs kids.

You can choose a prime location to build a private school for 100 kids, and be reasonably assured that it will be filled with 100 kids. If not, it shuts down and the kids go elsewhere or back to the public schools. This happens sometimes.

And while the training of teachers is certainly a worthy matter of debate, the hiring of teachers by public schools is coupled with a standardization of teacher training and a guarantee of reasonable wages thanks to the union.

I predict where it ends is a small number of companies form an oligopoly of private school operators that are perpetually bailed out by the government. I also predict the emergence of local or even regional "school deserts" where families have no school options.

Market forces fix all of this. Give vouchers and let the parent's decide.

Availability will dictate choice to a large extent unless there is a fair amount of overcapacity. What if there are no schools with available capacity within, say, 40 miles? What if a large region has exactly one company operating schools? What if that company goes out of business during the school year?

Why aren't other countries lining up to try voucher schools? Let's see some success stories.

What are the choice criteria that parents are supposed to sort out when trying to get their kid into an available seat?

What if there's not a(n) _______ with in 40 miles? Yet loads of people live 40 miles away from a lot of things. Somehow the market provides for them.

"What if a large region has exactly one company operating schools?"

Like today with government run schools?

"What if that company goes out of business during the school year?"

Fair point. Are you assuming there won't be competition? Stager voucher payments through out the school year.

"Why aren't other countries lining up to try voucher schools?"

Indoctrination. Very effective way of controlling thought. I would recommend reading the origins of US schooling, from Prussia. https://www.forcedschool.com/post/69947261758/the-prussian-m...

"Let's see some success stories."

Denmark. Education dollars are tied to the student not the school district. Their kids are pretty smart.

"What are the choice criteria that parents are supposed to sort out when trying to get their kid into an available seat?"

More choice then what they currently have. Markets, devoid of gov incentives (unlike health care and education), do a good job with oversupply.

Don't worry, _______ will provide.

Of course the Prussian cabal has been secretly controlling our schools for as long as Prussia has been a country, but effectively? And I don't see voucher schools in my state offering radically different education, but rather, just doing the same thing with better discipline and fewer special needs kids.

Most children in Denmark attend public schools. They have a limited number of private schools, backed up by the public school system, just like I described above.

"Don't worry, _______ will provide."

I know. Capitalism is great!

"Of course the Prussian cabal has been secretly controlling our schools for as long as Prussia has been a country, but effectively?"

Prussia set the model. Our country uses it for our country's indoctrination. Not a hard concept.

"And I don't see voucher schools in my state offering radically different education, but rather, just doing the same thing with better discipline and fewer special needs kids."

Why?

"Most children in Denmark attend public schools."

But the funds are tied to the children, not the school district. Doing so would create more competition in existing public schools.

>>>> I know. Capitalism is great!

I was thinking "God will provide," equally hypothetical.

>>>> Prussia set the model. Our country uses it for our country's indoctrination. Not a hard concept.

But effectively? Prove that our schools are actually carrying out indoctrination. It's not even measured. How would we know? The origins and even structural similarities don't prove the intention or outcome of contemporary education. You have to show that what you're claiming is actually happening.

>>>> Why?

Ask them. Probably because of parental demand, and it's an easy formula. If charter schools are loosely modeled on the public school formula, it's easier to move kids in and out, and to hire teachers.

>>>> But the funds are tied to the children, not the school district. Doing so would create more competition in existing public schools.

You have to prove an actual effect on competition. Without overcapacity, slotting kids into schools is a zero sum game. The system may be quite stable over time, which might suggest that something other than competition is driving quality.

Capitalism is not hypothetical and we have evidence of it. The wall falling in 1980's Germany and seeing the stark difference in quality of life being one of the more dramatic examples.

"Prove that our schools are actually carrying out indoctrination."

The pledge of allegiance. https://www.forcedschool.com/post/69947261758/the-prussian-m...

"modeled on the public school formula" and "The system may be quite stable over time"

Like Detroit or LA?

"actual effect on competition."

Better quality goods and services have been the observed effect of markets.

Well, if the crown jewels of capitalism and Prussian indoctrination are a government run voucher school program in a socialist country, and the Pledge of Allegiance, then you've certainly got me. ;-)

Private schools win in this pandemic because they can be in person basically 5 days a week.

But good luck getting any type of special education services in private school. They will kick out kids just after the check is cashed.

That is a blanket statement and it just isn’t true. There are kids in my kids’ private school that have learning disabilities and our school not only has an on staff psychologist but also works with outside consultants to help on the more difficult cases. The school is extremely supportive. And there are plenty of public schools with abysmal special ed. My point is that such blanket statements aren’t true.

It's broadly true. It's not feasible for private schools to provide special ed services. It costs about 3x as much per student than general ed.

There is a strong incentive to keep special ed populations small or nonexistent at every private school. Both to save money and improve the overall "success" rate of their students.

The other incentive being the general ed students get a better education.

How so?

I don't think so. If you want to meaningfully drag down everyone in class then ask lots of pointless questions about minute details. Keep the conversation going for 5 minutes. Then do this three times per class. If you have 3 people like that in your class then expect to learn nothing.

Students with physical disabilities are usually very expensive to accommodate but not stupid or annoying. They might "ruin" their own education but not anyone else's.

Except that the blanket statement literally is true: public schools are legally responsible for providing education in the least restrictive way to those with an IEP, while private schools are not.

That's certainly what I've seen. Friends were appalled when they moved their kid from private to public and saw how much more support she was getting for her dyslexia in the public school. The private school just wasn't interested in doing much about it.

Public school support is uneven though. Some districts are great. Others are just great at seeming busy with services. Some are just bureaucratic nightmares.

The size of public school districts tends to be an advantage when it comes to special ed, IME. A private school isn't going to hire 3 therapists for the one child with autism. Maybe they find someone to come in for a few hours a week at most.

Public school districts can hire full time therapists and send them around to schools as needed. They also have the legal obligations of IEPs and cannot deny services to students without running up against federal law. They tend to have a lot better staff with a lot more training with a lot more hours they can devote to the kids.

But there are private schools specifically for autistic children where the entire staff, and programme is focused on them.

The problem there is choice of private school. There are private schools dedicated to providing those services.

Top public high schools are often better than private high schools. The public school can offer a greater variety of classes and extracurricular activities because they have more students. Private high schools have a much narrower view so are not a great fit for everyone.

Right, but the difference is that you can only send your kids to a top public school if you live in the right district (barring irregular exceptions like charter schools). You can send your kid to any private school you want within driving distance of your home, if you can afford it.

When I think of top public high schools, I include magnet schools, which are also only limited by travel time, as long as you gain admission.

By the same token you can live in the right district "if you can afford it".

That's what I'd thought, and our public high school does have an excellent reputation.

That said, the pricey private school sends kids on a 'cultural expedition' to Malaysia.

It's difficult for random people on the Internet to know what's right for you and your children, but I hope everyone tells you your heart is in the right place and naturally enrichment is something they'll come to appreciate as much as many other things.

The simple reality of it is if your kids have a natural aptitude for taking standardized tests well with little studying, they are sort of wasting their time in normal schools. Like how else are they going to be evaluated, or the quality objectively measured, if not tests? And then, if your kids just test well, without studying, they have this true gift for whatever idiosyncratic reason...

Why not go to a "cultural expedition" to Malaysia every month?

Why do 4 hours of homework instead of 30 minutes? Why read 1 chapter or fewer of many books, instead of 1 book you really enjoy? Why not spend all day reading 1 book every day, instead of taking 9 classes, 8 of which you don't enjoy?

Why do this structure designed for maximizing SAT scores and common app competitiveness? That is why you can get away with reading almost no books in high school and get an A in English, why you can take 10 classes and 4 extracurriculars and seemingly excel at all of them. It's not designed for anything earnest - of course it is impossible for a kid to excel at everything, of course there's something broken with the way naturally good test takers are evaluated.

Why not, as one mom put it to me, "pet fluffy animals" the whole day one day a week?

A lot of schooling, public or private, is stuck in a feedback loop where they are good at making the average student excel at test taking - recall, the only objective measure of performance - attracting more average students, thereby making their focus on improving test performance even more intense.

So many families are stuck in this trap, a relentless focus on making average students test well. Testing well - at once totally useless and also sometimes just given to some kids, by some gift.

If you're affluent and have such a child, listen they're not going to celebrate the homework, the cramming, the well-roundedness, the being-forced-to-do-shit. It will not ever be relevant in their life. If they have the natural aptitude for testing, it is impossible for the prevailing social order from distinguishing them from someone without that natural aptitude who studies 10x as hard.

This is the future of remote learning. Unlocking happiness for the small number of deeply misallocated children. Not helping the average student. Testing is the culprit for their misery, not remote learning, and tell me, what alternative is there?

I really appreciate the time and thought you've put into this.

There's so many consideration. If I want my kids to get STEM degrees and go to one of the FAANGs, they may eventually need to learn how to deal with

> the homework, the cramming, the well-roundedness, the being-forced-to-do-shit

Perhaps that's not exactly what's best for them, but it's a pretty good outcome for me so I don't know how else to look at it.

>go to one of the FAANGs

You realize by then, those places will likely be like IBM by then. You'll be the same as a parent wanting their kid to get a job with the local factory, because its what did you so well all these years, and arguing with the kid when they want to do something different, then the factory shuts down in 5 years. What you want is your kid to be versatile enough to go to whatever is the thing by then, and it might not even be a "tech" company. At least not in the traditional sense because at some point all companies are tech companies, especially as time goes on. Even Walmart is a tech company since they only require humans to man the stores to put things on the shelves and drive the trucks at this point.

Wouldn't it be cheaper to move to more affluent area ?

My logic here is you could spend that would be tuition money in more expensive housing market and get better schools .

People do this but communities also zone out lower income housing. My community says they will bring down property values.

In one part of LA theirs basically a small city completely surrounded by LA called Culver City. Culver City allowed for low income housing to be built , but then didn't allow those low income families to attend Culver City schools. Pretty overt classism( along with some other isms )

District lines are funny things. Our neighborhood could certainly be called 'affluent' and our schools are probably the best in the district. What I'm realizing is how little that counts for.

We could have chosen a cheaper neighborhood in a 'nicer' district but 9 years ago it didn't seem like such a big deal.

Yes, it would be cheaper in the long run. The problem is the housing cost differential can be several hundred K, and you may not be able to get a mortgage approved or find a low end home in the affluent area.

This is one problem I think remote learning could solve, like geographic arbitrage.

Just like before Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ etc you had one cable provider in your location, the package gave you some of the channels you wanted but never everything, and a lot of channels you didn't now you can do what you want, and your provider isn't based on your geographic location.

Remote learning allows you to choose a school, or even a teacher based on your kids needs. Pick one that has the teaching method you want, say you have a kid with dyslexia but none of the teachers in your local school have experience with it. You can now go to the "school" or class with the teacher that specializes in teaching kids with dyslexia. Your school system doesn't pay enough to hire and keep good teachers or at least live comfortably in your area? Say 40-60k in your city doesn't go far enough there, but the teacher could be in a cheaper city or state as long as they're board certified in your state. The inverse could be true, a really good teacher could work for NYC schools making good money, but live in NY State. Some rural communities are hiring teachers out of the Philippines because they can't find good teachers willing to live in those areas, remote learning may also help solve this need.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/05/arizona-teac...

https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/schools-in-illinois-florid...

Remote learning doesn't fix the secondary concern of American education. Child care. Millions of families are SOL since they can't work as many hours without someone watching the kids.

Remote learning isn't a long term solution

This is assuming I was advocating for eliminating that option either. All solutions have pros and cons. It solves a problem for some, and creates a problem for others. You're presenting a con, but there's also nothing saying a kid can't go to a local school to attend a remote class. Same as I sit in an office and my team works entirely elsewhere, and people in my office work in for teams that aren't entirely located on site.

In my country kids are leaving private schools during pandemic in favor of public ones.

Why is that? Do you mind sharing the country?

The market always prevails over the state. Private schools can only charge as much as the demonstrated quality of their product while the state as the default option is not accountable to anyone because those who can afford better can escape them.

> Private schools can only charge as much as the demonstrated quality of their product

Part of my aversion to private schools has been about what constitutes 'quality'. For a lot of wealthy parents, 'quality' seems to mean that their kids get straight As without putting in much effort. Money corrupts. Private schools aren't going to easily give up on $30k a year.

That’s not been my experience. A strong statement like that needs to be backed up by data not an anecdote though. Can you share a study showing private schools are less academically rigorous than public schools and/or give easier As?

That's not my experience. Many private schools are proud of their discipline and ability to squeeze all the sweat out of kids.

I went to a private school for 2 years in HS and it was far more challenging academically than public school, was also harder to get A's so I distrust your statement. Most private schools also have waiting lists to get in so doubt the schools care.

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