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Comment by farmerstan | Hacker News Reader

I think the answer to education is to break up large schools and have schools that are no larger than 100-150 kids in total. 10x the number of schools and have individual attention to kids and teachers both. Fire the bad teachers quickly. Have larger communal facilities for things like sports and more outdoor activities like a form of scouts.

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I understand the impulse for smaller schools, trust me. I think you'd be surprised to look into city schools and the capacities they were originally built for, compared to the amount of students they serve today. Part of that is land value and construction costs, but many urban schools are in a version of just-in-time maintenance. Your solution for more smaller schools is at play in suburban areas, and result in some really high-quality private schools. In the US at least, most school expenses are funded through property tax, so higher land value and wealthier areas are able to support better schools.

IMO there's a lot of credentialism in education already, need a master's degree to be certified (I do not, so I am a beneficiary of the shortage of math teachers since they needed to relax requirements to get people in classrooms). You can imagine my views on teachers' unions differ from yours, but firing bad teachers presumes supply outstrips demand.

High schools in particular have already become those communal neighborhood facilities for sports with baseball, basketball, tennis courts.

I think a lot of people don't realize the class size disparity across the country: I certainly didn't.

A few years ago I had to write a software application for a non-profit running a program for schools in the Los Angeles (I think: somewhere in Southern CA) area. In our rural school district, a class with 30 students would be a lot. In her school district, there was no class that had fewer than 30 students. I was in shock; she probably already knew that.

And before anyone asks, yes, my kids go/went to public school.

Currently existing schools can't find enough teachers. There definitely wouldn't be enough teachers to make this work even half way.

Respectfully, nobody asked your opinion. Your reply is not responsive at best.

This is a discussion, and there was nothing disrespectful about what he said. Respectfully, nobody asked for to jump in and be an ass.

This is one of those issues that people have a myriad of solutions for that they want to share, and I've just learned to appreciate the mental effort as it's usually coming from a genuine place. Too often though it's like, "if we just changed urban zoning laws and new construction requirements and how society operates and the societal expectations of parents, children, and child-rearing, we could really solve this gun problem!"

Sure, but IMO let's get guns out of people's houses and harder to get period.

Hey, Keybase is owned by Zoom now, FYI..

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