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Comment by Zamicol | Hacker News Reader

I went to a public middle school that's the among the lowest funded in the State of Colorado, yet it has frequently ranked in the top 10 in the State of Colorado (frequently in the top 1 or 2 for math and reading) and it's the top rated school in the city. It's also located in Pueblo, a town of historic poverty relative to the rest of Colorado.

The problems with the system are obvious: lack of discipline, bad teachers, bad curriculum, not focusing on merit, not focusing on grades, lazy enforcement of rules, not focusing on a learning environment. Note that money doesn't appear in the list of problems. They also had the fewest schooling hours of any school in the district and almost no homework.

It was ran by a genius who cared and was willing to say "no" to the dogma of his teaching peers.

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> Note that money doesn't appear in the list of problems

> bad teachers

Perhaps if teaching offered higher salaries, you would get better teachers. Why would a talented teacher work in a US state school if they could instead get a job in the tech industry or work in a foreign private school?

That school, Connect, allocates much less money on things that don't matter so they can pay their teachers well.

Prioritizing teacher pay is a must, but their teachers are also not outrageously payed.

It's a matter of priority. Teacher pay should be a priority.

> lack of discipline, bad teachers, bad curriculum, not focusing on merit, not focusing on grades, lazy enforcement of rules, not focusing on a learning environment.

Ah, the old standards. These are the same reasons schools were failing 50 years ago.

> Note that money doesn't appear in the list of problems.

Actually it does, Colorado pays below average for teachers. If I paid below average for developers, I'd probably have bad developers.

As I said, that school is the among the lowest funded in the State of Colorado, yet it has frequently ranked in the top 10 in the State of Colorado.

How is that explained?

You said it yourself "Genius Principal"! What happens when they retire? Sure, occasionally you will get excellence despite a lack of resources but that's sheer luck.

My high school was exceptional due to a confluence of factors leading to a great staff but it has faded in the past 40 years and is now only average in our province.

>not focusing on grades

Thats good. Grades are like scrum story points

Irrelevant imaginary metric.

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