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Comment by llm_trw | Hacker News Reader

Schools in the US cost more than schools in any other developed nation.

Every institution in the US has been taken over by careerists and credentialists who produce nothing of value and are a drain on the system.

For a simple example in our area look at twitter: we were told the servers would catch fire, the end times will be upon us and cats will live with dogs. Instead the servers kept chugging along just as well as they did before with a 20th the staff.

At this point everything is so bad I'd support sortition for every public managerial position. You can't do worse than what we have today.

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As an anecdote on the topic of education, as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in rural South Korea in the 1970s, I routinely visited secondary schools that (at the time) were little more than drab warehouses for large (-70 students/class) using ragged textbooks and ancient furniture. Spirits were high, though, and these farm kids were successfully learning math through basic differential calculus plus a daunting array of other subjects.

Thereafter, I have only felt (perhaps unfairly) mild contempt for the perennial whining of US critics who blame low funding for educational failing in the public schools. In my opinion the blame lies elsewhere, starting with the family.

A quote I once heard applies here. "All a preacher needs is 4 walls and the good book, and willing souls"

For most of school, all you need is paper and pens and a place where to meet. A notebook costs a dollar. You can also do quite a bit of lab science prior to college at home, and music only adds the cost of the instrument.

I have done tutoring in parks and coffee shops and in some of those sessions seen more learning than the most expensive classroom.

It's about the kids and the teachers, not the campus.

If you want a really really good school at a really low price, eliminate the building and all support functions other than hiring new teachers, and redirect all of the extra money to teachers salaries. Then just meet in libraries, parks, coffee shops, and the houses of parents and teachers.

99% of the outcome comes from the teachers (being competent) and the students (being motivated).

See my highest level comment for a discussion of why blaming the family is intellectually lazy.

If all data sources indicate that domestic culture is the single biggest differentiator to educational attainment, who are you suggesting we blame besides the stewards of said domestic culture?

Go to school, get good grades, don't borrow money, look after your health, get a job, be polite, pay your taxes - these are all the fundamentals of a good culture and are massively predictive of success. Lots of this advice is millennia old. It's not the role of a liberal government to culturally indoctrinate its people.

Domestic culture is important but you can't have one when both parents have to be out of the house for 10 hours a day to work.

Of course if we go back to a one income family women will be rather upset that they can't work any more.

So fuck the kids I guess.

> sortition

Cool, I learned a new word. Thanks.

These are bold claims that smell like dog whistles but I’m unfamiliar with any specifics. Got sources or what?

If you keep hearing dog whistles everywhere you may be a dog.

At any rate a quick google search give you all the answers you need: https://www.mercatus.org/research/data-visualizations/k-12-s...

> Every institution in the US has been taken over by careerists and credentialists who produce nothing of value and are a drain on the system

Is the whistle you neglected to source.

I'm sorry I also don't have sources for the fact that water is wet and the sky is blue.

If you think that every major project from federal to local government being delivered over budget, behind schedule and with fewer capabilities than promised is a dog whistle I have a perfectly functional bridge in Baltimore to sell you.

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