1 Billion Dollar High School | Hacker News Reader

1 Billion Dollar High School

nytimes.com

24 pointsvlad27 comments

I graduated from a private high school in 2004, The McCallie School, in Chattanooga, TN. I was able to go because I had attended the academic camp(I know, I know. But hey, my mother wanted to keep me busy, and it was better than Bible camp) they hosted over the summer; from spending that time with them, they apparently were interested enough to offer my mom a financial aid deal for me to attend high school there.

Before McCallie, I had always gone to public school in a tiny Georgia town(Hiawassee), so switching to McCallie was a big deal, and a big change. There were definitely some of the things the NYTimes article describes: lots of money went toward athletics and athletic facilities(the US women Olympics crew team trained there), there were children from families of the ridiculously wealthy(most of whom were very nice, polite, and never snobbish), and by the time I was graduating there was a huge new dining hall/conference facility that had been finished, and plans for a state-of-the-art dorm building underway.

But I don't think McCallie misspent their money on those things, at least not in relation to how they spent on other things. Athletics never over-shadowed academics. Most of the teachers I had at McCallie were better than most I've had in college, and I don't know of any public school where I would have been able to receive 5 semesters worth of credit for English classes my senior year. McCallie had a great music program, and didn't skimp on funding for art classes either.

While I was a student, I never thought about the size of McCallie's endowment or how it was used, possibly because I never saw any indication it was being misspent. Now, Wikipedia tells me McCallie's endowment is ~$60 million, and that 85.7% of their expenditures in 2007 went toward program expenses. That sounds pretty good to me.

More importantly, the stats on McCallie's own site confirm what I saw among the student body: http://mccallie.org/Internet/Default.aspx?pid=336 Almost 20% of students receive financial aid, and there are 55 students receiving merit scholarships this year. At a school where the total enrollment is just over 900, that's a lot of kids who would find their abilities wasted in public schools being given great opportunities.

Sure, "never let schooling get in the way of your education," and other Mark Twain wisdom. But not all prep schools are just comfy surroundings and a well-known name for rich kids to pad their college applications with. Some of them are really great tools that give, and encourage seeking out, a great education.

The disturbing part here is that prep schools actually are good. If they were extravagant wastes of money, they would be irrelevant.

The reason we have public education is that we're trying to give everyone an equal footing to start out in life. This goal is unachievable, but anything that further stretches the distance between the children of the poor and the children of the rich raises alarm bells for me.

I wish I had a good suggestion as to what to do about it.

children of the rich

I think it's clear that these schools are using their endowments to pick up smart, but (relatively) poor kids. To a lot of people, that's no comfort, as a cognitive aristocracy is no better than a financial aristocracy. The strategy at the ivies has been to filter for both the very smart and the very rich. This gives aptitude access to capital.

If this article was about a high-end public school that got its budget from seized money (eg property taxes), then rest assured that the private-school-educated NYTs editors would have suggested some forceful "fixes" for the "problem".

I went to Exeter and Yale and found it the opposite. Yale was smarter and the students weren't quite as well off.

What is "it"? What is "it" the opposite of? You're getting a lot of upmods for a very badly constructed sentence.

(EDIT: I guess I sound like a jerk. I'm just wondering actually...)

Your comment immediately reminded me of Bill Murray's speech in Rushmore -

"You guys have it real easy. I never had it like this where I grew up. But I send my kids here because the fact is you go to one of the best schools in the country: Rushmore. Now, for some of you it doesn't matter. You were born rich and you're going to stay rich.

But here's my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it. Thank you." - Herman Blume, speech to Rushmore Academy

Do you never wonder how other countries do it? US ranks pretty low among developped (and even developping) countries in education.

>This goal is unachievable

I completely disagree with you. It is achieveble, not easily, but neither is it so difficult. Hint: it's completely incongruent with "No Child Left Behind". Leave the important stuff to tehnocrats, not politicians.

Ranks well at what? Standardized test scores?

Asian countries in general, and I know about Japan in particular, are very very harsh to students. Test scores up, freedom down. If our children don't put up with that kind of thing, maybe that speaks well of us.

What exactly "kind of thing" do you mean?

There is a very, very strong emphasis on rote memorization throughout Asian schools, over things like working in groups.

the essential issue is obedience. obedient children devote their creativity and effort into doing as their parents and teachers want, such as getting good test scores.

one way to try to observe obedience is to look at how harsh conditions people will accept when told to, without complaining and trying to do something about it. everything i know about japanese schools points to a lot more pressure on students to be studious and that kind of thing, and a lot less complaining about any decisions by authorities.

If it were just Asian countries, I might agree; but the U.S. lags those wild and free Northern European countries in matters like math skills and foreign language training.

According to ESL teachers, it takes seven years for an adult to learn a new language well enough that native speakers will want to talk to you. Although a child can probably acquire a language in less time than that, it is also true that the child will lose the language if he or she stops using it before adulthood. I have seen many arguments for the value of learning a second language, but they all strike me as flimsy. Please tell me why a student who already knows English or even Spanish or Mandarin should invest thousands of hours learning a second language when there are more than enough sciences and practical arts with much clearer educational value to last anyone a lifetime of learning.

Well, it is easy. Mandarin is a quite useful language if you are living in China, but it wouldn't help you if you are in Iceland.

Also, I've heard (don't remember where...) that not all languages are equal when conveying an idea: for example eskimos have a lot of words for snow and white. Some concepts would be very hard to express in any other language.

My point of view is clearly viased: I speak Catalan and Spanish (mother tongues) and I'm more or less fluent in English (hoping to take the CPE this june).

Well, if you don't place much weight on foreign language, that's okay -- my point still stands. U.S. performance in math and science is comparatively disappointing.

I can't really agree with your position on language learning, but I'm a little biased. I've studied Ancient Greek, German, Chinese and Middle English.

Do you really want to bring up the importance of foreign language training in schools?

The reason we have public education...

...is to allow the economy to function more efficiently, through pervasive literacy, use of numbers, &c. It's in the interest of the wealthy if they can off load some of the organizational details to a large class of literate servants, but that's not the same as giving everyone a shot at wealth and power.

The problem I see with my public school is that it glorifies the accomplishments that happen in some academic areas while it de-emphasizes other ares. If there are a lot of Intel semifinalists or high SAT scores, its all over the news, but if nothing big happens, they don't say a word.

It's understandable of course, a school's a business too and it needs money. But the problem is that the school didn't even do anything, it was all the students or their parents.

This is the main difference I see between public and private schooling. Yeah private schools weed out the really smart and really rich but most importantly they gather the kids that actually want to go to that school specifically while public schools just gather the kids that happen to be in the area.

I want to form a startup but my school is offering no help whatsoever on creating a business or in any other way. They probably don't believe I have the ability to make news headlines and promote the school so whatever potential I have is being wasted. One the other side, if I do make news headlines for some reason, they will probably be all over me saying how they helped support me the whole way. Sad isn't it?

Exeter's actually worse than the article says. Shortly after I graduated in 2002 they tore up up perfectly functional squash courts and replaced them with new ones. The old courts weren't as big as the new prep school official size, so they spent millions of dollars just to add another foot to the court. The money for the project was donated by the father of a girl on the squash team. He wanted the money to go to bigger squash courts and nothing else. It's his money, so he can do what he wants with it. But I can make a long, long list of more worthy causes, and it's a shame that bigger squash courts is the best he could do. Prep schools and colleges manage to own a portion of your identity, and they are incredibly effective at getting alums to donate money back to them.

I actually think the article did a great job of accurately showing the two sides of exeter. Dwelling on how much money they spend on squash courts or football stadiums gives the wrong impression and just perpetuates the common criticism that exeter is elitist. The reality is far from the truth and the article was pretty accurate in demonstrating that.

My point was not about elitism ( your right, Exeter is much less elitist than some people think ). My point was that from my experience, the vast majority of Exeter's recent spending has had no impact on the quality of the education. The old student center, science building, and squash courts were more than adequate. The $100+ million spent on the new ones is just over the top. It's a shame that donors couldn't find a better use of their money.

> I can make a long, long list of more worthy causes

If you had this much money then you'd just save the world, wouldn't ya? No.

I went to Andover (a frighteningly long time ago). They've recently announced a commitment to go to a "need-blind" admissions policy this year-- meaning that every qualified student will be admitted without consideration of his or her family's financial situation.

They may be admitted, but they won't actually go :) They'll get a package with a punishing amount of loans.

I don't think students need great art programs, excellent music programs, or anything else. Smart kids need a way to live together and away from their parents, without having to stress about how they will feed themselves, dress themselves, or stay employed at a crappy job trying to get some sort of decent clothing and food (or support their parents--not just with money, by the way, but maybe translating things all the time or other tasks). And not be around students who aren't quite there yet... otherwise, these students, the educators, and the students still trying to get to a balance on life all start wasting their own time.

I wish all schools were this good. There is no reason public schools couldn't be like this.

I mean come on, if anyone has seen what a public school looks like recently, it's sickening. But I guess the schools in other countries are in more need of the tax money than our own.

I went to a public school that was on par with some private schools. It was funded by real-estate taxes (wealthy area). I had a long discussion about whether wealthy parents make the difference in making their children's education a priority - and we concluded that it is the parent's involvement in their children's education that is important (over money)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com