Hacker News Reader

Comment by MBCook | Hacker News Reader

The schools are a result of the budget.

The budget is a result of the Republican idea that extreme tax cuts bring revenue gains.

Neither of those is actual corruption. Corruption may have made things worse (I don’t know), but it’s not actually corruption. Just bad policy.

I think Louisiana is having similar issues for the exact same tax-cut reason.

NPR’s Planet Money covered the Kansas plan in January: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/01/11/509378842/epis...

View on HN

I would disagree. All of the alternative school movements are about greasing the palms of private entities with state dollars.

Most charter schools are real estate developments that happen to house school kids.

So how do you explain charter school achievement?

Charter schools that want to have great metrics select students in ways that public schools don't.

Has anyone demonstrated that charter schools actually have better processes? Last time I read up on this, it was a pretty hotly debated topic. If I recall correctly, the big anti-charter argument was that charter schools' improved outcomes were almost entirely explained by some combination of more school days, higher funding, and increased ability to kick out problematic students (e.g. no requirements to handle remedial or special education students, expedited expulsion processes because students are only being "expelled" back to the regular school, etc.).

If I remember right, it's also due to the fact that the type of parent that will spend the money and time to enroll their child in a charter school is much more likely to be the type of parent that takes an active role in their children's education.

There's an argument that a charter school's real advantage is that it attracts a higher proportion of parents who want to push their kids for achievement and have the resources to do it as well.

Is it corruption if those selling the approach actually understand what will really happen but see it as a great way to advance their own fortunes?

I'm never quite sure what kind of mixture of the gullible, the misunderstanding, true believers, the very earnest, grifters, con men and sociopaths I'm looking at. Oh, and those who are true believers in other areas and just don't care about the fiscal issues as long as their pet thing gets appropriate lip service. Oh, and end-timers who think Revelations is coming, the world's going to end for everyone except the ungodly, and I might as well get everything I can before I ascend.

Unfortunately I think there are way too many people out there with a philosophy of "the best thing about a few billion dollars of churn is that I can probably scrape a few million in profit off it."

Edit: oh, and would you like to buy some bone broth to make you feel like a caveman?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com