Comment by throwanem | Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwanem | Hacker News Reader

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> also seems to try to paint the picture that the ruling class invented education to keep the lower classes down

In a word, yes. It's not the first time I've seen such an argument made; Gatto (1) does so at considerably greater length and rather more forcefully, motivated by his own experience as a teacher and finding considerable substantiation in the published writings of many of those who worked to design and implement education in the modern style.

The tl:dr; version might be that, in purpose, this modern reinvention of a strictly regimented child-gardening scheme was of a piece with the Progressive Era's many other enthusiastic attempts at methods of engineering a more perfect society, and has proven to be no better advised or more humane than any - that, having been given an ample period to prove its value and having, at least in Gatto's judgment, signally failed to do so, the practice merits a place alongside eugenics in the intellectual and moral junkyard.

I tend to agree, and to find myself reminded somewhat of that marvelous satire of Progressive Era utopianism, Brave New World, besides. But it would be remiss of me not to note that my own experiences may have predisposed me to do so, and to exert less effort than I otherwise might in seeking contradictory evidence. From the sound of it, you are unlikely to harbor similar confounding motivations, and I'd be most interested to hear your evaluation of Gatto's rather sensationally named, but nonetheless substantial, work.

(1) https://archive.org/details/JohnTaylorGattoTheUndergroundHis...

Wow, 440 pages, that is longer. I will try to respond back here, but it wont be tonight or likely tomorrow. I see you have contact info, so I will be in touch there.

"But it would be remiss of me not to note that my own experiences may have predisposed me to do so, and to exert less effort than I otherwise might in seeking contradictory evidence"

Refreshing to hear this :) Seems all to often people confuse their opinions with facts. Looking forward to the discussion :) Some thoughts so far(page 10):

"an assistant principal screamed at her in front of an assembly, "BIANCA, YOU ANIMAL, SHUT UP!"" ... "Do I make too much of this simple act of putting a little girl in her place?" ... "I picture this animal Bianca grown large and mean"

I think he does make too much of this. To put it simply, kids do not act in their best interest. IIRC, they do not start really taking long term consequences into account until 25 or so.

I remember hearing teachers tell kids they needed to try harder, and hearing the kids say, "but Einstein didn't pay attention in school". Unfortunate as it may be, and having known these kids since kindergarten, they are unlikely to be Einsteins. There is a difference between being bored because of a lack of challenge, and because they just want to play outside.

Now depending on what your view of a more perfect society is, this might be irrelevant. But it would seem to me that without an education, our society would be much more like animals. Between growing up in a rural area, and nature documentaries, I have witnessed many animals disciplining their kids. Why? Because they care more about play than finding food. So I am not seeing the alternative here.

"understand the personality of your particular child or anything significant about your family, culture, religion, plans, hopes, dreams"

A good teacher should try to learn about your kid. Easier said than done, especially in larger schools. As for culture, while I agree that multiculturalism is good, I see it like a Venn diagram. The differences are important, as there might be better ways of doing something, inspiration from one domain applied to another can yield breakthroughs. But there needs to be something in common, so that we can understand one another. Otherwise it breaks down into tribalism, which I believe to be much less perfect. That's what the school system provides, a shared culture/experience.

"The cost in New York State for building a well-schooled child in the year 2000 is $200,000 per body when lost interest is calculated. That capital sum invested in the child's name over the past twelve years would have delivered a million dollars to each kid as a nest egg to compensate for having no school"

I believe it is well documented that a large portion of lottery winners end up broke. Not understanding things like compound interest, inflation, or even basic math would make it hard to use that $1mm effectively. While I would not blame the 2008 financial crisis on lack of education entirely, I do think more education could have averted that, or at least mitigated it. I'm not sure what his point is here.

Okay, since this already got long, I plan to email you further.

Thank you for taking such an enthusiastic interest!

When you do follow up by email, perhaps you'll substantiate the equivocation here of education and discipline, and of humiliating someone in front of essentially the entirety of her social group. I see nothing indispensable of the latter in the former, and it surprises me to see a defense of such behavior in those terms. I'd like to know your reasoning there, if that's a point you still care to espouse by then. In the same vein, I'm not sure I see where the experience of schooling is uniquely corrosive to tribalism, either.

As far as the million bucks goes - well, it'd make student loans obsolete, don't you think? Formal public schooling isn't the only way to gain an education - one of Gatto's major themes is that it never has been, and one of his minor themes is that, if you believe formal public schooling is the only way to gain an education, that may not be by coincidence. And a high SAT score, honestly earned, is a high SAT score, no matter how one happens to come by the knowledge that enables it. We might see a magnified version of the same effect that's driven up tuitions in response to the availability of easy college credit - or we might not, if the award isn't a flat million but rather scaled against local tax receipts or whatever basket of factors goes into pricing schooling per student as we do it now. But even if we did, I think a lot of people would agree that paying more up front, in exchange for not having to spend the first decade or more of their working lives servicing a gigantic load of debt, would be a trade worth making.

And for people like me, who don't pursue postsecondary education in the first place? Well, even a pro-rata fraction of a million bucks buys a lot of house, everywhere in the country that isn't the Bay Area, NYC, or a handful of other metropolitan outliers on the far right-hand side of the median home price chart. Not "puts a down payment on a mortgage for", though the option would still exist - buys, cash on the nail for a deed in fee simple. You want to talk about mitigating or preventing the 2008 financial crisis? What better way to do that than to have engineered the shady ARM market out of existence before it ever had a chance to get going?

In any case, thanks again! I'm really looking forward to your email.

One nitpick is that the $200k turning into $1M in 12 years is equivalent to 14% compounded annually. For context, the 90-year average annual growth of S&P 500 index before inflation (a commonly used standard benchmark) is only 9.8% (I'm guessing they backtracked this number since S&P 500 has only existed for 60 years) [1]. In 12 years, the expected value of that $200k would only be $614k. It's clear Gatto has cherrypicked his numbers by picking 1988 and 2000, which marked one of the biggest bull markets in recent history is by no means representative. What's more, the state can hardly be expected to invest in a pension fund composed of 100% equity, 0% bonds, so the expected return would likely be less than $614k.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/18/the-sp-500-has-already-met-i...

Gatto may have cherry-picked to enhance his argument, I can't say, but if so it's severable - even the principal alone, even in unadjusted 2017 dollars, would be enough to make a solid start in life, whichever route one chose, so I think it's fair to consider that his point still stands.

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