While I'm glad you're able to infer implications, it would be wonderful if you could take it a step further to find that an argument cannot be true if a necessary premises is false. That's not bad faith, that's logic.
Governments can hire experts to determine standards by doing research, and then can apply those standards over time to the schools they regulate. They can also collect massive amounts of data and compare performance between schools, across time, determine means and check for outliers, etc. etc. etc.
My argument is that consumers don't have time to do any of that. They have time to do what they do with colleges: Read a limited number pamphlets, thumb through Newsweek's annual "best colleges" report, maybe spend a few minutes here and there checking data online.
We can, as a society, devote more resources to making sure the government regulation side of things improves. What we can't do is collectively give OURSELVES more time to do that research individually.
Richard Feynman relates a fascinating account of this in his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Aside from him, every "expert" gave good scores to books that were entirely blank.
Some quotes from that: https://fs.blog/2016/07/richard-feynman-teaching-math-kids/ http://whyhomeschool.blogspot.com/2006/08/richard-feynman-on...
I would argue that these experiential data are more valid than metrics like standardized test scores by ethnicity or "letter grades" that the government gives itself for its school. Ultimately I question the motives behind many of these testing methodologies, because when they're not meant to satisfy the motivation of the student and/or their parents, the student (and their parents) become the product.
But even if parents could choose between multiple public school pedagogical methodologies, many can't simply because it requires selling the family's house and relocating to a different district. It's hard to have time to impact a situation when the situation is already fixed before the fact, but of course then it's not a time issue at all.
Ultimately I was responding to a two-sentence comment from you. I don't think complaining that my response was "bare minimum" is an appropriate way to handle the challenge, and I find the resort to name-calling about the "age of 4chan" particularly off putting.
I don't agree with your developed argument either but that's a different matter.
Maybe you should poke around the rest of the comments for the article, because I've gone into a lot of detail about it.
"Parents and students have plenty of time to research important aspects of their lives"
I've addressed this elsewhere in the thread, but this assumption penalizes the children of parents who are poor, working multiple jobs, or dealing with health issues. It penalizes single parents as well. Basically, if you put the onus on parents to do the research, parents with more disposable time will make better decisions for their children, thus exacerbating the existing inequalities in the system. The whole point of the public education system is to level the playing field; what you're suggesting will increase the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
"...starting with the experiential reality of the school they're subjected to for several years. One of your argument's shortcomings is the implication that only an a priori decision making process is possible for the over-a-decade process of going to school."
What you're suggesting is that it's okay to have a system where parents and students make the decision about whether or not schools are good or bad by spending time at them. That is a ludicrously impractical suggestion. What happens if your kid hates their first day of school? Their first week? Their first month? How do you decide when they can make decent decision about it? What if they just hate going to school? Are you going to go sit in the classroom and watch the teacher for hours or days at a time?
Experiential data is not particularly useful on an individual basis; There are so many kids who just have a bad time at school no matter what, often for reasons that don't implicate the school directly as good or bad. And there are plenty of kids who have a great time at school precisely because they're not getting a very good education. (IE they're ignored, the work is too easy, etc.) Their experience is going to be fantastic, and they will enter college completely unprepared.
I'm not arguing that the EXISTING methods for measuring school performance are perfect; I am arguing that theoretically, the best possible version is mass-collection and analysis of data. Relying on individual decisions based purely on experience is a recipe for chaos; Kids would be begging their parents to change teachers and schools all the time, and how would parents have any idea if the kids were right?
I didn't complain that your response was the bare minimum, I complained that it was LESS than the bare minimum. And my 4chan comment was about the downvoting, not about your comment. Please read more carefully.
The idea that parents who don't care are penalized is simply a fact of life. Should we make the same argument about diet— that the state has the resources to appoint Top Dietitians and mandate a uniform State Diet? In fact, the experts that the state has hired have been corrupted by players like the corn and dairy lobbies and the nutritional advice they've given in the past has been roundly derided as terrible. Further, obesity has gotten worse since that advice has been given. Why would we think that the same state mandating institutional assignment would produce better results? Apparently, according to you, because other State education departments in other cultures and parts of the world have had comparatively more success by state-reported metrics? Again, I'm unimpressed at this justification for property taxes.
"What you're suggesting is that it's okay to have a system where parents and students make the decision about whether or not schools are good or bad by spending time at them"
In part, Yes! The way every other cooperative voluntary arrangement works! Do you even have children? I do. I have had babysitters that have made me uncomfortable on the first day. Yes, I have fired them and made the necessary decisions for my children. Why you think I should be legally prevented from doing that in the case of decades of dubious-quality education is a complete mystery to me at this point.
Experiential data are extremely useful on individual bases. Children who enjoy school because they don't have to do anything have been taught that education is painful. Anyone without that supposition would simply be bored, which would be a negative complaint rather than a positive review. The fact that we culturally accept common utterances like "school sucks" should tell you everything you need to know about a one-size-fits-all approach to educating a population. The argument here is to walk back the do-this-or-lose-your-house force-based approach and move toward a competitive and innovative approach toward improving individuals' quality of life. Your argument against this seems to be that, while it hasn't worked here, it theoretically (under some theory you've yet to elucidate) could, because infinite resources by fiat magically translate to infinite productivity and efficiency in real life. I don't think you've just done a poor job at defending that claim, I think you've simply done the best job you could of defending a bad idea.
Now what's that they say about ideas being so good the have to be mandatory?
This is the core conservative argument for abolishing just about every government service: "We screwed it up in the past. Rather than trying to fix our past mistakes, we should instead give up."
And I am well aware of the problems with the "food pyramid." Your example here ignores the fact that the government has since acknowledged that the original recommendations were wrong, and has been updating them over time to reflect the best research. The argument that "the process can be corrupted therefore we should give up" ignores that it can also be improved over time, and that governments are accountable.
"Your argument against this seems to be that, while it hasn't worked here, it theoretically (under some theory you've yet to elucidate) could, because infinite resources by fiat magically translate to infinite productivity and efficiency in real life."
I did provide evidence that it could work, which was that it has worked in numerous other countries. You just chose to dismiss that evidence out of hand because you'd rather come up with an excuse to disbelieve it rather than accept that a system you fundamentally disagree with can work. Whether you mean it to or not, it comes off as utterly and completely bad-faith argument to dismiss the evidence I provided out of hand and then tell me several paragraphs later that I haven't adequately described how it can be done. I pointed you in the direction of a perfect example, and yet apparently you haven't even checked to see if it's a valid example.
The short version is this: Finland had a crappy education system, and they made a decision as a country to fix it. They approached it with open minds, willing to throw out any ideas that were outdated and not backed up with evidence. What they ended up with was little to no homework, fresh-made school lunches, and the abolition of private schools. (The reason for the last bit is that as long as wealthy people can use private schools as an escape hatch for their own kids, they have zero political incentive to fix the public schools.)
You mentioned in another comment that you would absolutely accept a system that rewarded parents who spent more time researching schools, and I think this is where we fundamentally disagree. You want a system that allows people succeed if they have the time and resources to do so. I want a system that does its best for all people, even though that takes a lot more work and coordination.
Now, I'm not exactly sure what your motivation for this is. Pessimistically, it looks like a very selfish line of reasoning: Since you have the time and resources and think you're smart enough to choose wisely, you want the choice to do so, and if other people don't have the same opportunities then too bad for them. Or, more optimistically, you just can't imagine a system that works adequately the way I describe, so you just think your way is safer.
I appreciate your extrapolation on your ideas. While I'm sure neither of us have changed our minds, I find your position interesting and I'm sure others reading have been able to see a small amount of the breadth of the topic at hand.
I really miss the good old days of Hacker News when there was literally none of that kind of nonsense.