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Comment by enchiridion | Hacker News Reader

I agree. How do we change it?

You can start with supporting charter schools. They're public schools that are allowed to push out of typical restrictions and teach children in new ways. Overall, they're an excellent investment and the data shows that they work. They face many strong and sad political challenges. There's a recent book called Charter Schools and their Enemies that is a good read about the story of them.

The author of the book you mention is a fan of the current, utterly disastrous Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. That's an instant write-off to me.

Maybe it should be a prompt to look at DeVos with a fresh mind, instead?

I've heard very little about her actual actions or policies beyond revoking the "Dear Colleague" letter.

Nah, pass.

Before joining the Trump administration, [DeVos]...had a strong hand in the spread of for-profit charter schools in her home state of Michigan, which saw a dramatic drop in average school performances after her pet policies were enacted. As secretary of education, she's consistently sidelined student civil rights and worked to make debt relief harder than ever.

https://www.gq.com/story/betsy-devos-is-the-worst

Even Trump overruled her on plans to gut the Special Olympics

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/27/betsy-devos-...

in response to a question about whether guns belonged in schools, she referred to a school in Wyoming and said, “I would imagine that there is probably a gun in the schools to protect from potential grizzlies.”

DeVos was confirmed by the Senate — but only, for the first time in U.S. history, after a vice president had to vote to break a tie.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2019/10/25/betsy-de...

My initial concerns with DeVos were twofold: first, she had never spent a single day in an American public school and second, that the primary reason she was appointed was the millions of dollars she contributed to Trump’s campaign.

It seemed very unlikely that out of roughly 150 million eligible Americans, the very best choice was someone who had zero experience with the public school system.

After she began her work, the thing that I particularly disliked was her support of Indiana charter schools to both receive federal taxpayer funding while at the same time being allowed to ban a student for being gay (or their parents being gay).

Her actions and policies aren't well-publicized, but they're not good.

As a simple example: in 2017, DeVos and Trump proposed "cutting $1.2 billion for after-school programs that serve 1.6 million children, most of whom are poor, and $2.1 billion for teacher training and class-size reduction" [1]. These cuts also affected efforts such as mentoring, recruitment, and retention [2].

In 2018, she proposed regulations that "require full hearings, cross examination of sexual assault victims, and raise the standard of evidence to hold a student accused of sexual assault accountable" [3], which experts have said "would allow schools and the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to ignore much of the sexual harassment that occurs in schools" [3].

I don't even know how to summarize this whole mess, so I'm just going to use the subtitle of the article: "The administration wants to keep schools safe by ditching rules meant to prevent racial bias in school discipline" [4].

More recently, she "illegally delayed an Obama-era rule that required states to address racial disparities in special education programs" [5].

[1]: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/trumps-first-... [2]: http://www.nea.org/assets/docs/Funding-the-Wall-vs-ESEA-Titl... [3]: https://www.thedp.com/article/2018/11/betsy-devos-education-... [4]: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/12/trumps... [5]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/politics/betsy-devos-s...

She tried to defund the Special Olympics. Her brother, Erik Prince, founded Blackwater, the security contractor repeatedly accused of murder and other crimes in Iraq. She had no experience in education prior to her appointment. Her stated goal is to defund public education, and her own department, in favor of using public money to support private "faith-based" schools. She's taking advantage of the pandemic to try and steer stimulus money intended for public schools into the hands of wealthy private schools. Even by the low low standards of the Trump administration, she a notably horrible public servant, defiling the department she's supposed to be leading. There is an endless supply of well-sourced stories trashing her, but here's one more or less at random: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/betsy-devos-s...

It really shouldn't be. This is an excellent opportunity to hear a well-reasoned argument for charter schools. If they do help, wouldn't you want to know, and wouldn't you want to be able to argue for it?

Edit: Further, the only connection I can find between these two is support before her confirmation [0][1], based on the grounds that she is for school choice. Which is no surprise he agrees with considering the learnings of the book.

[0] https://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2017/02/04/educ...

[1] https://www.creators.com/read/thomas-sowell/02/17/education-...

Your logic is indefensible.

> Overall, they're an excellent investment and the data shows that they work.

Searching, I'm finding mixed results. It seems like some studies show that they have worked in specific situations, whereas others show that they have not worked on other specific situations. I wasn't able to find a comprehensive survey that drew overall conclusions. Are you aware of one?

I'm also finding little research on the impact of a charter school on students of the public schools which they would otherwise have attended.

Are these topics that the book addresses?

Yes, these are exactly the topics the book addresses. A lot of it focuses explicitly on the difference in results between charter and non-charter schools in the same building, with the same demographics and student pool. If you're thinking of a "what about x," it is probably considered.

The first one or two chapters is sort of dry due to pretty much just listing statistics, but it subsequently gets more interesting.

This is just not an adequate summary of the decidedly mixed record of charter schools.

My kid, now 14, goes to a Los Angeles USD public school that offers specialized magnet programs for gifted and, separately, highly gifted, kids. The highly gifted program is quite accelerated and could accommodate some of the special needs you see evidence of in the comments here. (They are with their peers, not put into classes with older kids.)

On the other hand, the charter movement in LA, purports to solve the school choice problem, had a lot of encouragement from the political establishment (both R and D over probably 20 years). But — a lot of people in LA view the charter experiment as generally a failure and a distraction from actually improving the schools we have. This overview (https://laist.com/2018/07/22/do_not_publish_-_ref_rodriguez_...) provides a good run-down of the sorry end of the "pro-charter" majority that prevailed in the LAUSD board.

The pro-charter board president was directing public funds to a private charter organization he was separately paid by. He had support of Reed Hastings, the Gates Foundation, and a host of well-meaning billionaires (and some not so well-meaning).

More generally, the whole concept of charters and a market in elementary education has fundamental flaws. Starting with the fact that there are no good ways for parents to really judge the effectiveness or quality of instruction.

My comment by itself certainly isn't an adequate summary. That's why I recommended a whole book.

You claimed that "the data shows they work" and I was pushing back against that because it is false. Charters failed in LAUSD, the second-largest school system in the US.

It was honestly tried here, with the backing of several successive mayors, and donations from several rich foundations and billionaires. It turned out the profit motive wasn't as helpful in this setting as abstract speculation had supposed. Speaking personally, I used to defend charters but I changed my mind after this record of failure.

As long as we're linking books, here's this book reference from Diane Ravitch (https://dianeravitch.com/about-diane/):

During the 1980s and 1990s and into the early years of the twenty-first century — as a writer, professor, assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush, and member of prestigious conservative think tanks, such as the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation and the Koret task force at the Hoover Institution — Diane Ravitch was a leading advocate of conservative ideas for fixing America’s education system, including charter schools, standards, accountability, and high-stakes standardized testing. But about 2006-07, she began to realize that these policies were not working. She began to criticize them, and to criticize the federal “No child left behind” law, with the publication of the book, The Death and Life of the Great American School System, she became one of the most outspoken critics of ideas she once championed.

Here's a short article of hers showing how for-profit charters in New York City managed to co-opt the education agenda of the mayor: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2014/03/27/new-york-charters-a...

I'll read yours if you read mine! I think Charter Schools and their Enemies may contain some stuff on CA schools but I haven't gotten that far yet. It starts out talking about NYC schools. It literally contains tables of data. I know that neither of us can come to a well-rounded conclusion without putting in a good faith effort to listen to arguments from both sides. It would be nice to be able to come back after doing so and continue the discussion.

Like I said, I have already studied this question to my satisfaction.

Also, in general, I have lost patience with much good-faith argument regarding neoconservative initiatives. In retrospect, I think most of the money and power behind the charter schools initiative became focused on dismantling public schools, and (like Diane Ravitch) I regret ever arguing for the benefits of charters.

That's a bummer. You mentioned California specifically and one of the things discussed in the book is how charter schools in California specifically were neutered in important ways to basically remove their advantages; to remove what allowed charter schools to perform better anyway; to make them indistinguishable and therefore pointless. So it's no surprise any review of the performance of these specific schools would not be compelling.

But deeper than that I think you've adopted an awfully defeatist and close-minded opinion. You don't have to keep yourself updated or read new things, but you must also then admit that your understanding is not sufficient, and that your opinion may be uneducated. No matter how much you read of any topic, there is always more to learn and new perspectives to be shared. Especially with such a new, live topic.

I don't mean this meanly but it's certainly your loss. I hope you come around to open-mindedness again someday!

I reject the contrived pity, and note that you haven't been paying attention to what I've written: I read a lot on this topic - as the links indicate.

Fund education sufficiently that "No Child Left Behind" doesn't turn into "No Child Allowed Ahead".

And why do you assume that this is the sort of problem that can be solved with funding? Maybe we'd be better off with average classes of 60 plus putting students with others matching their skill levels, or some other orthogonal move.

If I'm remembering correctly, school performance by state is basically uncorrelated with spending.

I'm pretty sure outcomes are inversely correlated with class size. That's why people pay for individual tuition. Smaller class sizes necessarily cost more per student. It's not a huge leap to conclude that more money per student spent on reducing class sizes will improve outcomes across the board.

What happens, though, is that money is spent on small group or individual lessons for the special ed kids while any kid who's capable of doing so is left to fend for themselves.

In the US spending per student on K-12 education has tripled since 1970. Achievement has been flat[1]. There’s no shortage of money. Practically unlimited education funding has limited effects on results[2]. It’s structural change that’s needed, like acceleration for all.

[1] https://www.cato.org/blog/school-funding-system-not-broken-i...

[2] https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-most-c...

2 other figures to consider in your analysis (since 1970):

- Total US inflation rate: ~550%

- US Population growth: ~60%

This suggests education spending, per child, is roughly 1/3 what it was in the 1970 (or so my late night napkin math says)

It looks like the referenced figures are already inflation adjusted and per-capita, so it really is 3x as expensive to educate students today then in 1970.

I don’t really have an opinion here, but the referenced article says “adjusted for inflation.”

But what is that money spent on? Are there more teachers per student? Because intuitively that's what you need to provide more individualized teaching. Here in Germany a lot of money is spent on using more computers in the classroom. Blackboards are replaced with computers, students get tablets. The number of students per teacher on the other hand is unchanged or growing.

A lot of that increase went towards Special Ed and administration overhead. It's hard to do a raw student/teacher ratio because today you have special Ed teachers with a handful of students. That didn't really exist 40-50 years ago.

Pensions are another huge problem. Those big promises handed out in the 70s-80s are now coming due. There's districts spending double digits percentages of their budget paying retired teachers.

So lots of money going in but bills are riding faster.

But the general point is still correct. Inner city schools generally have the highest budgets per pupil in their state. Ultimately spending is not very correlated with performance.

Of course, in a perfectly allocated system it wouldn't be correlated at all. Money would flow to where it was needed most until every school generated equal outcomes

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