Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bob1029 | Hacker News Reader

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I have had similar conversations with elementary school teachers and principals in Texas. All family members.

I think it's the same story everywhere now. No one knows what to do to resolve it. Teachers no longer have sufficient means to provide an effective education to our children.

The school boards and layers of governance have all but stripped the actual educators of any autonomy that may have existed. Using decades of experience to deal with nuanced situations is not a thing that is allowed anymore. There is some strict procedure for everything, and if you deviate the administration will make your life hell.

The solution is probably a blend of: pay teachers more, give them more autonomy, banish smartphones in the classroom, more accountability for abjectly-shitty parenting and a reduction of our total obsession over standardization of outcomes.

If we could only fix one thing - Every teacher I talked to would rate the smartphone as the #1 reason for lack of engagement in the classroom. Even if they arent using it at school, being on tik tok with your friends at home until 3am every day has the same effective blast radius.

> The solution is probably a blend of: pay teachers more, give them more autonomy, banish smartphones in the classroom, more accountability for abjectly-shitty parenting and a reduction of our total obsession over standardization of outcomes.

We are where parents chose to be with respect to education. Nothing more, nothing less.

Parents wanted accountability--so we have standardization of outcomes. Parents say they want autonomy and discipline--until you apply it to their child and then they sue you. Parents complain about taxes going to education--while teachers have to buy their own supplies (this particularly frosts me).

We are where decades of parents chose to be through their collective actions. The fact that they don't like the consequences of their actions is simply typical of modern society.

Parents aren't allowed school choice in most situations.

This is on legislators banning students from getting an education outside their district, and banning or significantly hampering private education.

Private schools and academies exist right now. The rich have no problem exiting the public school system no matter where they are.

So, why is it that all parents aren't taking advantage of this? Oh, right, they can't pay for it.

Parents magically think that something they already are unwilling to pay for will magically get cheaper the moment you bring the "free market" into the discussion.

And, to be fair, that will be true for some students. If your child is abnormally big or abnormally smart, charter schools will accommodate them.

If, however, your child has any behavioral issues--don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. ADHD accommodation--bye, bye. Threaten to commit suicide or cutting behaviors--you're gone. Depressed and failing because your parents are divorcing--see ya. Got into a catfight over a boyfriend--yeah, that's on social media--you're out of here.

If your child isn't perfect, they will get punted. And generally those parents screaming the loudest, funnily enough, have the children who cause the most issues.

Everybody assumes their child won't be the one on the short end of the stick. Everybody will be in for a rude awakening.

You seem to have confused charter schools with public schools. In most districts, public charter schools are open to all students regardless of size or intelligence.

Parents are already paying a lot for improved education by moving to districts with decent public schools. They have to pay inflated housing prices because lots of parents want to move there to get their kids a decent education, and then they have to pay property taxes that go toward funding schools there.

Lots of parents would be happy to stay where they are and pay the cost of private education if it were available.

> magically get cheaper the moment you bring the "free market" into the discussion.

Capitalism isn't magic. It's incentives. Right now if a school is doing poorly there is almost zero incentive to change, because parents aren't legally allowed to send there kids to a different school out-of-district.

> Parents wanted accountability--so we have standardization of outcomes. Parents say they want autonomy and discipline--until you apply it to their child and then they sue you. Parents complain about taxes going to education--while teachers have to buy their own supplies (this particularly frosts me).

In the U.S, parents of public school students did not choose this. The broader electorate chose this, but many who drive the discourse around education are not parents. They are media personalities, politicians, and people without children in the public school system. That's not to say that parents do not have any responsibility for the current situation, but the choices of the broader electorate are generally not the choices of parents.

You make it sound like parents just asked for this exact system that is before us today. I don't think that is a fair way to present any of this.

At what point did any parent in the state of Texas get to vote on a direct "should we standardize our outcomes y/n" measure? In reality, stuff like this is death by a thousands cuts brought to you by the lobbyists at Pearson (et. al.) over very long timeframes.

Lots of money to be made selling rehashed garbage worksheet volumes every school year. No one is interested in teachers who have a proven curriculum that doesn't require spending millions on new materials every year.

What every well-meaning parent will say, when pressed, is that they want their child to "be successful". But that goal brings us right back to the gauntlet of testing and ranking; to be successful in the systems of industrial society means being relatively better at what is tested, not your overall development. Everyone who doesn't fall in line manages to survive only by finding a "cheat code": a personal portfolio that has no competition, drive to start a business, pulling off a successful crime, marriage into wealth.

That is, the only way to really make the parents happy is to never promise a clear path to success, for once you do they will rush to gatekeep it for their child, disregarding the child's motives or perspective. It's the "extrinsic reward negates intrinsic reward" hypothesis at the greatest scale.

<<banish smartphones in the classroom

This, I think, is the most impossible thing listed.

For the record, I agree with you, but I honestly can already see someone crying that they need to be able to reach their child 24/7.

I taught H.S. for a year and setup banks of USB universal phone chargers at the back of the classroom. Students could charge their phone if they put on silent but could not get out of their seats without permission. It actually did help foster involvement in our lessons.

My local schools have a no phone policy. It’s not that hard to implement.

I was in school when mobile phones were just becoming accessible, and our school had a blanket ban on them. If they were out of your backpack or locker anywhere other than the lunchroom, it got taken away and you could pick it up at the end of the day from the principals office.

It blows my mind that anyone could try to teach a room full of young kids without such a policy... what a daunting task.

They can get a dumb phone for the child then.

>>No one knows what to do to resolve it.

That is actually very easy, but hard politically

Backpack funding of school choice. End the monopoly of government school districts determining how the money is spent. Let the market, and capitalism work its magic

I am sure however most will disagree with this position

I am a big fan of charter schools, however it’s not quite this simple. Conceptually this is the right thing. (Parents tend to know which schools are best) There are lots of thorny implementation details. Moving to a system where schools can open and close quickly with kids not getting lost in the process is actually very difficult. As we see in Higher Ed, there can be a lot of abuse when the government acts solely as the payer or guarantor.

I still agree with your central premise though.

The problems are not directly transferable though, Higher Ed there is no pricing controls at all since it is debt funded backed by government with almost unlimited amounts of funding, this is what has cases the explosion in costs

You will not, and can not see that with local schools because the majority of them comes directly from local taxation which can not simply print more money to fund their largess like the federal government does.

Local tax programs MUST be revenue neutral for the most part, baring limited issue bonds for specific things like building a new building

This will limit the amount of backpack funding that would travel with the student.

Personally I would not only want to open the backpack funding to charter schools but also allow parents to use that money for Home Schooling curriculum, programs, or creating School "Pods" like we saw during the schools closures where parents pool resources to hire tutors for their kids

I think we need massive innovation in schooling, including things like Homeschooling, schooling pods, MOOC's, and charter schools

> Backpack funding of school choice. End the monopoly of government school districts determining how the money is spent. Let the market, and capitalism work its magic

The problem is that you need to define a minimum standard--look at the mess left behind by the coding bootcamps that weren't up to scratch. At which point you are back to the original issue.

In addition, everybody magically thinks that their child won't be the one that charter schools will exclude. The vast majority of parents will be in for a very rude awakening. If your child causes any trouble, they will be punted from the school very quickly and good luck getting into the next one.

A friend of mine put it best: "Having to manage just my own daughter's education through the lockdown was a nightmare. I can't imagine managing 30 students and their parents on a daily basis."

>>The vast majority of parents will be in for a very rude awakening. If your child causes any trouble, they will be punted from the school very quickly and good luck getting into the next one.

Maybe parents need to start actually parenting again and stop with the new age non-sense we have seen in atleast the last generation. Your child should not be allowed to scream, yell, and throw a tantrum in public while the parents just laugh and say "ohh kids will be kids" bull shit. If I did that as a Child.. well lets just say I would not have been a fun time. (edit: do be clear I do not mean corporal punishment, my parents had a no hitting rule however I also knew I would be punished in various ways should I not follow the rules, or be respectful in public)

The idea that it should be acceptable for child to "cause trouble" in school is the problem, not that the school would remove them.

Used to the biggest threat you could make to a child is "I am going to call your parents" today if a school does that chances are Karen is going to show up and tell the school how great their snowflake is, and how it is school or business that is the problem not that child. Children are not held to any acceptable standards of behavior or responsibility for their actions

Maybe parents need to be able to survive without two jobs each so they actually have time to be parents.

Both my parents worked, one of which was away from home 60-70% of the time for work... They were able to parent just fine. They were not high earners either, probably not poverty levels wages but not middle class either.

Yeah, so did mine, and one of them worked a late shift that meant they basically slept all day, but that was in the 80s and early 90s. I don't know if you've noticed but the economic reality for the low rungs of the economic ladder is much worse today.

> Your child should not be allowed to scream, yell, and throw a tantrum in public while the parents just laugh and say "ohh kids will be kids" bull shit. If I did that as a Child.. well lets just say I would not have been a fun time.

I don't disagree with you. However, the tools that a school administrator or teacher have at their disposal is limited.

You can kick a misbehaving child out, but that doesn't help the child. You can fine the parents--who probably don't have the money to pay the fine anyway. You can put a parent in jail--that's not necessarily going to improve the situation. You can take the child away from the parent--but, man, the number of times that improves things borders on non-existent.

So, what do you do to force a parent to start taking responsibility for their misbehaving child if they aren't already? I certainly don't have any good answers.

> Let the market, and capitalism work its magic

Markets are not magic. Poor parents will still be stuck with shitty schools teaching their children because reputable ones won't want to serve their area, leaving an effective monopoly to prey on them.

Hell, chances are even if it started with a thriving competitive market it would, before long, conglomerate into an effective monopoly anyway. That's the biggest problem with "free" markets, the big players can ensure they are rarely fair markets by throwing their weight around.

There is exactly zero evidence to support your thesis, please show me where this has happen in the places where backpack funding has accorded.

Poor parents are the ones that are helped the MOST by backpack funding, rich people already send their children to better schools, no one wants to send their child to government schools, NO ONE. they all suck

They are forced to by economic circumstance and government regulation, backpack funding removes both of those obstruction

Further this idea that it would devolve into an "effective monopoly" is not backed by any data of any market, and should such a result occur it will likely be a direct result of restrictions placed on the funding by government (i.e no religious schools, no online schools, no co'ops, no education pods, no homeschooling programs, etc)

In my mind backpack funding should be a widely open to just about any educational resources not just brick and mortar schools in the local geographic region that teach the exact same curriculum as the local public schools. That would be pointless

> Further this idea that it would devolve into an "effective monopoly" is not backed by any data of any market

I'm sorry, do we live on the same planet? This happens in all sorts of markets all the time.

I agree that public school system sucks, but I think one of the reasons it sucks is that the wealthy people don't have to deal with it and see it only as an additional tax they have to pay and therefore fight against its efficacy as a means to justifying its elimination. Unfortunately this plagues all government institutions.

> There is exactly zero evidence to support your thesis

I have even answered to you directly on this topic before, but maybe you missed it? Here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28831893

I see no sources, citations, or relevancy in that old comment

I've told you about two countries where this have actually been tried, I would expect you to dig into those to support your claim? I'm also swedish so I'm talking about the debate going on here. If you want swedish sources to translate I'm happy to provide those.

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