California schools face funding crisis as enrollment declines | Hacker News Reader

California schools face funding crisis as enrollment declines

latimes.com

1 pointprostoalex4 comments

"Newsom’s budget proposes broadening the policy to allow districts to base funding on attendance in the current year , prior year or the average of that from three prior years — whichever is greater."

The number of teachers you need this year depends on how many students you have this year, not 2 years ago, but government schools exist in part to reward the teachers' unions, which donate to and campaign for politicians who give them more money.

You have it right. The covid pandemic has exposed some of the flaws in the 'old way' of instruction. Students are not 'peas in pods'. Quite young children can vary greatly in intelligence - yet they are shelled like peas. A substantial number of children deserve to be taught to their degree of intelligence. This means granular assessment coupled with a teaching regime that matches that assessment. Many kids are capable of computer aided education in an 'enhanced auto didact' method of teaching. Many people can be given a book and can progress to learn a topic. Of course, we have a lot who can not, so the first thing to teach is the auto didact process. You have heard about give a man a fish - or teach him how to fish - which is best. Our teaching system seems geared to getting large numbers of the same fish and giving one a person forever. People like Kevin Mitnick took their innate interest and intellect and became well(if narrowly educated) quite well. Sure he went off the beaten track - he lacked anyone with whom he could engage. He ended well, AFAIK. How to we granularize education and teach this? AI has this potential. I can see a well designed system that engages people, assesses them and guides them to follow various paths. In the lower grades this will be mainly in read/write/calculate skills to establish the basic skills the student will use to progress as the educational system needs this at least. Once past this, why not get into math/science/languages/etc as that student wants and is capable - with boundaries as parents demand, but once past that the student should be able to progress into high school and college level courses as capable. The AI will draw upon historical courses and lectures, with drills/tests etc as warranted. This would need some test milestones that would be met for accreditation purposes, but as an engineer, I can see no reason why the entire undergraduate course base can not be turned into an AI mediated system. There will be points where a student gets stuck and a prof gets into the loop. The student AND the AI progress higher. Future students will find this sticking point is now in the AI repertoire. The MIT courseware is a step in this progression and could be expanded.

It is hard to discuss this without being political. Any position on this topic is basically flamebait.

I do believe the education system in America is designed to fulfill a few functions. The best interest of the children is not one of them.

The only people who can reasonably advocate for child welfare are parents, not teachers or politicians. Parents who take an interest in their children and attend school board meetings are being demonized. That should tell you all you need to know about the situation with schooling.

Yes, I hear the bellows of the sacred cows. Most politicians are populist buffoons, with a leavening of intelligent people. The parents have been bamboozled by the sacred cows - more $$ = better teachers, but as see this is not the case. The end case of this is $$ maximisation for the teachers. Sure, there are many good teachers, but also lots of cows. When I was in school, as we went between classes, there was a teacher at every landing as well as one on every straight run of hallway. This meant that bullying was under much closer supervision = a lot less bullying. Now we have very little, as wages are so high that staff costs even for hall and landing monitors became larger that was sustainable = explosion of bullying, add online bullying and kids are coerced into bad actions. I do not know how this can be combatted? The entire state of California now exists as taxation system to enrich and enpension a small segment of society - who have wages/benefits that beggar the population at large - it is so bad that people vote with feet.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com