Comment by errcorrectcode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by errcorrectcode | Hacker News Reader

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Where I come from is Almaden Valley of San Jose and Palo Alto, so YMMV depending on where you are. Barely-adequate public schooling doesn't work for my family. Many moons ago, the high school I attended was rich af and an overachiever mecca because of high property taxes and extreme property values. There are also excellent private schools, including some of the more specialized ones for higher gifted and genius kids that regular schools hold back.

In other countries like Finland, they have it right compared to US education system the genius W contributed to breaking: homework has no value, teaching answers to excessive standardized tests (NCLBA) has little value, and grading teachers on immediate performance of said standardized tests has little value.

To solve this problem of finding good schools, I believe word-of-mouth advice from more successful folks is more valuable than any website filled with sour grapes or unverifiable claims made by random, anonymous people. It also can be a problem that better areas tend to have better schools, so no website will be able to find what doesn't currently exist in low population or not-as-nice areas.

There are websites like USNAWR who attempt to rate K-12 schools, private and public. https://www.usnews.com/education/k12

How do you define success in a short term timescale to steer any adjustments though? If the goal is to educate children to become successful adults you have at least a 15-20 year time horizon. By the time you know if the methodologies are working or not, it has probably changed 3 or 4 times and most of the teachers have moved on, maybe if you're lucky there's an institutional "agenda" for lack of a better term that hasn't moved too far off course. And that's assuming that no external forces change in the intervening years.

it's a slow process but examples of better schooling do exist. it takes research and the willingness to look beyond your local region.

the problem has multiple aspects. funding is one, management another, actual teaching methodologies yet another. for all of those examples can be found. not everything is directly applicable and it takes some experimentation.

but a part of the problem is also the definition of success. the goalpost on that keeps changing too.

for adults to be successful the environment needs to be supportive too.

aren't there studies that show that children from poor families are less successful despite good schooling? so if we want children to be successful we also need to eliminate poverty. these things go hand in hand. and i suspect that some attempts at better schooling fail because other aspects like this are not being addressed.

I guess I definite success as going up in economic class or at least maintaining.

It's that word of mouth that I want to know! I agree that something Yelp-like isn't going to be useful. I just don't see a way of doing this successfully unless the government mandated surveys, or some other compulsory mechanism.

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