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Comment by 8note | Hacker News Reader

Send the kid home and fail them for the year? They can try again next year. Well behaved kids are the parents' problem

A secondary problem is that public schools have essentially transformed into state nannys.

1. You can't send the kids home because both parents are probably working. It's more likely the kid becomes lost forever and it becomes a government problem again once that kid is now living an alternative lifestyle that consumes government resources in other ways (crime, homelessness, or health).

2. Because of the realities of (1) everyone else is now forced to asked why the kid is no longer in school and becomes a failure of the teacher that the kid is not in school. The teacher must now deal with disgruntled parents and administrators for not enduring the emotional abuse and disruption a neglected child causes while also dealing with 20 other students.

I think a lot of problems with child education and just be traced back to economic realities of many parents today. Even if you are relatively well off having your kid kicked out of school isn't financially feasible for a lot of families. Even a disruptive child might be the result of absent parents who must be at work to even afford school lunch.

> I think a lot of problems with child education and just be traced back to economic realities of many parents today.

This is it. Our framework for understanding childhood success is based entirely in “school quality”. If a child enters adulthood with a criminal record, without job skills, or without prospects for higher education, it is always blamed on either the parents or the school system. The only remedies anyone can imagine is throwing money at the school system or setting up charter schools, so when that doesn’t work, you’re left guessing.

But none of this addresses poverty! I am convinced that if children can go to sleep with food in their belly, stable housing, and proper healthcare, they’re much more likely to have good outcomes.

I agree, you have to address these things outside the school. This is the same story when it comes to policing: police can arrest people all you want, but unless you're willing to significantly increase our existing lead in incarcerations per capita, it seems like just arresting people isn't working. On the other hand, if you can give people homes, food, jobs, and healthcare, I believe the crime rate will drop.

I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I suspect there are plenty of measures by which other countries achieve better educational outcomes with lower educational spending, in which case I'd be willing to bet that they are simply spending more in "social programs" (broadly speaking) than the United States.

> Send the kid home and fail them for the year? They can try again next year. Well behaved kids are the parents' problem

You are speaking a Catholic school here. But there are a lot of other schools in 20-mile radius of my home in Silicon Valley where my wife worked.

1. Big city district with “no child left behind” policy, very stupidly executed. Never again, no matter how high the salary is.

2. A charter school chain - a commercial exercise- that has no money planned on disciplinary problems: no staff, no rooms to deal with reports and detentions. Dick drawing, chair humping - “it’s your professional responsibility to control the classroom”.

3. The Catholic school: “thank you doctor N for joining our school” - from kids! When she got all 25 answers on the first assignment- she cried. She was forced to leave the school because you can’t get California credentials in a State university in a program paid by me, not the state - while working in a Catholic school, teaching exactly the same science course.

But there is no need to brutal measures like expelling. There is say option

4. A public school in an ethnic minority suburb. Three reports - and a conference with the teacher and administrator, who is absolutely on the teacher’s side but wants to know how to improve the situation. And that actually helps - these badly behaving kids are not necessarily cruel. “No child left behind” too, but executed properly.

Sounds simple but as a society we have decided not to hold parents and students accountable for their actions.

Teachers are left to deal with the impossible burden of raising 30+ kids and fail.

When I grew up, there were different classes for the smart kids and the less smart kids. There was a bottom class where the students had all sorts of behavioural issues. Some people just won't learn, and I think it's fair to separate them from the people who do. At least that way, teachers get at least a few classes of eager students.

This was the generally accepted approach nationwide in the past, until we realized it fuels systemic transgenerational inequalities, a bit like economic, racial, residential, etc. forms of segregation.

Putting a hooligan amongst decent people works, but only of the decent people can force the hooligan to behave. Most of the time, it works by just peer pressure, even in the positive sense. But for those who don't yield, a society at large has police. And a classroom does not have police.

So a teacher has a choice: to be a saint (and do miracles), to be the police (with hands tied though), or to be a victim. Sadly, many end up with the third option :(

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