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Comment by gemstones | Hacker News Reader

Yeah. I’m all for paying teachers better to get the best and brightest. But to be honest, the thing the teachers union doesn’t seem to get is that getting the best and brightest strongly implies that most teachers would have to leave the profession to make way for the best and brightest.

Schools comprised of smarter teachers would look a lot more like charters. They would prioritize removing disruptive students because they recognize that it drives away the critical mass of kids that can behave well enough to learn. They would know that public school systems have an insurmountable reputation problem, and champion a solution that gradually sends kids who have a chance to make it to a different school over time. The fact that they don’t see it, and still think they can fix the public schools, tells me we don’t have the best and brightest in our education system.

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I think it's hard to say who to remove and who not to remove. I was removed from school because I didn't fit the system. Now I have a PhD in physics and work successfully as a research scientist. I would say the problem with schooling is that it's seen as some assembly line of learning goals for various topics. I was removed when I was 11 and had basically no math or science after that. But somehow I was able to succeed in physics. So the entire idea that school should academically prepare students doesn't make much sense to me. Perhaps school should be more about metacognition, emotional intelligence, and encouraging creativity and exploration.

For another example, Andrew Huberman got kicked out of school and sent to juvenile hall as a child. Now he has a PhD in neuroscience and is a professor at Stanford University. The public school system doesn't serve such pupils well and I suspect we're wasting a huge amount of human potential.

These are fun examples - do you think it would be hard to find 2 examples of students who were kicked out of school and did not reach the PhD level? Perhaps these examples don't necessarily inform good policy?

This is an internet forum. I doubt any educational policy will be set here.

> But to be honest, the thing the teachers union doesn’t seem to get is that getting the best and brightest strongly implies that most teachers would have to leave the profession to make way for the best and brightest.

We're actually in a teaching shortage, so I don't think this is true.

If you have 30 teachers, need 5, and could find 25 better teachers if pay was better, then that’s 20 people up for replacement.

I think you're confusing public charter schools with private schools. Charter schools can't prioritize removing disruptive students any more than other public schools. Private schools can expel students for almost any reason.

Charter schools are incredibly popular in my district and it's absolutely because they ruthlessly remove students who cause problems.

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