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Comment by akomtu | Hacker News Reader

The price of keeping public schools the way they are is trashing the future of many bright but poor kids who have no choice but to waste their time in what seems to be a mix of a kindergarten and a corrections facility.

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The price of failing the not bright kids is we end up with a mob of undereducated people who are unable to function as contributing healthy adults in today's modern society.

It's a hard problem, but I can't fault people who believe public schools should focus on not failing the bottom section rather than accelerating the top achievers.

>The price of failing the not bright kids is we end up with a mob of undereducated people who are unable to function as contributing healthy adults in today's modern society.

This is already the case though. I grew up in a “low income” area and whenever I visit my parents I see people I went to Highschool with walking around in the streets.

Something’s got to change but unfortunately I do not have the answer. Hopefully AI will save us all.

It can get a LOT worse.

> should focus on not failing the bottom section

The problem is they focus on not failing the bottoms section, and also completely fail the bottom section.

I wish people would think as much about the poor when it came time to fund job programs, healthcare, childcare, food stamps, universal pre-school, raising the minimum wage, increasing public transportation, and improving working conditions.

Europe is very progressive in all those issues but they're still poorer than Mississippi.

What bothers me about this right here is that at one time or another one of these was heralded as THE solution that would alleviate poverty. Why is it always food stamps, minimum wage, and ubi? I thought minimum wage would have solved/alleviated the food problem. It seems to me that there is a general failure to acknowledge the big picture. Being impoverished means lack of resources. I say pick one general solution, either ubi or negative income tax, and let the poor choose what they need. It does a real disservice to the poor to always be for every policy that is notionally meant to help them. It seems disingenuous and not very well thought out. As Eminem famously said,”these goddamn foodstamps won’t buy diapers”.

The people most in favor of school vouchers in the U.S. are mostly conservatives who oppose programs for poor people in almost all other contexts. When it comes to school vouchers though they act, disingenuously in my opinion, as if concern for the poor is what really matters to them in this issue. School vouchers, ultimately, are a way for religious conservatives to have the public pay for the religious indoctrination of their kids.

My comment was an attempt to point out this hypocrisy.

A sufficient minimum wage would cover these problems for most working class poor. We don’t have that.

Paying for private versions of the same doesn't seem to be a big improvement.

I guess we should try and come up with a solution that addresses that then

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