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Comment by dangus | Hacker News Reader

I think that too many parents think there’s something wildly wrong with the public school system for a few reasons that include:

- Political fear-mongering set up by pro-privatization groups that want to profit off of

- The fact that schooling is difficult. Middle school and high school are challenging ages and no school can make the experience go perfectly.

- Anti-institution ideology spread through social media. I think a lot of groups online feel empowered to find alternatives and spread the word even if they are not statistically better outcomes.

Obviously the public school system isn’t perfect. It’s very inequitable based on your zip code. Not all districts are doing so well. But for the most part, engaged and supportive parents of kids in an average school system results in good outcomes.

Un-schooling isn’t the answer. It’s the Un-answer.

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>I think that too many parents think there’s something wildly wrong with the public school system for a few reasons that include:

By almost any objective metric, there is something wrong with the school system, and the fact that this isn't something people admit is probably a reason there is a lot of pushback against it. People in support of the public school system aren't even willing to educate themselves on its failures and weaknesses.

>even if they are not statistically better outcomes.

So here once again you're saying there are not statistically better outcomes, but do you have a source? From the data i've seen, you have this baskwards and that public schools do statistically have worse outcomes.

>. It’s very inequitable based on your zip code.

Again, this is not actually true if you spend time looking at actual data. Most school districts are funded by the state our county, and often the budgets are higher low income areas.

Interesting that you call out his lack of data/sources, assert he is wrong, and don’t provide any sources of your own.

It seems like zip code is a good indicator of public education quality, though. Here’s an actual source if you’d like to read about it: https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019...

If you’re curious about wealth impact on public schooling quality, see table 1 for a clear breakdown.

>If you’re curious about wealth impact on public schooling quality, see table 1 for a clear breakdown.

We weren't talking about wealth of households, we were talking about the amount of funding that goes into poorer areas vs richer areas.

I'm not sure you actually understand the charts you're sharing. What you linked shows an expected correlation between student performance (as well as teacher quality, both of which are combined to give schools an A+ score), and being in an area with more expensive homes.

> So here once again you're saying there are not statistically better outcomes, but do you have a source?

he asserted the null hypothesis. as a random nobody on the sidelines, I expect you to provide the evidence here.

This is a discussion board not a research paper. I didn’t provide sources because I was speaking my opinion.

Weird to give me criticism for that when literally nobody else has any sources in the whole thread.

> By almost any objective metric, there is something wrong with the school system,

In a free market, how do you signal that you want a higher-quality product? Buehler? Buehler?

Frankly, given the top-down constraints, and the amazingly low budget, its pretty damn amazing they are doing so well.

I'm transitioning to teaching from programming on wall street. I expect my first year's salary as a teacher to be less than half of what my annual bonus was.

You can't solve every problem by throwing money at it---but you can't solve every problem by NOT throwing money at it either :-)

>and the amazingly low budget, its pretty damn amazing they are doing so well.

The US spends more per student than almost any other country. "low budget" is just a lie folks tell gullible people.

Yeah, well, how come schools which get more money do better than schools who don't?

The U.S. spends more money per patient than almost any other country too. 3x what Canada spends. I guess you would be a big fan of a Canadian-style health care system?

>ow come schools which get more money do better than schools who don't?

They don't, that's my whole point. California funnels more money to low income areas than it does to higher income areas. They have more financial resources.

Public schools are struggling but to pull your kids out and say you can do it better is shocking for most of the population.

What is shocking, is that random parents with no teaching background can usually deliver a child through a k-12 curriculum with superior outcomes vs. the average public school.

That, alone, is a stinging indictment of public education.

And, usually spending about the total daily time required for just the assigned homework from a public school.

While this may be, the regression to the mean is strong. These kids who are so far ahead tend not to make a blip once out of college...

> random parents with no teaching background can usually deliver a child through a k-12 curriculum with superior outcomes vs. the average public school.

This is not what actually happens. For example, the parents who actually do this are not random.

I mean… yeah, if it was my full time job to educate my one child at home, then yeah, I feel pretty good about my chances of making that work - but also having that kind of time, and money, and energy to commit to a task like that is just… I mean, who can afford that, practically speaking? That’s a 13 year unpaid commitment that you have no training for or skills in, and the stakes are the success of your child. Are you prepared for all that?

I guess my point being - it’s not ‘random parents’ in your example, it’s parents that are already in a position to be able to and to be willing to deliver a child though a k-12 curriculum with superior outcomes.

Data, please?

I'm deeply skeptical of this one since all of the kids I've known to be home school were socially and academically well behind their peers.

From Psychology Today:

> The most common reason cited for homeschooling (before the pandemic) was concern about the local school environment,

I would guess the sample is spoiled because one doesn’t tend to homeschool if your public school is adequate.

Still, even if you ignore that, outcomes are far less impressive than you’re making them sound.

> children in “unstructured” homeschool environments without organized lesson plans tend to score lower than children in conventional schools.

So this unschooling thing qualifies as unstructured which means worse scores than conventional schools.

But that’s just test scores.

Overall outcomes are not super impressive.

> In addition, most studies have found no difference between homeschooled and conventional students in college graduation rates. However, most homeschooled students do not attend competitive four-year colleges and one study found that homeschooled students may have lower math GPAs in college than children from conventional schools. Children who are homeschooled may also be more likely to work in a lower-paying job.

So to sum up, homeschooled kids might test better, unless they are “unschooled,” and they’ll probably have a lower paying job.

And I find this terribly unimpressive for having a far better student teacher ratio than public school.

Source: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/parenting-translator...

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