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Comment by giantg2 | Hacker News Reader

My experience in the US has been similar - most religious schools had higher performance than most public schools. Even the grading systems reflected the higher standards by using a 7 point scale rather than a 10 point scale. None of the religious schools I heard of had the "no zero" policies like some of the public schools where you get an automatic minimum 50% score just for writing your name on the test.

I'm sure there are outliers in either school type, but categorizing religious schools as lower performing doesn't to fit my experiences at all.

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Yes. Catholic schools, for example, have long been known for far surpassing public school performance, so much so that non-Catholics send their children to Catholic schools. Apart from the better quality of the curricula, Catholic schools have never experienced school shootings, student relations are more genial and civilized, and you can be more confident that your child will be spared the unhinged ideologies du jour.

On top of that, they are quite generous and inexpensive as non-state schools. Listed tuition does vary considerably, as some elite Catholic schools are truly very expensive. However, they're not representative of typical tuition costs, and in either case, they usually offer financial assistance. They even lower tuition for each subsequent child you send to their school. Some schools (like Regis in NYC) are completely free, if you get in.

On top of that, Catholic laity have been founding schools independently in the last ~20 years or so (that is, these are private schools that are not under the direct authority of the bishop of the local diocese). These tend to emphasize a return to classical curricula (like the trivium and quadrivium), updated and supplemented accordingly.

(Those with a prejudice against religious schools as a whole also fail to understand that a guiding worldview is always present in any school. This cannot be avoided. In fact, it is nonsensical. It is the backdrop that determines the organization and structure of curricula in the first place. State schools in the modern liberal state naturally insinuate and teach a liberal worldview, one that bona fide Catholics merely tolerate as a matter of practicality, but utterly reject as a matter of principle, as the liberal worldview along with its liberal anthropology is at odds with the Catholic worldview. Education is ultimately a matter of intellectual formation which is something that entails some measure of moral formation as well. The liberal arts are first and foremost about freeing a person to be able to reason and reason proficiently, not about producing economic actors first and foremost, though you could naturally expect someone with this formation to be well-prepared for the world of work as well as a consequence of having been formed intellectually and morally.)

It depends on whether the focus is on spreading knowledge or preserving doctrine. Most religious schools I know are solidly in the former category, but I suspect there are exceptions.

This seems like a false dichotomy to me. They can do both. We could look at SAT scores, which show religious schools having significantly higher scores than public schools. So clearly they are learning the material.

In what now feels like a past life I knew a guy who had a perfect SAT score, I met him while visiting a family member who was his roommate at Patrick Henry College in VA.

He believed radio carbon dating was a lie and the earth was literally ~5k years old.

There are confounding factors that SAT scores don't surface.

That's why I'm saying one of the post above seems like a false dichotomy as the schools could do both. If the measures of school quality are test results, higher education, etc, then the religious schools would still exceed the public schools in those scores, which are the only measures we have.

An interesting question is, would that person in your example answer a question about radio carbon dating correctly on a test? It's possible they know the correct answer to mark but have separate philosophical beliefs. This would further support the idea that the religious schools have high academic achievement even if the beliefs differ.

My example was an anecdote, I would assume any one person with a perfect SAT score is an outlier across educational methodologies.

Self directed learning, reading comprehension, maths skills, critical thinking skills, ability to identify and reject sophistry, these abilities have some overlap perhaps but can each be skilled up separately and impact how a person can later function in roles that depend on the ability to identify true/false propositions.

Do you view the utility and practice of having overlapping confirmations and methodologies for radiometric dating (radiocarbon, potassium–argon, uranium–lead, etc.) to be a philosophic belief?

Do you think that it is wise to spend time and money formally training "high potential" people to have such deeply systemic errors in reasoning to the point that they flat reject peer reviewed, high confidence data and methods as a positive?

We aren't talking about being a Theist, Deist, ETC. We aren't talking about religious beliefs as most christians support radiometric dating, we are talking about educational materials for the young that reject following the data in pragmatic, well documented, well confirmed, high utility fields and rejects them out of pocket with untestable unobservable and sometimes demonstrably false alternatives. I don't want my curriculum to be the blind (or the sophists) leading the blind and to pretend these are equivalent because this self selected group trends towards higher SAT scores seems to miss the point.

I am pro-homeschooling and private schools generally and have multi generational exposure and participation in these things. Let a family believe whatever it wants to believe intellectually, I generally believe these variations to be positive in ensuring the human race is more diverse in exploring the "search space".

That being said, one of the smartest people I know, with all the raw materials in the world became a PHD scientist in molecular biology and bioinformatics and got nerd sniped by his YEC background, the years he's spent spinning his wheels due to an inability to follow the conclusions of his cognitive dissonance means he might as well not have become a scientist at all. It's enough that his family did that to him and it's fine or whatever, but we shouldn't have tax paid educators and curriculums participate in the cognitive crippling of children if our goal is to have a functional and productive society.

"...to be a philosophic belief?"

There are many people who hold beliefs that run contrary to the evidence on a variety of subjects from all educational backgrounds.

"...because this self selected group trends towards higher SAT scores seems to miss the point."

If it does, it's a point that hasn't been made yet. This entire post is about test scores, which is the way education is measured. If you're contending that public schools produce better reasoning than religious schools, then please provide that data.

"but we shouldn't have tax paid educators and curriculums participate in the cognitive crippling of children if our goal is to have a functional and productive society."

This part left me unclear, as this is also the same sort of complaint many parents are having about some of the ideologies being taught (or how they're being taught) in public schools, which are publicly funded. Most states do not publicly fund religious/private schools.

"Do you think that it is wise to spend time and money formally training "high potential" people to have such deeply systemic errors in reasoning to the point that they flat reject peer reviewed, high confidence data and methods as a positive?"

So how did your example achieve a PhD if he contradicted the peer reviewed evidence? I assume the review board and degree was from a secular school and you have implied the secular school process doesn't permit these sorts of reasoning flaws. Perhaps their reasoning on most subjects is solids and they have a few blind spots. This is generally true of most people, including those from public schools. Also, let it be known that many successful scientists have challenged existing positions successfully to discover new things. Science encourages challenging existing positions as part of the process to make new discoveries. This is one of the reasons there are so few "laws" in science and so many "theories".

"We aren't talking about religious beliefs as most christians support radiometric dating, we are talking about educational materials for the young that reject following the data in pragmatic, well documented, well confirmed, high utility fields and rejects them out of pocket with untestable unobservable and sometimes demonstrably false alternatives."

Ok... so what is your point? The vast majority of religious schools support radio cabon dating just as you admit that most religions do. I'm pretty confident that my comment chain has been using qualifiers to indicate that there may be outliers, but that in general religious schools do not have lower academic standards as indicated by the test score data. There may be outliers in any of the various school types, but the data is pretty clear that the current measures of academic success are test scores and post-secondary education, for which religious school score at least as well on. This refutes the original comment that religious schools have academically lower standards. Unless someone has actual data and not just anecdotal that says otherwise.

Outliers, bias due to self selection, bad/factually false curriculums we can observe to be in use (not simply worries pertaining to observed outcomes in an individual), institutional methods to force out special needs children to improve averages. These are all confounding factors to a simple and frankly wrong narrative. Perhaps the real issue is our universally appalling teaching in statistics.

Unless you have well designed co-hort studies most of the data just isn't really useful. The SAT, like any other measure that becomes the standard, is going to be gamed. I'm trying to highlight why a shallow and cursory glance at any data can be misleading and adding specific observations as food for thought.

Take it as you will. Test scores surely are directional and with universal declines that is worrying, but that isn't the sole topic of discussion in the thread is it?

The intial ellipses is pretty indicative, it seems clear that radiometric dating is a charity belief and is not something one thinks is a valid mechanism for acquiring accurate data and facts that map to observable, testable reality.

I think most people wouldn't have so much difficulty distinguishing philosophic positions and fact acquiring methodologies, I mean some people view physical reality as not existing and all material endeavor and observation to be a waste, surely that's an equally valid worldview to inculcate and spend tax money on, so as long as mandatorg testing scores are within the margin of error these beliefs have no downside to fund with tax dollars?

I mean if we draw no lines than why teach math or have an SAT at all? Being able to identify and record observable facts are not a critical part of education in some people's estimation it seems.

"These are all confounding factors to a simple and frankly wrong narrative...

Unless you have well designed co-hort studies most of the data just isn't really useful."

Interesting that you claim the data isn't really useful, but then are forceful about a narrative being wrong. This seems like the issue you are complaining about - holding beliefs without facts or contrary to facts.

There are a few problems with your comment.

1. "Religion" is not a monolithic category. It is effectively synonymous with "worldview". The content of a given worldview matters. So, pace modern doctrines of "tolerance", not all worldviews are equal. The notion that they are is simply absurd, as they all vary and differ and make different claims.

2. Doctrine is inevitable. As the Chestertonian quote goes, there are only two kinds of people: those who accept dogma and know it, and those who accept dogma and don't know it. A person cannot function without doctrine. The trouble is that the liberal order has managed to convince us that its doctrines aren't doctrines at all. They're just taken to be "obviously true" or "obviously neutral", which they are not.

3. Since doctrine is inevitable, then all schools at the very least insinuate the doctrines of the governing worldview in the manner things are taught and structured and in the way the school is run. In state schools, these are typically liberal doctrines. That is obvious: why would the state propagate doctrines of a worldview other than the one that it is governed by? It may demonstrate a certain tolerance for other worldviews, but the limits of this tolerance are determined by the doctrines of the governing worldview. This is inescapable, and it is dishonest to deny it.

4. Teaching doctrines is not opposed to knowledge. In fact, if a doctrine is true, then learning it is learning knowledge.

5. Now, among schools we classify as "religious", Catholic schools certainly teach both religious subject matter as well as all the sorts of subject matters you might expect to be taught in a school. We're not talking about some weird American Protestant sect here. Fides et ratio.

Too many lean into the crude caricatures of their imagination.

Great comment. Liberalism (in the broadest possible sense of the word) sets itself up as a dogma-free, 'neutral' worldview, when in fact it is teeming with dogma and substantive ideas about what is good and evil.

Hi, geye1234, its good to be meeting up with you so soon after our previous discussion!

I have to say, however, that it seems slightly tendentious of you to pick out liberalism (albeit in broadest possible sense of the word) in this manner. Is there anything to justify seeing this issue as being specific to, or concentrated within, liberalism? Prior to your comment, liberalism has not been an issue in this discussion.

How would you differentiate dogma that is beyond questioning, and that which is doctrine but open to testing and modification?

>”no zero" policies like some of the public schools where you get an automatic minimum 50% score just for writing your name on the test.

When I read this, I thought there was no way it could be true.

When I Googled it and looked at the first few search results, I thought “It must be just a few schools.”

It’s not.

I have always thought that equality of outcome is an unrealistic goal, but I was wrong. You get equal outcomes if you just give everyone an “A.”

Reminds me of Bart Simpson coming home from school with an “everyone gets a trophy day” trophy.

I had heard rumors about it. The first time I really believed it was when a friend of mine was student teaching and was forced to give no less than 50% if the name was on the paper. He said there was one kid who refused to even write his name to get that free 50% and they gave him an incomplete or something instead. I probably wouldn't have believed it until he told me about all this. He ended up getting his teaching license but never taught due to how bad the schools were policy and behavior-wise. I have other friends who are teachers and I'd say close to half will only teach at private schools for those same reasons.

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