Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

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Here [1] are the data on spending per student PPP adjusted. It doesn't really change it much at all. US is 6th in the world in spending per secondary pupil. They seem to lack data for primary, but it's not going to be some radically different story one way or the other. The initial link I gave (where US is 5th in the world) offers a breakdown of various spending - I was referencing the first table - which is elementary/secondary only. Also, religious schools in the US (Catholic at least) also substantially outperform public schools by a range that widens over time. [2]

In any case private schools will always perform better than public schools because they can be selective with who they admit. A handful of very bad students can easily derail the education of an entire class, and in public schools it can be somewhat difficult to get rid of these kids. And so I do think things like education vouchers, tax rebates, and other incentives to allow more middle and lower class families access to private education is a very good thing.

Lastly, on the woke stuff. Would you be happy if your child was taught creationism and intelligent design? Probably not. Why? Because it'd be ideologically motivated, rather than educationally motivated. If people want to teach their children that in their own time - more power to them, but it has no place in the classroom. And I'd feel exactly the same if my children were taught that e.g. math is racist, or the contemporary 'reimaginings' of history that mix critical theory and contemporary values, and retrofit them into the past in an antagonistic fashion. We went from a real problem of white washing history, to just inventing these sordid tales that are even further off base.

[1] - https://databank.worldbank.org/indicator/UIS.XGDP.1.FSGOV?id...

[2] - https://ncea.org/NCEA/NCEA/How_We_Serve/News/Press_Releases/...

Thank you on presenting the research. I appreciate that.

To address you points though:

> A handful of very bad students can easily derail the education of an entire class

Private school had plenty of bad apples too. In fact, some kids I went to school with were explicitly there because they were trouble makers and their parents though the nuns would break them (they didn't). In contrast, I've found my daughter's public school to be pretty zero tolerance when it comes to disruptors.

But even if you are right, that is also the strength of public schools. The same thing that makes them unable to turn down the bad apple is also what makes sure kids with special needs or low family means don't get left behind.

> math is racist, or the contemporary 'reimaginings' of history that mix critical theory and contemporary values, and retrofit them into the past in an antagonistic fashion.

Except every time one of those stories come out and you dig deeper it is almost never actually what the media says. It's usually either extremely isolated or taken entirely out of context for sensationalism.

For example, there have been several documented cases of public school teachers teaching creationism, and also that the Civil war wasn't about slavery (despite slavery being specifically mentioned by multiple states when they joined the Confederacy), but I would never represent that as wide spread and try to tear down the whole system over it.

Private schools are, of course, not homogeneous. Some schools will accept bad apples, most won't. Public schools have no choice and you generally cannot expel a child except for extremely serious issues. If you've found a public school without major disruptive issues then you probably live in a high income and/or less urban area which immediately works as an invisible filter on the student body. I went to public school system in an urban low income area - I will never put my own children in such a system, under any circumstance.

As for 'no child left behind' and the woke stuff. I can actually tie both of these together in California. [1] In an effort to increase equity they've essentially hamstrung their own education. They're making Algebra 1 a grade later (meaning less normal path access to calculus), offering "alternatives" to Algebra 2, swapping from a focus on mastery to one on "big picture" understanding, keeping classes integrated regardless of student performance, and generally dumbing down the mathematical education across the board. They want to achieve equity in outcomes, and so they're taking the easy route - lower the ceiling, rather than raise the floor. It's near to certain that outcomes in California will decline significantly over the next decade, but I expect there will also be better grades on average - laying a nice layer of paint on a building that's collapsing.

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As for the Civil War, imagine the EU had a military and simply refused to accept Brexit, triggering a war. Would the cause of that war have been e.g. immigration (which was arguably the main factor leading to Brexit, and mentioned in numerous official documents relating to Brexit), or would it have been over the rights of EU member countries? Obviously without immigration you don't have Brexit and so you don't have a war. Yet similarly without our hypothetical effort of the EU to impose its will on member countries, you also don't have war. A key point to me is that one issue is variable, while one is fixed.

[1] - https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-12/californ...

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