Comment by ModernMech | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ModernMech | Hacker News Reader

This is the culmination of decades of cuts to education. I mean, what else was going to be the end point of having teachers buy supplies for their own kids, demonizing professors, demonizing higher education and the idea of education generally, not training enough teachers, and underpaying the teachers you already have.

In America we have to deal with school shootings, the latest religious group mandating the 10 commandments be put up or rainbows be taken down, irate parents mad that you failed their kid who didn't do work all semester and has severe behavioral problems no one is allowed to discipline. And now of course with AI, the students aren't doing their work, and if you call them out on it they call their parents, they sue, you get deposed and have to admit you can't 100% prove it's AI... so why bother? Who would ever want to grow up to be a teacher anymore?

So yeah, cut education, end up with AI students submitting AI papers to AI teachers. We have arrived.

The only question now is... what are we going to do about it?

Spending on education has increased over the last couple decades, not decreased. Outcomes, however, have gotten worse. You're entire premise is flawed.

This is America, we have perfected the art of spending more to get less. That doesn't mean cuts to education aren't happening. See also: the entire healthcare system.

I specifically mentioned: teachers paying for supplies out of their own pockets, underpaying teachers, not investing in safe teaching environments, increased litigation, demonizing the profession, increased political targeting, and lack of teacher agency in disciplining students.

Fact is when I look at my district, over the last decade we've had to do more with less, and I don't know a single teacher who can say the opposite. So it is true we are spending more overall, it's not true we aren't cutting education.

In my school district, the only new facilities being built are charter schools. We have unlimited funds, it seems, to send to these private organizations but not enough funds to build or expand a public school or hire teachers/aids.

Some of my kids school aids have been homeless because the pay isn't high enough. The aids and teacher all work second jobs.

Per internet charter schools get 20-36% less funding per child than traditional public (district) schools.

Also, charter schools are also public, not private.

The data seems to contradict everything you claim about charter schools.

"we" (taxpayers) send more money to traditional public schools than to (also public) charter schools.

> charter schools are also public, not private.

Charter schools are publicly funded and privately operated. That's what I mean by private.

And the per child payment is less because charter schools are experts at keeping children with disabilities out of their facilities. They have to accept them, but they can deny entry if they don't, for example, employ special ed teachers, therapists, etc.

Public schools have to provide those services. They have to accept all children.

> Per internet charter schools get 20-36% less funding per child than traditional public (district) schools.

The public school system is much larger and has a longer tail to support than charter schools. Larger organizations require more overhead as a percentage of their operating budget. Public schools also have to support every student in the community no matter how high it costs, unlike charter schools, which support a lower proportion of them. Both factors manifest as higher per-student costs if you just average it all out.

There's a parallel to private insurance which can kick out the sickest individuals, and a public option which must take everyone. Obviously the latter is more expensive to operate, so private insurance prefers dealing with the former, leaving the public to cover everyone else at taxpayer expense.

> Also, charter schools are also public, not private.

OP said "to send to these private organizations" not that charter schools are private schools. While charter schools are public, many charter schools are run by private organizations.

> Also, charter schools are also public, not private.

Charter schools are funded by the public district issuing the charter, but can be any of public, private non-profit, or private for-profit.

They are public in the sense of being governed by the rules (with exceptions provided in the charter, but which exceptions are allowed is also part of the rules) applicable to the public system, which they form part of, but they aren't necessarily public entities.

It certainly has increased. The question isn't whether the increase is enough, but rather if the destination of the funds is the right location.

There's also an issue with home life that heavily impacts educational outcome.

My own school district spent a fortune making a palace for the district admin. Meanwhile, the public schools are falling apart with the kids packed in like sardines. They've literally started adding cheap prefab trailers to the school grounds to accommodate.

In Ohio (USA) primary/secondary education funding hasn't outpaced inflation based on this data from 2009-2024 https://education.ohio.gov/Topics/Finance-and-Funding/Overvi...

I think you know the answer to your question: nothing until it becomes a major issue. This is like global warming, it's a slow moving catastrophe, you can see it coming from a mile away but it's expensive to fix so it's hard to convince people to do something about it and there is just enough ambiguity that the detractors can effectively block your efforts.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com