Hacker News Reader

Comment by normloman | Hacker News Reader

A few bad teachers can't explain Newark's low graduation rates. Bad teachers exist outside Newark, but kids outside still graduate in greater rates than Newark students. The difference between Newark and everywhere else is poverty. That's why I never had any hopes for Zuckerberg's donation. You've got to fix poverty to fix education.

Unfortunately, the best way to raise someone out of poverty is through education. So you've got a chicken-egg problem.

Have we tried doing both? Create new jobs for poor parents while simultaneously improving schools for their children?

View on HN

But using the same reasoning you give, we can point out that there are other poor regions in the US with better graduation rates. Surely, cultural and historical reasons also play a big role.

The solution is to realize that the causes are many and big. Rather than trying to take these on in a gargantuan effort, which is pretty much doomed, my suggestion would be to ... just ignore the causes! Forget about what causes the problem, just fix the problem for now. When somebody heavily bleeding you don't stop to find out what caused the wound.

This would be a transitory approach, of course. But, as you stated, once you make headway into education, you'll be much better equipped to tackle the root causes.

"A few bad teachers can't explain Newark's low graduation rates."

The problem is it's not just a few it's probably a lot of really crappy teachers, principals, and administrators. Teacher unions like to use the phrase "just a few bad apples" but when you have a system that bad your're right a few doesn't explain it it's probably the whole bunch or close to it that is rotten.

Somewhat related there was an earlier comment from HN that I really liked (though don't remember who said it) - about the bad apples phrase.

"In situations where accusations of widespread corruption, misconduct, unethical action, etc are made, a phrase that is often trotted out in defense of the accused is "just a few bad apples". It's not WhereEver Police Department that has an issue with racial bias and violent escalation, it's just a few bad apples. Our school district does not have a bullying problem, it's just a few bad apples. Etc.

What is interesting about this cliched defense is that it is actually a malformed statement of the original cliche, "A few bad apples spoil the barrel."

The original cliche refers to a phenomenon where overripe or rotten apples release ethylene gas, which is a ripening agent. This ethylene gas will accelerate the ripening/rot of nearby apples. If you are not vigilant in weeding out the bad apples, the rot will rapidly spread and soon there will be no good apples left to rescue.

Human "bad apples" don't release ethylene gas, but they corrupt their peers nevertheless. When a good cop backs the cover story of his corrupt cop partner, he becomes a bad cop as well. When prosecutors take up arms in defense of their corrupt prosecutor peers, they become no better than the initially targeted. If school administrators allow a bully to have his way for too long, then everybody else sees that they can get away with it too and before long you have daily fistfights behind the school at the end of the day.

Institutions that have had widespread unchallenged corruption for decades rarely need keyhole surgery, they need amputations."

Newark is not the only place with teacher unions. Why do teacher unions have so much more of a negative impact in Newark than elsewhere?

Because it is a negative reinforcement loop. Good teachers will self select and leave on their own because they can. Since Newark isn't going to be a desirable district to work in it is that much more important to actively remove bad teachers and provide incentives for the good ones to stay.

It's not that cut-and-dried. My own high school had both very good and some rather bad teachers. The union was a stabilizing force that good teachers used to ignore everything but helping their students while the bad teachers used it to bide time until they could hit the magic year for their pensions.

I don't think fixing the problem necessarily requires destroying the unions or just allowing school administrators to just fire people willy nilly but the problem will not be fixed unless there is a measure of accountability.

"Just a few bad apples" is a very auspicious phrase for the unions to use, given how common the phrase "one bad apple can spoil the bunch" also is.

The main problem is still poverty, and you can't fix that with charter schools.

Bad parents are the ultimate equalizer, and are inherently unfixable. Good parents will have children that perform under bad teachers, and excel under good teachers. Bad parents will have student no matter how good the teacher is (or, it takes an exceptional student to break out of that.)

So very true, and that's what makes it so depressing. I believe many of the problems with schools are structurally unfixable because there's a powerful network effect with - for lack of a better phrase - "good people". The good ones want to be with other good ones, naturally. So they all move to certain suburbs and neighborhoods, and the result is a segregation of good and bad folks. And of course, breaking the cycle of bad parenting often times seems nearly impossible...

> Bad parents are the ultimate equalizer, and are inherently unfixable.

That's a large assumption. I am sure many things can be done to improve peoples' ability, means and motivation to be good parents.

I would phrase this another way: many things can be attempted. Getting people to actually permanently and radically change their behavior has to be one of the most difficult tasks in the world.

I see no reason why it's inherently unfixable. I feel like there's a bias in our culture that parents will "just know" how to raise children properly. How often do you see classes for teaching parents of toddlers/young kids/preteens/teens how to deal with kids in that age group? There's plenty of resources for newborns, but little past that. Just recrimination and blame for parents who can't get it right. Parenting classes might actually go a long way, but there's no way of knowing for sure right now.

The impact of bad schools systems hits poor students disproportionately.

Imagine two school systems that otherwise have the same general qualities.

In one you have children who have wealthy, educated parents. Parents who read. Parents who take an active interest in their children's education. Parents who encourage their children to learn independent of school. Those children are going to acquire an education more or less independent of the quality of their teachers. They will be able to get as much out of the text books as they would from the teachers, because they are more likely to read on their own, more likely to spend the effort doing the work, and more likely to care (or have their parents care) about learning. If those children have bad teachers it's a momentary setback, and something they can often overcome with the help of their parents, fellow students, and self-study.

In the other you have children who have poor, uneducated parents. Those children are almost completely and utterly dependent on their teachers. They're not going to read at home, they're parents may not have a strong interest in their education (assuming that the school is handling it), and so on. If those students encounter a bad teacher it translates to a huge setback. They have no support network to deal with bad teacher, it could easily cause them to fall behind or, worse, to lose interest in school and education.

> Create new jobs for poor parents while simultaneously improving schools for their children?

Tulsa OK is trying that. Preschool combined with a jobs program.

http://www.npr.org/2014/04/22/304563233/what-exactly-is-high...

Public schools and the NEA are a monopoly. Monopolies will never fix themselves or act in the best interests of their customers. The only way to fix a bad monopoly is to divest it of power, break it up, and let others take a crack at using the same resources.

Applying corporate logic to education is a mistake. In Finland there are no private schools, and the education system is ranked among the highest in the world.

Source: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-ame...

As someone who works in a Finnish company and is surrounded by Finnish culture, let me be the first to say that what works in Finland won't work in the United States.

Actually, I'd be the second to say that. My Finnish colleagues would be first.

Is this because of the lack of diversity in Finland, or what?

While schools in Finland are publicly funded the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the principal: "If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it." So it's not really comparable to a monopoly.

It's barely beating out Singapore for second place, and Singapore has a system almost the complete opposite. If Finland didn't exist, your logic would compel you to make everyone follow the Singapore model.

The R-value here is 0.

Nowhere did I recommend following the Finnish model. Rather, I provided a counter-example to the parent comment, which implied that the problem was due to a public system monopoly.

My mistake; you were correct. My comment would argue in favor of your point rather than against it.

I suspect in both cases, it's an entirely different cause than the format of the school system that is responsible for the high results.

> Unfortunately, the best way to raise someone out of poverty is through education. So you've got a chicken-egg problem.

Education is clearly one factor, but there are many others. The most effective way to ameliorate poverty is to improve all factors simultaneously. E.g. employment/income, housing, healthcare, incarceration, transportation, education--just to name a few of many factors.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com