http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/
The education policy is also good, it basically comes down to "spend more money on education."
But whatever! It's only billions and billions of taxpayer dollars spent by a monopolist that buys its product from a cartel! Clearly, the important thing is to give more money to this completely deranged system, rather than fixing it.
Just a couple of examples off the top of my head: 1) Spending more means higher teacher salaries. Higher salaries attract better talent, which means better education. 2) Spending more means better facilities and supplies. Decent materials and supplies lead to a better classroom experience.
I went to a dirt-poor high school in south Georgia. My chem teacher was senile, our textbooks were 14 years old and falling apart, and the sinks leaked chemicals onto the floor. I know this is anecdotal evidence, but more money would have helped my school a TON.
This whole "bureaucratic inefficiency" argument it a catch-all that greedy rich people like to use as an excuse to not help out the less-fortunate.
It's insulated from the actual market. Government schools are a de facto monopoly, since they sell their product below cost, and you have to pay for it even if you don't use it. They also use a teacher's cartel to supply their teachers, and this cartel pays a lot of money to lobbyists who craft our education policy. Given these layers of monopolies, cartels, and corruption, your reference to 'market influences' makes little sense.
"1) Spending more means higher teacher salaries. Higher salaries attract better talent, which means better education"
I'd rather figure out how to fire the bad teachers rather than hiring new ones. Imagine how much money we could spend on new teachers if we shut down the rubber room: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/education/10education.html...
"Decent materials and supplies lead to a better classroom experience."
Oh. Does this mean "I looked at what kind of school supplies people used fifty years ago, and concluded..." or "I imagine..."?
"This whole "bureaucratic inefficiency" argument it a catch-all that greedy rich people like to use as an excuse to not help out the less-fortunate."
Or this whole "spending other people's money on a system that has only gotten more pathologically ineffective as billions of dollars of other people's money has been spent on it" argument is just a way for people to feel good about themselves without facing reality. Or maybe it's pointless to attribute someone else's argument to their biases, especially when you can't disprove the argument!
I think we should accept that school is not for everyone. I think we should get people out of school when they can contribute more to society by working rather than disrupting classrooms. It's a travesty that so many otherwise useful 14-year-olds are earning their straight-D report cards for years (and spending my money to do it!) when they could be mopping floors, flipping burgers, etc. I would have been happier working full-time when I was thirteen, instead of going to school and only getting to work evenings and weekends. Surely I'm not the only one.
There are a thousand ways that schools could be improved--giving up on students and sending them to flip burgers full time at 14 is not one of them. That only serves to perpetuate the self-feeding cycle of poverty, crime, and poor education. Breaking the cycle is going to be hard and expensive.
Education needs more money and smarter money.
giving up on students and sending them to flip burgers full time at 14 is not one of them.
At what point is joining the work force 'giving up'? And how recently did this become the case? Also, do you not think there are any jobs that don't require at least a high school education, or do you think that a high school education is important even if we know in advance that the person who gets it won't be using it?
You were complaining that "otherwise useful" students were doing poorly in school rather than working minimum wages jobs, specifically mopping floors or flipping burgers. The poster was complaining especially that they were "wasting your money."
At what point is joining the work force 'giving up'? You are “giving up” at the point when you “give up” on doing better than a minimum wage job with no high school degree. It’s very hard for a person of average or below-average intelligence and ambition to move beyond this—and these average people are the people we have to consider.
And how recently did this become the case? This is a flippant question, but here’s an answer anyway: Around 1870 public education became universal. Prior to that, we weren’t even trying, and hence, could not “give up.”
Also, do you not think there are any jobs that don't require at least a high school education, or do you think that a high school education is important even if we know in advance that the person who gets it won't be using it?
There are many jobs that do not require a high school degree. In fact, there are examples of people without a high school degree doing almost every kind of work there is, and getting paid all sorts of different salaries for it. But we’re not talking about exceptions here, we’re talking about average people. And a high school diploma is very valuable for most people. http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/site/c.kjJXJ5MPIwE/b...
I believe that a high school education is valuable in itself, beyond financials. If we’re going to have a democracy, it would be nice to have voters have some idea of what’s what. It’s also valuable in parenting. These concerns, however, are really not necessary to show the value of a high school diploma.
You are “giving up” at the point when you “give up” on doing better than a minimum wage job with no high school degree.
You're not "giving up" on the workforce when you stay in school? Also, are you "giving up" on school if you don't pursue a BA? An MA? A JD? A PhD? A postdoctoral position? A professorship? Tenure? A Nobel? Fields Medal? When you say that they "give up" you imply that they don't do something because it's too hard -- I'd rather say that they do the right thing, which happens to be the easy thing. I've "given up" on being a novelist, or an athlete, or a mathematician, or a drug lord, because I don't have the skills for that job.
I like how well your link controls for the possibility that smart people pursue higher education. I eagerly await the Center for Public Education's (they're neutral, too!) report on how height income, because most people under five feet tall don't even bother to join the labor force.
I believe that a high school education is valuable in itself, beyond financials.
Okay. There are lots of things that I think are valuable, but that I don't insist you pay for. If you're spending huge amounts of other people's money, you probably owe them some assurance that it's not just because it sure would be nice to have what you're buying (regardless of cost?) but that they will get their money's worth.
If we’re going to have a democracy, it would be nice to have voters have some idea of what’s what.
And they're learn this from government schools? How many teachers will tell kids that their government is horribly inefficient, or that their country has veered far from the values that its founders fought and killed for? Your argument might be persuasive in general, but I'm opposed to democracy so it doesn't sway me in particular.
The problem of selection bias is of course going to be very present as always. One of the toughest issues with public policy is that there's rarely data up to a scientific standard of proof. It's possible that the amount of money spent on an education has nil effect. One simple counterargument is this: you can't learn about computers if you don't have them.
1)"Giving up" You're using a slippery slope argument. I think a minimum wage job with essentially no opportunity for advancement at 14, is too early to "give up." That's the example that I responded to.
This is a place where we have to set a number -- it's currently at 16. This is a fairly subjective call, as there are a thousand different concerns that could reasonably move it one way or the other.
2)Value of an education A decently educated populace has great value, to me. I'm willing to pay for it. On the contrary, a bad education is not worth all that much. I believe the solution to bad education is to make it better, not to get rid of it forever.
3)Democracy How about basics like what the supreme court is and how to locate Iraq on a map? If you want to tell people about the founders, it helps if they know who the founders were and what the constitution is. No one is going to vote for your viewpoint if they don't even know what it is you're talking about.
We seem to disagree about some basic matters, so trying to argue about a high-level issue like education funding and the drop-out age is probably fairly futile.