zlacker

Why would paying more for teachers fix the issue? The best teachers will still prefer private school because kids are more displined. You end up paying more for the same or worse now you attract a new group who are in it for the money.

Education starts at home and without a learning culture with displine these children are setup to fail.

>>ipaddr+(OP)
Anecdotal, but during my time as a teacher, the one variable that seemed to govern the success/failure of students was home life—especially whether or not the child had two loving parents. Poverty seems to be the common denominator in those unstable households. I think a broad and robust approach to our collective welfare can address the issue far better than "more money to education!" can.

>>ipaddr+(OP)
Easier to understand: Hogwarts.

Harry Potter was pried from that little dusty cupboard closet beneath the stairs and sent to somewhere to reach success.

Send kids that don't have a good home life to someplace where the adults care and have the resources to see that they do succeed.

>>jim-ji+a2
It's not just anecdotal.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S02765...

Just one example of many.

Everybody's talking about the problems with schools, but the issue is the enormous gap in economic inequality that is just growing larger and larger. Parents who have to work 2-3 jobs to support their families don't have the time or energy to devote to supporting their children in their academic lives.

>>mjevan+E4
Boarding schools aren’t popular in the USA. Where they are used for poverty reasons (eg China), racism is easily involved (Uighur kids are more often shunted to boarding schools than Han kids in xinjiang). We also tried this with Native Americans in the 20th century and that turned out really bad.

>>mjevan+E4
"Hogwarts" reference aside, you are right that extremely structured environments (boarding schools are what I assume you are alluding to) can actually bring out the best in young bright people, especially young men, and it's unfortunate that we've basically done away with that in the United States as a way to educate children.

>>seanmc+m7
That turned out really bad because only the problem (political problem) kids went there, and they also were often privately run and had very lax oversight.

>>mjevan+E4
Harry Potter was a "chosen one" who was given special attention by his teachers. I don't think his teachers gave the same attention to other students, who didn't have a thunder-shaped scar in their brow and couldn't speak you-know-who's name without wincing.

Rather, I think it was Hermione Granger that embodied the role model of the student from an underprivilged background who works hard to achieve academic success.

>>_AzMoo+U4
And often those same kids don't have time to dedicate to their studies, having to work after school to help support their family.

Teaching at the rural school I grew up in really changed my perspective. I was very abnormal when growing up there, and all my friends were too (I can only think of one good friend who's parents were divorced, and her mom and remarried when she was fairly young), and I was super insulated from the realities of things there. Coming back as a teacher made me see how much worse it is, and it's a clear difference between the kids; even those kids whose parents want them to do well struggle if the parents can't be at home.