The Myth Behind Public School Failure

[Deacon923]

I think most behavioral psychologists and economists would agree that there is a very real difference in telling a person "do Y and you'll get X" vs. "I'm giving you X now, but if you don't do Y I'll take X away", and the two approaches elicit different responses from most humans.

 

[Deacon923]

An additional thought is that the erosion of the neighborhood school naturally makes it more difficult for parents to be involved. Students are attending school further away from home for whatever reason.

here's a radical thought. Why does every new school have to have 5 acres of athletic fields for the tiny minority of kids who play school sports? Building schools that way pretty much requires that they be put out in the burbs where no one can walk to them. Older schools in many communities are centrally located in denser neighborhoods and the minority of kids who play sports get transportation to some shared athletic facilities.

 

[WFFaithful]

here's a radical thought. Why does every new school have to have 5 acres of athletic fields for the tiny minority of kids who play school sports? Building schools that way pretty much requires that they be put out in the burbs where no one can walk to them. Older schools in many communities are centrally located in denser neighborhoods and the minority of kids who play sports get transportation to some shared athletic facilities.

see the Reynolds=Hanes Park debacle

 

[Liquid Karma]

An additional thought is that the erosion of the neighborhood school naturally makes it more difficult for parents to be involved. Students are attending school further away from home for whatever reason.

The soccer mom generation and their army of minivans and jumbo SUVs are to blame. They love to be the ones who drive their kids 10 miles each way to school, then to soccer 2 nights a week, piano lessons one night, and martial arts 2 more nights.

 

[Deacon923]

The soccer mom generation and their army of minivans and jumbo SUVs are to blame. They love to be the ones who drive their kids 10 miles each way to school, then to soccer 2 nights a week, piano lessons one night, and martial arts 2 more nights.

i think you are confusing the symptom with the disease.

 

[PhDeac]

Would you support more segregated localized schools?

As long as those schools were well resourced and not marginalized. Sadly that's impossible which is why those parents have to go further to be involved in their child's school.

 

[Liquid Karma]

see the Reynolds=Hanes Park debacle

I wish they would take every cent they want to spend on that stadium and build a slew of new science and computer labs.

 

[Wrangor]

I think most behavioral psychologists and economists would agree that there is a very real difference in telling a person "do Y and you'll get X" vs. "I'm giving you X now, but if you don't do Y I'll take X away", and the two approaches elicit different responses from most humans.

It is completely different. Telling a business they receive a tax break if they hire a certain number of workers is the complete opposite of taxing them if they don't. Telling a student that he gets a free ride to a 2 year high educational institution if he maintains a 3.5 GPA is completely different from throwing some sort of penalty on a kid if they don't get a 3.5 (I have no idea what that penalty would be, just making the point).

Positive and negative reinforcement elicit completely different responses and more importantly attitudes.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Which is why in poorer area we need to extend the school day and year. The parents either can't or are unwilling to hold he children accountable. We have to.

So we're not allowed to hold the parents (adults) accountable, but we are supposed to hold children acocuntable? That isn't going to work. If there is one thing I've learned from this board, it is that we, as a society, are not allowed to hold anyone accountable except the 1%. As for everyone else, it is always somebody else's fault (which by nature of the system always leads back to the 1%). It is impossible to hold 1% accountable for 99% in a theoretically free market society, but that doesn't make the 99% feel good about themselves, so we aren't allowed to admit it.

 

[PhDeac]

Theoretically free market. You're trying to bleed turnips from 90%.

 

[Wrangor]

So we're not allowed to hold the parents (adults) accountable, but we are supposed to hold children acocuntable? That isn't going to work. If there is one thing I've learned from this board, it is that we, as a society, are not allowed to hold anyone accountable except the 1%. As for everyone else, it is always somebody else's fault (which by nature of the system always leads back to the 1%). It is impossible to hold 1% accountable for 99% in a theoretically free market society, but that doesn't make the 99% feel good about themselves, so we aren't allowed to admit it.

Theoretically I agree with you. It would be great to be able to hold the parents responsible for their duties. But I cannot figure out a real world application that actually makes sense. Can you?

If a parent is not going to take care of their own kids, which is clearly what is happening, then I am not sure any penalties or negative reinforcement in place is going to get it done.

Someone has to break the cycle. Until we break the cycle and teach these kids responsibility, including responsibility of taking care of your own kids, the cycle will continue.

 

[Deacon923]

So we're not allowed to hold the parents (adults) accountable, but we are supposed to hold children acocuntable? That isn't going to work. If there is one thing I've learned from this board, it is that we, as a society, are not allowed to hold anyone accountable except the 1%. As for everyone else, it is always somebody else's fault (which by nature of the system always leads back to the 1%). It is impossible to hold 1% accountable for 99% in a theoretically free market society, but that doesn't make the 99% feel good about themselves, so we aren't allowed to admit it.

Extending the school day and year is not about holding children accountable in my view. It's about removing them from their bad home environment. It's about leveling the playing field so that poor kids have access to the same amount of educational opportunities as more well-off kids whose parents can afford tutors, summer camps, athletics, etc. etc. while poor kids sit home all summer playing Xbox as childcare. Studies are very clear that poor kids suffer much more learning loss in the summer than more well off kids, and that deficit is like compounding interest, it gets worse and worse as they get older.

Extending time in school is an excellent way to improve outcomes for poor children (something all parties theoretically want) without paying money to their allegedly deadbeat parents (something that conservatives should especially like).

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

Extending the school day and year is not about holding children accountable in my view. It's about removing them from their bad home environment. It's about leveling the playing field so that poor kids have access to the same amount of educational opportunities as more well-off kids whose parents can afford tutors, summer camps, athletics, etc. etc. while poor kids sit home all summer playing Xbox as childcare. Studies are very clear that poor kids suffer much more learning loss in the summer than more well off kids, and that deficit is like compounding interest, it gets worse and worse as they get older.

Extending time in school is an excellent way to improve outcomes for poor children (something all parties theoretically want) without paying money to their allegedly deadbeat parents (something that conservatives should especially like).

It's not my job, your job, or society's job to be a parent for somebody else's kids. Nor can we be unless there is 24/7 removal. How is extending the school year to get kids away from their parents any less offensive (and actually not more offensive) then my repeated assertion that we should pay people to be voluntarily sterilized as the ultimate solution?

More importantly, it is not anyone's duty to level the playing field. Life is not a level playing field (which should be right up the alley of the anti-religion, pro-science agenda). We've been trying to level the playing field now for several generations, and the problem with leveling anything this that when one side goes up, the other side comes down. So instead of having a natural linear stratification, you get a whole lot of shit clumped together in the middle. Which is exactly what we have now.

I'm all for significantly increased school funding, but approaching it with the attitude of "leveling the playing field" is exactly the wrong way to go about it. When we focus solely on dragging up the bottom, it stagnates the top. It is the same LCD attitudes that have us headed in the general direction we have been spiraling for the past ~30 years.

 

[ImTheCaptain]

you can't see how it's beneficial to society as whole to keep kids in a safe, structured, supportive environment for a larger portion of their day if the alternative is (at best) a set of busy/tired and at worst, neglectful or abusive set of parents?

 

[awaken]

I agree with extending the school day (start and end an hour before rush hour), and extending the school year (or year round). Make classes a little longer, and add more classes for study halls, music and arts. Include extra-curriculars (sports, band) formally into the schedule (2-3 periods in the afternoon).

Ends the latch key kid problem. Most kids are introduced to drugs, sex, alcohol between 2-6pm.

 

[Milhouse]

you can't see how it's beneficial to society as whole to keep kids in a safe, structured, supportive environment for a larger portion of their day if the alternative is (at best) a set of busy/tired and at worst, neglectful or abusive?

no kidding. jesus.....

 

[PhDeac]

Fuck children. Get money.

The Junior MAFIA interpretation.

 

[Deacon923]

you can't see how it's beneficial to society as whole to keep kids in a safe, structured, supportive environment for a larger portion of their day if the alternative is (at best) a set of busy/tired and at worst, neglectful or abusive?

educating kids is a hell of a lot less expensive than incarcerating them a few years later.

 

[Deacon923]

2&2 likes "natural linear stratification" because he's on the top of it, and he is confident his kids will be too.

Here's a thought experiment for 2&2: if you knew you had to be reincarnated in America, but you had no way of knowing what set of parents you would be blessed or cursed with, which kind of school system would you want? My kind or your "natural linear stratification" kind?

 

[RJKarl]

It's not my job, your job, or society's job to be a parent for somebody else's kids. Nor can we be unless there is 24/7 removal. How is extending the school year to get kids away from their parents any less offensive (and actually not more offensive) then my repeated assertion that we should pay people to be voluntarily sterilized as the ultimate solution?

More importantly, it is not anyone's duty to level the playing field. Life is not a level playing field (which should be right up the alley of the anti-religion, pro-science agenda). We've been trying to level the playing field now for several generations, and the problem with leveling anything this that when one side goes up, the other side comes down. So instead of having a natural linear stratification, you get a whole lot of shit clumped together in the middle. Which is exactly what we have now.

I'm all for significantly increased school funding, but approaching it with the attitude of "leveling the playing field" is exactly the wrong way to go about it. When we focus solely on dragging up the bottom, it stagnates the top. It is the same LCD attitudes that have us headed in the general direction we have been spiraling for the past ~30 years.

You really need to tell us who is "anti-religion" and why you say they are.

If you are going to use terms like that and not look like a tin-foil hat wearing, brainwasshed idiot, you must give examples of whom and why.