What can be done about self segregation in the US education system?

[Kellhound]

Step 1: School boards should be composed of professionals, not elected officials. Their purpose should be administrative, and forming a new board should only happen if the administrative needs suggest it's needed, not because some people want one.

Step 2: Pool public school funding across the municipality/region, distribute to schools based on student body size. A school of 500 students serving a poor inner city neighbourhood should get exactly the same funding as the 500 student school in the wealthiest suburb in the city.
Step 2A: Donations to the school would be added to that pool, not kept by the individual school.

Step 3: Work to homogenize curriculum standards as broadly as possible. At the State level, bare minimum, ideally at the national level. Some regional variations should be allowed with some flexibility in the optional sections; schools in Spanish-heavy areas may offer more Spanish education than a school elsewhere (which would replace that with other language training, as regionally appropriate or based on available teachers). And before anyone goes nuts, "curriculum standards" are bare minimum standards; teachers would be expected to be exceeding these, not just meeting. Said curriculum standards would apply to private schools as well, as well as homeschooling.

I.e., make sure everyone is mediocre at best.

[Endus]

I.e., make sure everyone is mediocre at best.

If you're not even going to bother reading my post, why bother responding? Literally nothing in there suggests mediocrity. If you're making an argument about the concept of curriculum standards, that's to set bare minimums, so you don't have schools in some county suddenly deciding they don't need to teach this "evolution" nonsense, or something.

[Deleted]

I wasn't defending it, just pointing out that it's not meant to fix anything, just keep the consequences from being too atrocious.

I fully agree that fixing it is the better way to go.



Not if their teacher's properly trained. By separating them, you're essentially saying "these kids are smart, and those kids are dumb". The dumb kids are smart enough to realize that, so they stop trying, because the teachers already "know" they're "dumb", so why bother?

Before I go on, let me take a second to say that I also want to see class sizes down to 20 or less, and ideally a teacher's assistant in every class; I realize what I'm about to describe becomes unachievable with a single teacher with 35+ students.

A single teacher shouldn't be teaching a single lesson to all students. And the best forms of evaluation aren't to a standardized grade system, they're in reference to the child's improvement. You'll get kids that "get" the lesson much faster than others (particularly with things like math, which is often pretty binary in that regard). You can get them helping others (which isn't busywork; you need a stronger grasp of WHY something works a certain way to effectively teach it). You can give them additional, more advanced work when they're done. This is especially true with a TA; the TA can take students who've exceeded, or are flagging, and do some additional work with them, either catching them up or expanding their knowledge base.

Just because you've got a single class doesn't mean you're expecting all those students to hit the same bar. Just as an example for how to handle this; you can give kids tests with more questions than they can handle. Let them KNOW that, up front, and tell them it's just about finishing what you can, in the time alotted. A "satisfactory" could be getting 25% done (a "pass" in a normal grading system, whatever mark that is for that system), but "exceptional" might be getting 50% done. And a kid who gets 75% done is performing at a higher "grade level", or at an advanced level, however you want to phrase that. This also means you get to provide students with a broader range of types of problems, because sometimes, kids struggle with a certain type of concept for some reason, even though they've got a solid grasp of the principles.

A classroom isn't a competition, and we need to eliminate the idea that you're ever "done". If they need to be challenged further, just challenge them further. You'll be evaluating them individually anyway.

If you can get the class sizes down. Integrating more people into a school will drive up class sizes. What should be the focus is decreasing class sizes by hiring more quality teachers. Even then, though, the root of the problem has to be addressed first. These kids are not going to imprI've unless their home life, their life outside school, is improved. Like I said in my other post, kids with no guidance at home, who have no role models or people to raise them properly, are not going to respect an education. You can't blame everything on the schools. Things go deeper than that.

[Endus]

If you can get the class sizes down. Integrating more people into a school will drive up class sizes.

Not automatically. You can hire more staff, y'know.

Especially with per-student financing, which I recommended, largely for this reason.

These kids are not going to imprI've unless their home life, their life outside school, is improved. Like I said in my other post, kids with no guidance at home, who have no role models or people to raise them properly, are not going to respect an education. You can't blame everything on the schools. Things go deeper than that.

No, but your options basically boil down to;
1> Try and provide resources to them through the education system and do your best to support them, or
2> Abandon them and don't even try.

The former will, over time (again, generations, not a short timescale like a decade) erode away these distinctions. The latter reinforces them. Giving up on public education seems like a pretty poor base principle.

[Kellhound]

If you're not even going to bother reading my post, why bother responding? Literally nothing in there suggests mediocrity. If you're making an argument about the concept of curriculum standards, that's to set bare minimums, so you don't have schools in some county suddenly deciding they don't need to teach this "evolution" nonsense, or something.

No, you want to transfer the money from the haves to the have nots, thus leveling everything to mediocrity.

[Endus]

No, you want to transfer the money from the haves to the have nots, thus leveling everything to mediocrity.

Mediocrity implies sub-par. So no. I'm suggesting an even playing field, rather than one that privileges those who don't need that support in the first place.

[Kellhound]

Mediocrity implies sub-par. So no. I'm suggesting an even playing field, rather than one that privileges those who don't need that support in the first place.

You want to knock down the well funded schools and dilute that money to all the other schools, resulting in a slight rise for the less well funded schools and a steep drop for the well funded ones. End result, mediocrity.

[Endus]

You want to knock down the well funded schools and dilute that money to all the other schools, resulting in a slight rise for the less well funded schools and a steep drop for the well funded ones. End result, mediocrity.

You have literally zero evidence to back that up.

And there's plenty of evidence from actual school systems that it's false, to boot.

Just making shit up isn't a counter argument. I mean, I could say "no, it'll cause no decline for the well-funded schools and shoot the less well-funded ones right up to that same level, awesomely", and i'd have as much basis for that as you've provided.


It's public education. There shouldn't be "good schools". If students can pick where they go, they'll all want to go to the "good schools", and that can't work. If they can't, then you're picking and choosing which students get the most support, and the way the system works now, those students are those with wealthier parents. If those parents want privileges for their kids, they can pay for private school. Otherwise, it should be an even playing field.

[Masark]

You want to knock down the well funded schools and dilute that money to all the other schools, resulting in a slight rise for the less well funded schools and a steep drop for the well funded ones. End result, mediocrity.

Oh noes, the rich high school won't be able to build a stadium and the poor one will be able to keep their building inhabitable. Such mediocrity.

[Endus]

I know, you risk kids feeling like they're labelled "smart" and "dumb", but pretending that they're all the same and mindlessly promoting everyone to the next level because they showed up isn't helping anyone either.

Honestly, I'd argue that's a factor of the "grade" system. I'd support dismantling that completely. Introduce "levels" for each individual subject, which are essentially not much different from grade levels, but the idea is you can go through them at the pace that suits you. For most kids, that's probably a level a year. But you wouldn't ever get "sent back", or have to "start over" with a grade level; you'd always be pushing forward at the stuff you're most in need of learning. If you're brilliant at match but terrible at, say, social studies, you can be at Level 12 in one, and Level 7 in the other, too. because you've separated these out.

Once you move to individualized programs, there's no need to push anyone to a level they haven't earned, to begin with. And someone lagging in math won't lose their friends, they may just be in a different math class.

[Kellhound]

You have literally zero evidence to back that up.

And there's plenty of evidence from actual school systems that it's false, to boot.

Just making shit up isn't a counter argument. I mean, I could say "no, it'll cause no decline for the well-funded schools and shoot the less well-funded ones right up to that same level, awesomely", and i'd have as much basis for that as you've provided.


It's public education. There shouldn't be "good schools". If students can pick where they go, they'll all want to go to the "good schools", and that can't work. If they can't, then you're picking and choosing which students get the most support, and the way the system works now, those students are those with wealthier parents. If those parents want privileges for their kids, they can pay for private school. Otherwise, it should be an even playing field.

A quick look at Oregon shows your idea would actually take money away from many of the worst performing schools. But money really isnt the issue. The quality of the teachers, parents, and students is, and THAT is very hard to force fix, as the parents and teachers that are mobile will move to better pastures, which of course is what happens now.

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Oh noes, the rich high school won't be able to build a stadium and the poor one will be able to keep their building inhabitable. Such mediocrity.

Or you find out that now the school falling apart has even less money per student because of shifting demographics.

[ezgeze]

Ban ethnic enclaves.

so you are for a government agency to come to an area and enforce ethic quotas preventing people from moving where they want to move? Sorry, your too white to move here, black or brown people can only buy that house. Try moving into this house in the hood instead, they need more white people there.

That's exactly what will happen.

[GrinningMan]

so you are for a government agency to come to an area and enforce ethic quotas preventing people from moving where they want to move? Sorry, your too white to move here, black or brown people can only buy that house. Try moving into this house in the hood instead, they need more white people there.

That's exactly what will happen.

'Why do white people hate getting robbed or mugged? Is it proof of White Privilege? We'll take a look after the break.'

[Freighter]

so you are for a government agency to come to an area and enforce ethic quotas preventing people from moving where they want to move?

Works fine in Singapore as far as public housing is concerned.

[Astalnar]

I think that the problem with the conclusions drawn here is that 'achievement' is a racist concept.

Since when is it racist to point out that neither desegregation nor throwing money at the problem won't solve the problem?

If you actually read the report, you'll see that solution they propose is the one John Stuart Mill argued for 150 years back. In essence, that the government should not be allowed to hold monopoly over the education, and instead parents should be free to send their offsprings to whatever school they choose or can afford. Hell, Mill's argument stems from diversity. He was the one who trully believed that diversity and vibrancy make the society stronger, not weaker. But hey, he argued for a real diversity, diversity of opinion, not just skin tone.

Another point to consider is that social physchology has long since established that if you mix couple of bad kids with a group of good kids, it's not the bad kids who get better, but a group of good kids that get worse. Talk about rotten apples. But then again, this research was the reason why social psychologist stopped doing postmortem reports, as it turned out that the change they desired wasn't the change that came about. It was usually just the opposite.

[ezgeze]

Step 1: School boards should be composed of professionals, not elected officials. Their purpose should be administrative, and forming a new board should only happen if the administrative needs suggest it's needed, not because some people want one..

Get rid of mandatory unionization in the education system and I would be more open to this suggestion. IMO one of the major roadblocks to true educational reform is in breaking of the union stranglehold on education. What incentive is there for administrators, drawn from a pool of chosen members blessed my the almighty AFT union to actually stand up against a union when the unions priority is in conflict with the students? Cross the union on the bases of pay/ conditions/ or perks and they will simply anoint a new successor to replace you that will give them everything they want. Also, how is this even better than an outside administrator who happens to be accountable from the community it is suppose to serve? For example, lets say you have a union backed "professional teacher" as a board member of a school district who does a horrible job in the eyes of the community but is loved by the union, where is the accountability? As it stands, a good majority of school administrators are from the educational field as is so what you really are advocating here is for the status quo except now the community can do very little to anything to change a failing system. Nice.

Step 2: Pool public school funding across the municipality/region, distribute to schools based on student body size. A school of 500 students serving a poor inner city neighbourhood should get exactly the same funding as the 500 student school in the wealthiest suburb in the city..

Worst. Idea. Ever.
The cost of educating a student in one school does not necessarily equal the amount another school needs to educate that exact same student. This should have been obvious. This isn't even taking into account the differences between students. Under your system, a person with special needs gets the same $ amount as a person who doesn't have special needs costs at all. How this is not understood and/or missed is scaring me.

Step 2A: Donations to the school would be added to that pool, not kept by the individual school..

Again, Worst. Idea. Ever.
Why on earth would anyone want to donate a large sum of money to a district if they cannot visually see an improvement. Lets say for example I wanted to donate $2000 to my High School so they can replace an aging sign in front of their building..... instead of actually seeing a new sign get put up, what you suggest is that the money go into some fishbowl for an administrator to dole out, presumably to whatever cause he/she feels most important to them at that time. What you will get is instead of a new sign which I thought the school would like, hence why I even donated it in the first place, you now get a gym mat in a school I have no connection to, probably never heard of, never even seen before and really could care less about. In the end I decide not to donate the money. Congratulations. I just summed up the experience a good number of donators that decided they will not contribute.

Step 3: Work to homogenize curriculum standards as broadly as possible. At the State level, bare minimum, ideally at the national level. Some regional variations should be allowed with some flexibility in the optional sections; schools in Spanish-heavy areas may offer more Spanish education than a school elsewhere (which would replace that with other language training, as regionally appropriate or based on available teachers). And before anyone goes nuts, "curriculum standards" are bare minimum standards; teachers would be expected to be exceeding these, not just meeting. Said curriculum standards would apply to private schools as well, as well as homeschooling.

To a degree, that is what we already have. I would like to see it limited at the highest level to the State, and not the Federal level. With few exceptions, anything ran at the federal level is almost exclusively dog shit in quality, overpriced, and abused. The last thing I would like to see is some hired administrator from a state a thousand+ miles away telling me what is "regionally appropriate" for my area when he/she probably couldn't even point out my area on a map of the U.S. What should happen is to give the vast majority of educational control to the region, monitored by the state with the federal level offering suggestions not tied to any $$. Get the federal government out of education entirely and allow the states to experiment and determine the best way to administer the education based on their needs, their priorities and overall accountable to their voters.

TLDR: please never run for office ever. Stay far, far away. Future generations will be most grateful.

[Zoranon]

Right, me linking you to multiple reputable academic sources that refute your claim is somehow not "in good faith", especially when you have provided nothing to back up your assertions.



Either school funding helps, or it doesn't. The above sentence contradicts itself. If school funding does correlate to student achievement, then it is a tool for fixing what you call "terrible schools". So either you are denying there's such a correlation (in which case, see above links to academic studies), or you're not, and you're admitting that your conclusion is baseless and wrong.



You cast aspersions on minority students and "ghetto culture". Those are integrally prejudicial in nature, particularly if you're refusing to acknowledge socioeconomic factors.

So either you are functionally illiterate, or you just love lying and setting up strawmen.

More waaah waaah wacism I see, too bad for you this rhetorical foul stopped working some time ago. You can keep pretending there is no destructive ghetto culture, but that is just a dumb thing to do.

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I believe that I can disprove you by simply pointing out the stunning success of the welfare system in the United States. Clearly all you need to do is pump more money/resources/government into the problem to make everything better.

It's like having an airplane that has had its wings fall off, all you need to do is add more jet fuel to get it to fly.

Well with people like Endus (aka the extreme left) it is never about improving the lives of the poor, it is about ensuring equality even if it means making many worse off and nobody better off.

He really reminds me of a professor I encountered once who started her course by declaring we are not entitled to create our own facts only to spend the entire course by doing so...

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Works fine in Singapore as far as public housing is concerned.

Well in western countries people do actually have rights which include freedom from discrimination based on race you know?

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You were saying?

On a more serious note, it's not the money that is the problem. It's the kids. Here is the report, if you don't want to read the whole thing, just read the summary at the page 1, and postscript at page 27.
https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.o...pdf/pa-298.pdf

You are sadly absolutely correct, but this only means you will be branded as racist by the left.

[Scathbais]

Step 1: School boards should be composed of professionals, not elected officials. Their purpose should be administrative, and forming a new board should only happen if the administrative needs suggest it's needed, not because some people want one.

Step 2: Pool public school funding across the municipality/region, distribute to schools based on student body size. A school of 500 students serving a poor inner city neighbourhood should get exactly the same funding as the 500 student school in the wealthiest suburb in the city.
Step 2A: Donations to the school would be added to that pool, not kept by the individual school.

Step 3: Work to homogenize curriculum standards as broadly as possible. At the State level, bare minimum, ideally at the national level. Some regional variations should be allowed with some flexibility in the optional sections; schools in Spanish-heavy areas may offer more Spanish education than a school elsewhere (which would replace that with other language training, as regionally appropriate or based on available teachers). And before anyone goes nuts, "curriculum standards" are bare minimum standards; teachers would be expected to be exceeding these, not just meeting. Said curriculum standards would apply to private schools as well, as well as homeschooling.

Step 1A: Outlaw mandatory taxpayer funded teach pensions, so our tax dollars actually go to our students' educations instead of to trying to support unsustainable overly generous retirement benefits.

[Alydael]

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/white...ool-districts/

I believe this a threat to national unity! Americans must see themselves as Americans first! Not rich or poor! Not white or black!

Any school that does this is a traitor to America!

Would you be in favor of banning this or are there better ways?

This is because our lovely government is not funding education properly.

People get tired of having their children in an underfunded school with old books and no technology so they do something about it.

I can't blame them and I won't blame someone else for our government's failure. In fact, I admire them for doing something about it instead of waiting for the government to "fix" it (you'll be waiting on that one a long time, let me tell you).

I don't really see it as a racial issue, because it is not as if they are banning certain races or purposefully excluding people. They are just funding their own schools because the government messes up everything it touches. Why should they be forced to keep their money in their bank account and to have to suffer the mediocracy of our government?

[Katchii]

Wanting a better education for your child isn't racist, and neither is trying to protect them from all the shit that can happen at schools predominantly made up of low income families, especially high schools, but even elementary and middle schools can be pretty terrible. Whites can be poor too and I've seen my fair share of "ghetto" white people alongside the other ethnicities that are generally stereotyped as "ghetto." I don't have a good answer for how to fix it, but I can say I don't think forcing people to co-mingle who don't want to is not going to make things better.

I also somewhat agree with @Alydael , the government is pretty shitty at how it deals with education and funding for it.