You're right, but...

saying we will fix the schools when we fix poverty is pretty much saying we will never fix the schools.

poor schools is one of the factors which cause poverty, so it will be hard to fix poverty without addressing the schools, which puts us in a catch 22, so we will never fix the schools.

we could fix the schools and make inroads in fixing poverty if we funded the schools fairly, but that's never going to happen, so we will never fix the schools.

Your right butt...

What I liked about Romney's rhetoric was he didn't even pretend to care about improving schools in general. It was all about how to tell which schools are good so parents can send their kids to the good schools. Presumably the bad schools get torn down and the kids who don't get into the good schools go to the workhouse.

Or Soylent Green.

As a middle path, two square meals a day and physical and moral safety at all schools seems like a beachhead against post 1.

moral safety -- what does that mean?

but that's never going to happen, so we will never fix the schools.

I say fixing the schools is inevitable, but I don't know how to predict social collapse. My guess is that the schools will get fixed when America desperately needs radically increased productivity. Remember Sputnik.

The reasons for upcoming possible social collapse are pretty obvious. Which or what combination of collapses...who knows. When? Pretty soon.

I actually recently read a prediction of 7 degrees warmer by 2060.

but I don't know how to predict social collapse.

bob underestimates himself.

Poor schools cause poverty? I mean, I get the interconnectedness or whatever of these things, but I think HG is right by assuming that ultimately, poverty is at the root. Whether or not one can "solve" poverty is different from whether or not one can solve schools.

peep -- not just physical safety because the bullies and the victims both get thrown out. The ability to speak your mind and be heard fairly. What we're trying to think how to do in "Look, Text?" &ff.

Doubtless sociologists and philosophers could make a better fist of this.

Of course, what we mean by "fix the schools" is also sort of a messy question. I mean, Rory will have made all the SAT words her bitches by the end of 8th grade, which will lead to fantastic test scores, which seems to be what folks in my neighborhood consider the measure of a good school. It will certainly benefit her in concrete ways, but I don't know so much that it counts as super education.

Poor schools cause poverty?

Poor schools entrench poverty. Rich kids get the sort of cultural literacy that allows them to remain the rich kids.

9: That seems like a worthy goal and quite a challenge.

10: I don't know anything about the school Rory goes to, but I'm guessing that if all schools were like hers, our schools would be considered fixed.

Whether or not one can "solve" poverty is different

Sure ya can, at least to a good approximation, and there are a lot of historical models. There are several important following steps...

...but first make everybody poor.

What's that three-letter abbreviation for the kinds of skills America needs to become [blah blah whatever] again?

I never understand quite what it is people are hoping we will be producing so much of. I really don't.

three-letter abbreviation

RRC - readin' ritin' and cipherin'

12.2: Right, given a certain, widely understood and rarely expressly articulated definition of "fixed."

I mean, I'm not looking to trash Rory's school by any means. I kind of find the massive energy poured into "vocabulary" kind of mindless, but whatevs. I found the idea that she actually seems to know and have ideas about music theory kind of mind-blowing. I think that she has had good opportunities (though more at the elementary than middles school level, from what I've seen) to speak her mind and learn to be heard fairly. Which is awesome. For her. But I think other kids, even in the same school, don't have that same opportunity. And I don't think that's really so much a function of how fixed the school is so much as a function of her class status.

but I don't know how to predict social collapse.

bob has predicted 20 of the last zero social collapses.

14:I never understand quite what it is people are hoping we will be producing so much of. I really don't.

We will be producing a carbon-free economy, cleaning up the mess, and protecting ourselves from what can't be cleaned. Produce what for export/balance of trade? Probably food.

This will happen at whatever level of population survival. Are you saying it won't? What could that mean?

Now what do you mean by "education?" What by "poverty?" How many physicists? How many solar roofers?

I do think the next generation will be much more productive, and much more equal even if the 1% own 99% of the wealth. The next 20%, the UMC are going to take a hit, and the rest will be equally poor.

There are other less likely scenarios.

I think there's a lot that can and should be done to 'fix' schools where they're measurably inadequate in terms of input: physical plant, staffing, classes offered, safety and security for students, all that sort of thing. And I think that economically integrating the public schools such that rich and poor kids were attending the same schools would also be a very good thing, and that geography (as opposed to arbitrary school district lines) would allow this to happen much more than it does at the moment.

Even after all that has happened (under our new sparkly pony-corn Secretary of Education) though, richer kids are still largely going to outperform poorer kids academically, and solving that problem is going to require doing something real about economic inequality.

What? It's the three Rs: reading, riting, 'rithmetic.

Autocorrect wants to correct 'riting to rioting, so it's one of us.

I think other kids, even in the same school, don't have that same opportunity. And I don't think that's really so much a function of how fixed the school is so much as a function of her class status.

So Lesson 2 would be to make sure that we *listen* to everyone else fairly. This begins to sound like moral education, which sends a terror through my being; I hope the practice of some egalitarian, information-spreading kind of manners would suffice. The Dwarf Lord thinks kids should all practice ICS -- hierarchical, but devoted to information flowing where needed (and everyone is supposed to be competent to be at the top).

What does ICS stand for?

And I think that economically integrating the public schools such that rich and poor kids were attending the same schools would also be a very good thing, and that geography (as opposed to arbitrary school district lines) would allow this to happen much more than it does at the moment.

Yes. This. They built a new high school in our district not very long ago. When they first drew up the boundaries, my neighborhood would have continued to go to the old high school. This was utterly bizarre gerrymandering -- an elementary district really close to the old HS would go to the new HS and our elementary district (which is very close to the new school) would go to the old one. This, of course, because we had really good test scores and the other school had struggling scores and something something NCLB evening out.

This, of course, led to mass panic in my neighborhood because there are a lot more poor kids going to the old HS and the rich kids would go to the new HS and our kids would be going to school with the poor kids (that they would have been going to HS with if the new one hadn't gotten built... ) and so bunches of people put their houses on the market and got out of Dodge. And then, of course, they juggled the boundaries again and we are going to the new one now. It was kind of eye-opening to me to actually realize how political school district boundaries are.

It's that much more bizarre to me because there really aren't safety or resource issues at the old school. They have a planetarium for cripes sake. Maybe we have a particle accelerator or something?

There is a widely accepted - by the current crop of ed reformers and their foes - body of research showing that the educational outcomes of low-income children are 60% attributable to so-called family factors, of which poverty is one, 15% to school factors, and the remaining percent to a variety of other identifiable and non-identifiable factors. The generous interpretation of the ed reform movement's focus on schools, and specifically teachers, in the face of this evidence is that it's easier to improve schools than it is to reduce poverty. The not-so-generous interpretation is that they have a political interest in changing the teaching workforce and they don't care what the research says. With their past history of focusing so heavily on deunionization I'm pretty skeptical of the generous interpretation.

I don't know how I would feel if my partner referred to me as "The Dwarf Lord" online.

This begins to sound like moral education, which sends a terror through my being

But you were the one who said that schools should tend to student's "moral safety."

24 is, I think, in line with my soap-boxing. The current system is effective at perpetuating the current system. Ultimately, "fixing the schools" is a matter of fixing the culture. And, you know, good luck with that.

And race. No one has mentioned race yet. Race.

And racism. And racists.

Which is basically what the OP said, and I realize I've added anecdotes but not value.

and so bunches of people put their houses on the market and got out of Dodge. And then, of course, they juggled the boundaries again

Like I say, everybody will have to be poor.

Now of course they will resegregate, but at least for a little while the poor and LMC will have something approaching political power.

You can also do this if a society is very rich (and pretty equal - 1960s) but I think you have to through the everybody-poor stage first to get there.

Inflation helps equalize by raising wages while decreasing debt and wealth.

29 to 26.

To 27 and 28, yes, in describing the panic of my neighbors over being drawn into the boundaries with poor kids, I was either generously or naively glossing over the fact that Old HS has a much more substantial black and Latino population. I'm sure that wasn't why all my neighbors moved.

Everybody wants their kids to go to school with the thin Latino kids.

It was kind of eye-opening to me to actually realize how political school district boundaries are.

I have a very similar experience whenever I read about some dumb white trash peckerwood/self-righteous hippie busybody wildcatting their local public school curriculum (Jesus and the dinosaurs, rooftop gardens for the illiterate) to make sure the kids are ignorant in all the right ways. My loyalty to the public school system was always fragile, having attended public schools myself and been lectured about the 'rents moral superiority flowing therefrom, but that sort of thing holes it under the waterline.

I have long wondered about the numbers in 24. What would be a reasonable place to read about this, or who writes reliably about it failing a handy cite?

24 seems really sensible, but maybe a little fatalistic. (welcome if you're new here) How about the feasibility of incremental nudges to culture? My kid's schools have been economically mixed, and one thing that the school administration does is to try to make books available for everybody, and to push the message that reading to your kids helps a lot. The administration is nothing special, but I've been pretty impressed at how problems between the kids usually shrink away rather than growing.

We went to see Les Mis a few weeks ago and I was struck by how easily it could get re-staged into a modern-America remake. Except that the whole revolution part of it would get very awkward turtle.

|| I've had like no work to do all day week, and yet I am still sitting here at my desk when I could be at home productively baking cookies and engaging in dryer repair. |>

Except that the whole revolution part of it would get very awkward turtle.

Nah, you just move it to Occupy UC.

One of the best things for improving the educational outcomes of low-income children is for them to attend schools with middle-class children. There is some tipping point at which if there are enough middle-class kids in attendance the school itself will function like a typical middle-class school. I'm not sure what that tipping point is but it seems like it is around 50%.

There are some problems with aiming for all schools to be at least 50% middle-class which, in many cases, means white. So we can never have successful majority non-white schools? That sucks. And if we want to keep middle-class families in urban school districts we need to cater to their wants over the wants of low-income families? That sucks too.

There are some problems with aiming for all schools to be at least 50% middle-class which, in many cases, means white. So we can never have successful majority non-white schools? That sucks.

Well, my kids have been in successful (by my standards) majority non-white schools all along, that are almost certainly better than 50% middle-class depending on how you draw class lines. (The middle school absolutely certainly, the elementary school probably, but I'm not dead sure.) So it's doable.

And if we want to keep middle-class families in urban school districts we need to cater to their wants over the wants of low-income families? That sucks too.

Spin this out for me a little? The wants of middle-class families as distinct from low-income families that I object to are largely about wanting to be insulated from low-income families. Once that's off the table, I'm not seeing their educational wants as being in sharp conflict.

The not-so-generous interpretation is that they have a political interest in changing the teaching workforce and they don't care what the research says.

Indeed. My city is at this moment in tumult because the controversial head of a $2 billion local foundation has abruptly left after a bare 17 months. During his tenure he engineered a setup in which the foundation paid for the Boston Consulting Group to generate a "plan" for the school district, the conclusions* of which were allegedly written before the BCG contract got signed.

Because of the way the foundation's contract with BCG was structured, the public has no way of knowing who donated the million-plus dollars that paid for their report.

So there is no way to know -- although of course plenty of speculation -- whether the charter-school operators who stand to benefit if the district follows BCG's recommendations paid for the report that recommended them.

*E.g. "Close 60 schools"

Oh, and I forgot to add that the controversial foundation head was also the former board chair of a high-profile network of charter schools.

24: Yeah. I'm very interested in school policy, but my first assumption about anyone excited about 'educational reform' is that they're either driven by ideological union-hatred or have been duped by people who are. (It's rebuttable -- I'm sure there are plenty of people working on these issues in good faith -- but it's my first guess.)

I'm not seeing their educational wants as being in sharp conflict.

At least in the examples I'm thinking of, poor families often depend on schools to provide ancillary services such as dental care for their kids, free winter coats, transit passes, etc. Whereas middle class families are providing those things for their children already, and want the school to provide different ancillary services, such as more field trips, a better auditorium/gymnasium/etc.

It's not that poor families don't want the things middle-class families want, but faced between a child dying for lack of dental care and a field trip....

Spin this out for me a little?

Urban school districts that establish magnet school programs frequently choose programs with focuses that align with what UMC parents want in terms of specialization. So, they might survey parents and find that the low-income ones want IB and tech ed programs and the UMC ones want STEM and environmental education. Frequently what the UMC parents want is what gets implemented because the goal is to keep them in the school district.

And that might be better for low-income kids in the long-run but it still sucks that low-income families don't often get the educational options they think will be most valuable to them.

Has this article been linked?

http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110355/its-easy-fleece-charter-schools

Okay, that works for me. I was stuck on in-class wants.

Although even there, come to think, the school building my kids were in had two distinct public schools in it: the dual language program my kids were in, which was fairly educationally traditional, and a very loosey-goosey progressive school where the students were on average much whiter and probably at least somewhat richer. There was clearly a systematic difference between which parents preferred which school; in this specific case, I thought the progressive school was badly organized and the students weren't terribly successful, but I could see there generally being a tendency for richer parents to be looking for a more relaxed classroom atmosphere..

46 to 43, and 45 also makes sense, although I guess I'd be surprised if there were generally strong differences in what parents preferred academically by class in magnet schools. But there obviously could be.

45 should be 44. I'll just be typing numbers for a while now.

22: What does ICS stand for?

Insane Clown Scientists

It's possible, or likely, that they made that choice knowing that their children receive enough support from home that it doesn't matter if they attend a not-so-great school as long as they are around other children from families with the same educational, ahem, "values."

47: There are, at least in my professional experience, but I have to run to the doctor. I'll respond in a bit.

Well, in this specific case it was also probably largely driven by the dual language thing -- we got all the Spanish-dominant kids, and most of the Spanish heritage kids whose parents were interested in reconnecting but weren't speaking Spanish at home, so the parents who weren't into the dual language thing were, given neighborhood demographics, generally going to be whiter. But generally I take your point.

Have you ever seen 85,000 people together as equals?

Seen a fucking rainbow, after it rains?

Used a magnet, without knowing how it works?

You will. And the people who will bring it to you are Insane Clown Scientists.

Things going on in Nia's school this year: free breakfast and lunch for all students, new drama program, intensive and individually tracked literacy initiative, coat drive tomorrow, free dental clinic earlier this term. If we could get the parents from our neighborhood to send their kids there in greater numbers, I believe we'd cross the tipping point from a high-poverty culture to one where the middle-class kids and their values have more traction, and I think that would be to the benefit of kids on both sides of the divide.

School is also one of the areas where the outside world has relatively convenient access to the kids. In shiv's elementary school out in the sticks, they had fluoride treatments once a month, like you'd get at the dentist's. Not an educational policy, but a good way to reach a lot of kids who had well water.

A lot of school programs (lunches and breakfasts, e.g.) do address poverty, but indirectly.

This, of course, led to mass panic in my neighborhood because there are a lot more poor kids going to the old HS and the rich kids would go to the new HS and our kids would be going to school with the poor kids (that they would have been going to HS with if the new one hadn't gotten built... ) and so bunches of people put their houses on the market and got out of Dodge.

The amazing thing is that the children of these panicked and obsessive parents would have virtually identical success no matter what school they went to. The entire issue is whether the less fortunate kids will be able to benefit from going to school with the more fortunate kids. Desegregation is entirely positive-sum, and all the effort by the people involved make up a desperate struggle to go back to the zero-sum world of good schools where kids have resources and bad schools where kids have no resources.

25.1: Well, if you ask, s/he might let you find out.

25.3: It can clearly be done badly, even counterproductively, and might not be possible to do *directly* at all. And attempts to do it directly seem attractive in awful ways, cf. Flip's examples.

ICS is "Incident Command/Control/Communications System", one of the boring planning sides of being more ready for disasters.

47: I've worked on three projects assessing parents' levels of interest in a variety of magnet school options in school districts that were court-ordered to desegregate. In each case, the low-income (in these districts, primarily black) parents had a strong preference for rigorous basic education and tech education while the middle-class parents preferred value-added programs that focused on things like the arts, environment, or math and engineering.

What happened in all three cases was that they took a majority non-white neighborhood school and turned it into a magnet school with a value-added program. Most of the low-income students in the area surrounding the school didn't have the resources to take advantage of other opportunities in the district (districts usually also implemented a policy that allowed low-income students to attend the school of their choice, regardless of whether it was a magnet) so they ended up attending the new magnet school with the value-added program that did not reflect their families' preferences.

The alternative was never considered: turn a majority white school into a magnet featuring the preferences of the low-income families in the district.

the low-income (in these districts, primarily black) parents had a strong preference for rigorous basic education and tech education while the middle-class parents preferred value-added programs that focused on things like the arts, environment, or math and engineering.

How is math not part of a rigorous basic education? Also are you identifying "tech education" with "vocational education" but not "engineering?"

34: What would be a reasonable place to read about this, or who writes reliably about it failing a handy cite?

Diane Ravitch. She's had a terrific series in the NYRB in the last year or so on the ed-reform movement as dominated by the school voucher folks, and, frankly, their cravenness. I'll try to find links to a few.

There's also the guy who runs that Harlem community project -- the Harlem Children's Zone. Geoffrey something, unusual name. Geoffrey Canada. His model has been adopted, at least in trial run form, in a number of other, chiefly urban, areas.

This may not be what you're asking for.

56

The amazing thing is that the children of these panicked and obsessive parents would have virtually identical success no matter what school they went to. The entire issue is whether the less fortunate kids will be able to benefit from going to school with the more fortunate kids. Desegregation is entirely positive-sum, and all the effort by the people involved make up a desperate struggle to go back to the zero-sum world of good schools where kids have resources and bad schools where kids have no resources.

I will assume by desegregation you mean mixing good students and bad students in general. It is false that this never hurts the good students and no one outside your liberal bubble believes it.

12

I don't know anything about the school Rory goes to, but I'm guessing that if all schools were like hers, our schools would be considered fixed.

Full of rich white kids?

24

... 15% to school factors, ...

Are peer effects considered a school factor?

Further to 60, I see from the wikipedia piece on the Harlem Children's Zone that there's some criticism of it. I haven't seen Waiting for Superman.

The focus on *early* childhood parental and child support seems crucial, in any event. I believe there are complementary programs here and there, through hospitals in some cases, to provide support for new mothers. Those endeavors may occur in partnership with the schools, but aren't run or coordinated by them, precisely to address the issue raised by scantee's 24 upthread.

42

Yeah. I'm very interested in school policy, but my first assumption about anyone excited about 'educational reform' is that they're either driven by ideological union-hatred or have been duped by people who are. (It's rebuttable -- I'm sure there are plenty of people working on these issues in good faith -- but it's my first guess.)

It's more complicated than that. They have been duped into believing that schools are important and can make a significant difference and the education unions are big promoters of this idea. The unions want to simultaneously claim that it is important to pay well to attract good teachers and that it is impossible to evaluate teacher performance. This is not an easy sell.

"ATM: Can a woman and a woman ever really be friends? edition"!454 to 62.

How is math not part of a rigorous basic education?

It is. For them, basic education meant traditional teaching methods in core subjects like reading, math, science. These parents associated tech education with work in a trade rather than professional careers like engineering.

34: Check out "Class and Schools," by Richard Rothstein:

http://www.amazon.com/Class-Schools-Educational-Black-White-Achievement/dp/1932066098

One of the Diane Ravitch pieces, on a Council of Foreign Relations committee report peopled by any number of seeming luminaries. Deeper into the piece, Ravitch makes clear that virtually every member of the task force -- which strongly recommends vouchers for all -- is affiliated with outfits running charter schools.

"In-school dental clinic for poor kids" sounds all liberal do-gooderish, but they can also be a front for sleazy Medicaid scammers.

The link in 70 tells me "Cookies must be enabled to view articles on azcentral.com"

What, I don't have cookies enabled? I think I do.

Going just on knecht's 70, if some in-school dental clinics for poor kids can be fronts for sleazy Medicaid scammers, doesn't that just mean we need to crack down somehow or other on the scammers? It wouldn't mean that in-school dental clinics are always and ever to be given up on.

70: Yeah, I didn't have Nia participate because she has a good dentist who takes Medicaid (and there are many in our area) but it's something that is happening.

Her school system has also installed speed bumps, made a plan to have the city do snow plowing duties, landscaped outside the schools, and made sure heat and AC function in all classrooms. Both Lee and I are finally starting as volunteers in the first grade. I'll be in Nia's class once a week and Lee in the class our neighbor friend teaches.

Pretty much anything medical can become a Medicare/Medicaid scam.

Do-gooder.

How about instead of "fixing the schools" we just . . . raise wages? The whole point of "higher test scores" is to raise wages, but if we just raise wages, then test scores are, uh, academic. Of course my solution to raising wages would actually work - reduce immigration - so it won't ever be tried, because nobody actually wants wages to go up (pay more for stuff?) They just want to complain about test scores.

Pretty much anything medical can become a Medicare/ Medicaid scam.

Yeah, sure, but this particular scamer is doing it on an industrial scale. It's a PE-backed company, even. I can only imagine the business plan.

"scammer"

If we have to choose between something that's never happened - fixing the schools - and something that has actually happened - increasing wages - definitely go for the thing that's actually possible. I'm no mathematician, but I believe we have an "existence proof" for the latter. The former has never actually been seen in the wild.

77: It would help if a person could read the link in 70, knecht. Could you clean up the link, if that's what's needed?

Hey, yo, trolls, you guys are forgetting Rule 1: Provide pastry. Shearer, how about a nice coconut cream pie? bjk, maybe something chocolate for the infidels who don't like coconut?

---
My personal new thinking on the problems of large urban school districts, developed with great care and attention (=five minutes' thought) over the past 48 hours, is that the single best thing we could do for schools is to STOP trying new stuff.

Do exactly the same thing, in exactly the same way, for 10 years in a school district. Minor iterative improvements accepted, but nothing beyond that.

I honestly think the chaos and the churn are worse for achievement, morale, health, and safety than anything else.

The teachers sure as hell don't like it.

I mean, they like having heat and A/C and such things.

In some cases, that's new stuff.

76: Of course my solution to raising wages would actually work - reduce immigration - so it won't ever be tried,

Oh, you mean like in Europe? Yeah, that's worked out real great.

Obviously Witt doesn't mean that sort of thing when she says "exactly the same way".

Keeping up the physical plant does not fall in my definition of "new stuff." It falls under "basic necessities," never mind that people are often going without them.

I am a bit grim about that at the moment because I just heard about a principal who raised private funds to repair his school's roof and was still forbidden to do it.

(Before everyone jumps in to tell me that there is probably more to the story and maybe the district just can't afford the ongoing upkeep on these old buildings etc etc -- I know that. And I don't know every detail of this situation, but there's at least a fairly decent chance that the district wants to condemn the building so they can sell the property to a politically connected individual.)

I have come to the conclusion that the focus on education is bullshit. Even if you could magically have every school be awesome, there is always going to be students in the bottom half. Society is now set up to give these students a big fuck you. Redistribution has the benefit that it can help these people without us having to pretend that not enough people understand algebra.

there is always going to be students in the bottom half.

Sure. Sure. But where is the halfway line? I think that it can be raised from where it is now. (Not to mention, how close are the lower half to the line?)

I continue to believe, from the self-interested point of view of the son of a former high-school teacher (now a county administrator), that the single easiest thing we could do to improve schools is to increase teachers' salaries.

I also think the variable in education debates that's really hard to pin down is, "What makes a good teacher?"

It depends on which schools you mean, Stanley. Increasing teachers' salaries is great, sure, but if they're dealing with classrooms in which the paint is peeling or is freaking brilliant orange*, so they have to spend a couple of weekends repainting the room themselves on their own time and dime, the added salary doesn't do much.

* My friend's experience: his new classroom this year was a hideous orange color. He said he couldn't teach his 4th graders effectively in that room. He repainted it himself. He's pretty much grim and disgusted all the time about the general circumstances.

Yeah, sure, but this particular scamer is doing it on an industrial scale. It's a PE-backed company, even. I can only imagine the business plan.

How about a publicly-traded company? Less than a month ago?

92: I suppose part of my argument is that, the people who will repaint it themselves out of frustration are going to do so more happily for $60,000/year than they will for $40,000. So let's pay them sixty (plus yearly raises), and maybe they'll stick around for the more important decisions, too. Those are the people you want. The folks with "fire in the belly" or some such whateverness.

A lot of good educators leave or never show up out of frustration with the current state of affairs.

I think the number one thing the school could do to improve my first-grader's education is to let him have recess every day.

94: My friend is making about $60k, has been teaching for about 12 years. He has the fire in the belly, or he wouldn't keep doing it -- he launched a successful chess club, for which I'm so proud for him! -- but every couple of years he feels he can't take it any more.

I guess my counter is that this repainting business should be taken care of by the school in the first place. Duh.

It shouldn't be optional. Kids can't learn in an orange classroom.

I grew up in a bright orange bedroom. I liked it.

With electric blue trim, even.

65: It's more complicated than that. They have been duped into believing that schools are important and can make a significant difference

See, this kind of nonsense is where I feel like we're ceding far too much ground to the wingnuts. Shearer continually asserts that "studies" have shown that there are no changes to the school/teacher experience that will improve education. Does he also believe the converse? Are there no changes that would impede education? What if, in 7th grade, students who spoke and read only English were suddenly put in a classroom where the instruction was only in Ojibwe? Would that have (a) a positive effect on their learning, (b) a negative effect on their learning, or (c) no effect?

Now, suppose their are other factors which might be changed in one direction or another: Should students be taught in a classroom that either uncomfortably hot or uncomfortably cold? Should they be taught by someone who screams abuse at them all day? Should they be taught in a classroom located next to the trash compactor, such that it is difficult to hear their lessons? If you eliminated any of those deficiencies, would their performance improve?

Of course it fucking would. And indeed, there are millions of students who are being taught in conditions that are detrimental to learning. Perhaps not as absurd as those I've outlined, although the Ojibwe thing actually happened to me, but the point still stands. If there are many differences in the objective attributes of schools and teachers (and there are), then identifying the factors that impede student progress, and eliminating them, should improve education.

Kids can't learn in an orange classroom.

Huh? An unheated classroom in winter, I get. But really? Orange is an insurmountable barrier to learning?

Bad feng shui, too.

It's why orange post titles never worked.

And another thing: If, out of every 8 hour work day, which was otherwise unobjectionable, you had to spend 55 minutes in a meeting with a stultifyingly boring manager who was unfair, ill-prepared, played favorites and refused to listen to any suggestions for improvement, wouldn't you be looking for another job? And that would be with the incentive of being paid for your time. Why should we expect students, who are compelled to attend school without compensation, to perform well in all of their classes if they have a class with an incompetent teacher? How would that not ruin their whole day?

I dunno, Natilo, with those last two posts you're coming dangerously close to adding shocking common sense to this thread. I hope it doesn't, like, scare the trolls away or anything.

100: Yeah. I'm pretty sure that there's research showing that younger kids have trouble with focus in brighter/harsher colors. These are 4th graders coming from an urban environment, lower income, attention difficulties in the first place. They're prone to hostility already. I can't dig up references right now, but I think this is a known thing.

Actually, knecht, your link (when properly formatted) makes the company seem principally built on overuse rather than fraud. Which is the business plan of half or more of the healthcare world.

For that matter, why do we expect them to put in more than 40 hours/week between school and homework? (Assuming more than an hour a day of homework.)

99

See, this kind of nonsense is where I feel like we're ceding far too much ground to the wingnuts. Shearer continually asserts that "studies" have shown that there are no changes to the school/teacher experience that will improve education. Does he also believe the converse? Are there no changes that would impede education? What if, in 7th grade, students who spoke and read only English were suddenly put in a classroom where the instruction was only in Ojibwe? Would that have (a) a positive effect on their learning, (b) a negative effect on their learning, or (c) no effect?

I am being misrepresented here. What I have actually asserted is that studies show that, within the range commonly found in US schools, teachers don't make much difference. If you think about it you will see why the qualifying phrase is present, the studies are comparing how students do in our current schools, so they won't see effects that only show up outside the range of current conditions. Instruction only in Ojibwe is not commonly found in the US, hence the studies are (not surprsingly) silent on its effects. I don't doubt there are ways to make schools worse but that isn't the objective.

90

I continue to believe, from the self-interested point of view of the son of a former high-school teacher (now a county administrator), that the single easiest thing we could do to improve schools is to increase teachers' salaries.

I can see why teachers believe this (Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!") but I don't see why anyone else would.

How is this going to work? Are the existing teachers going to work harder or are they going to be replaced with better teachers? Why would you expect either of these things to happen?

66

What incorrect assumption have I jumped to here? Are the students at Rory's school actually predominantly poor and black?

100

Huh? An unheated classroom in winter, I get. But really? Orange is an insurmountable barrier to learning?

Anything to avoid saying some kids have trouble in school because they are stupid.

106: I intended "scammer" to encompass deliberate overtreatment. Overuse is not necessarily a distinct category from fraud; one of the things CMS has done under Obama is to start policing that line more vigorously. But now I'm getting into territory that is more the province of my swashbuckling alter-ego, so I'm going to stop.

I attended school in a series of decrepit, alternately freezing and sweltering, often leaking and occasionally fetid school buildings, and there were a lot of stupid kids. The stupid kids and I breathed the same sulfurous smoke leaking from the open coal furnace into our adjacent third grade classroom. Now they have a modern, if less than luxurious school building, and there are still AFAIK some stupid kids there. So point Shearer! But you know what? Now neither the smart kids nor the stupid kids are alternately freezing and sweating or breathing sulfurous coal smoke, neither yet are their teachers*. If there's a better use of tax dollars, I can't think of it.

*Especially not the third grade teacher, who, probably coincidentally but nevertheless tragically, died of cancer in her 50's.

From the annals of Medicare fraud:

Blackstone salespeople also were urged to take surgeons out for expensive dinners, escort them to strip clubs and pay for liaisons with prostitutes to get their business, Hutcheson said in the suit. One female sales manager in Dallas agreed to disrobe and join strippers on stage at the request of two surgeons to whom she was pitching the company's products,
Hutcheson said in her suit. The sales manager was
demoted, not fired, over the incident, Hutcheson said in the
suit.

114: But knecht, we have the best health care system in the world.

110: Not full of poor black kids, no, but also not so monochromaticly rich and white as you are assuming. Rory's friends span the range from lower to upper middle class. The school is ethnically diverse, though I would have to attend a wider range of activities to have a fair sense of the actual demographic breakdown.

113: In fairness to Shearer, he was insulting the "stupid kids" who can't learn in orange rooms, not the "stupid kids" who can't learn in a freezing facility.

116

Not full of poor black kids, no, but also not so monochromaticly rich and white as you are assuming. Rory's friends span the range from lower to upper middle class. The school is ethnically diverse, though I would have to attend a wider range of activities to have a fair sense of the actual demographic breakdown.

There is often a school website with lots of stats.

113: Sure, it's desirable to improve the quality of physical conditions in schools if current conditions make the students miserable. But the question isn't whether there is ANY good reason to spend more on schools, it's whether spending more on poor schools will make fewer students poor when they grow up.

105: I would guess it's statistically significant but not very important.

12.2: Not necessarily, if you mean the attributes Di Kotimy described explicitly. Test scores are important in a relative, not an absolute, sense.

OTOH there is more than zero correlation with other abilities more important to productivity and happiness.

93 to 114.

106: I don't think we're really disagreeing. I guess I see a continuum between blatant overuse (clearly fraud) and overuse given plausible deniability by medical uncertainty (none dare call it fraud). The mobile dental operation is closer to the former; much of the pharma and device industry is snugly settled in the latter (Procrit).

There is often a school website with lots of stats.

Often does not mean always. I can tell you the district itself is less than 60% white. About 10% each black and Hispanic. 20% Asian.

123

Often does not mean always. ...

I know what the word means. You saying you can't find this information for your school? According to the NCLB act this information should be available somewhere (although possibly in single district wide report card which includes information on individual schools).

Individual report cards are not required, but information about each school must be included in the school district report card.

Throwing the poor kids into lousy, smelly, noisy, toxic schools with bad food and dangerous playgrounds and teachers who assume they'll never read* is bad for the rich smart kids too. There's nothing really sharpens you up like realizing someone with your brains and the drive derived from desperation is behind you and accelerating. Why, without that, the upper middle classes would collapse into rent-seeking gentries.

* Mean but defensible description of my elementary school in the 1970s. Also, bullet-marks.

123: I'm saying I couldn't find it easily. That it must be available somewhere hardly means I am going to go hunt it down just for you.

Actually, James is helping me internalize the harmful dysfunction of stupid people. In particular those who did very well in school.

I will assume by desegregation you mean mixing good students and bad students in general. It is false that this never hurts the good students and no one outside your liberal bubble believes it.

My wife's school has a lot of low income hispanic kids (30 percent of the school is ESL/ELL) but also houses the middle school classes for the district's gifted/academically accelerated program. The "gifted" kids seem to somehow survive being in the same building with all the swarthy kids. I sent both my daughters to that school. And no, they weren't part of the gifted program.

I think that she has had good opportunities (though more at the elementary than middles school level, from what I've seen) to speak her mind and learn to be heard fairly. Which is awesome. For her. But I think other kids, even in the same school, don't have that same opportunity.

Might be awesome, but not of much relevance to actually educating the poor kids. The main hurdle in the classes of poor kids is getting everyone to hold still, shut the hell up, and do some actual schoolwork.

126

I'm saying I couldn't find it easily. That it must be available somewhere hardly means I am going to go hunt it down just for you.

If you are willing to disclose the school name I could hunt it down.

128

My wife's school has a lot of low income hispanic kids (30 percent of the school is ESL/ELL) but also houses the middle school classes for the district's gifted/academically accelerated program. The "gifted" kids seem to somehow survive being in the same building with all the swarthy kids. I sent both my daughters to that school. And no, they weren't part of the gifted program.

Surviving is a low bar. And being in the same building but not the same classes is a low bar as regards mixing.

strange duscussion, i get that JBS hates stupid kids, but are stupid kids less kids that they are stupid? (or poor), dont they deserve whatever is the best for smart kids too, or at least what you would wish for your own kid, JBS?
just make the starting points equal and fair for every kid, especially if the society can afford such public measures, why would you fight that principle, JBS, dont be greedy that much, surely it'd be the better money spent than on any wars and the satisfaction coming from one's generosity might be felt by one far more satisfying than satisfying one's greed
let then that natural selection thing do its job, and if it shows what it shows, whatever outcome matching your" racist" assumptions, then fair is fair

128: It may be naive, but I am inclined to believe that kids (and adults) who feel that they are being heard are thereby more prepared to listen.

129: Thanks for the chuckle.

131

...i get that JBS hates stupid kids ...

I don't hate stupid kids, I just think any discussion of education that pretends there are no stupid kids is misguided. And can result in cruel policies (such as requiring algebra to graduate high school).

Stupid is as stupid does.

http://www.dwice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php
 if there are stupid kids, though what it gives acknowledging that they exist, should separate them according to their IQ, yeah? educate janitors and programmers separately, is it what you are saying? good luck with sleeping well after endorsing such discriminatory policies i guess
so if you read the link, the race maybe not that main factor in causing their "stupidness", even poverty

136

... though what it gives acknowledging that they exist, ...

Once you acknowledge stupid kids exist you can start thinking about what schools should be doing for them. Trying to teach them algebra and risking having them fail 6 times probably isn't it.

135- It's supposed to be capitalized, stupid.

128: The main hurdle in the classes of poor kids is getting everyone to hold still, shut the hell up, and do some actual schoolwork.

Right on. Those kids aren't stupid; they do have attention issues. (That's why I was going on upthread about the orange-painted classroom. It's not that orange is an insurmountable barrier to learning. It's that the first task, or hurdle, for any teacher is to generate a space in which the kids settle down, and respect the teacher's authority, so that everybody can attend to what's actually under discussion. Kids who are prone to a "Fuck you" or "Sez you" or who won't stop chatting with their friends or utterly tuning out, are helped to calm down by a softer palette.)

137 this link http://dvice.com/archives/2012/10/ethiopian-kids.php
so you want to help them to not fail the school, good, intentions matter behind one's statements
otherwise people perceive you saying just repeatedly as if like stupid kids are stupid, black kids are stupid, keep them out of our smart white kids' schools something and keep arguing with you 
there could be found maybe an individual approach to teach math to any kid to not fail the school, it's not like that advanced level in HS anyway, if teachers are willing to work hard of course

Having now read the thread...
It's not clear to me what "fix" means- reach some defined level of minimum achievement for every kid? Return to some utopian past that never actually existed? KDrum regularly posts charts about test performance every time there's another "our kidz is stoopidest than ever" story to point out that white kids scores are pretty much flat and minority scores have made significant gains. In that sense the present is much better than the past, it's just that as usual in the past minorities were ignored.
Our kids go to a dual immersion school that sounds like LB's kids' school. It was title I two years ago, free snacks every day, but then it dropped below the threshold due to an influx of higher income people. Our district attempts to balance by economic status (% free/reduced lunch) via a directed choice program. I should actually know more about the details, but while most schools are somewhat balanced there are also widely recognized poorer (in both performance and income sense) because proximity to home is also given preference and a lot of people just choose their closest school which concentrates some kids in poorer parts of the city. Also some lower income families don't enter the lottery and miss the slots in the good schools, so that's a case of propagation of status due to lack of involvement by parents. At our school they instead balanced only by native English or native Spanish, but SES got out of whack- the overall SES has gone up due to higher education/income native Spanish speakers getting slots and there hasn't been enough outreach to low SES native Spanish families. So now they're going to try balancing by the 2x2 matrix (native Eng/Spanish x low/hi SES).
My wife teaches at a majority black charter school. It's the second charter school she's been at, one big factor is burnout- at mid-30s she's one of the oldest teachers. She's been trying to involve parents more, she asked all the parents come in and learn how to do homework with their kids.

She's been trying to involve parents more, she asked all the parents come in and learn how to do homework with their kids.

My teacher friend does this as well.