The article frames the issue as 'public' vs 'private' education, yet is railing against things like charter schools which are public. And their main argument is formulated by comparing education against no education, which is nonsensical. The main reason "private" (in their sense of the word) schools are gaining in popularity is precisely because they are seen as delivering a better education by an ever wider chunk of society.
More specifically the US currently spends more than the vast majority of the world per pupil [1], yet our outcomes in e.g. math leave us somewhere between Malta and and Slovakia. [2] Clearly it does not seem that 'more money' is the solution.
Yeah, the rich part of society. Building towards private schools is like building the titanic without enough lifeboats. Make an education system that works for everyone or awful things will keep happening to private schools because everyone understands how fundamentally unfair they are.
I didn't get a sense the article singled out charter schools specifically rather it just lists it as a alternative place that funds get funneled instead of to neighborhood public schools.
Which brings me to:
> The main reason "private" (in their sense of the word) schools are gaining in popularity is precisely because they are seen as delivering a better education by an ever wider chunk of society.
If you accept that the article is talking about charter schools, then yes, perhaps the narrow focus of the charter could allow for a stronger education in a specialized area could allow for better education in that area.
But, if you accept it as private schools as a whole, then I don't buy that argument fully. The administration has been very clear that the motivation is "anti-woke" and "traditional family values" and nothing to do with education quality. In fact, as someone who went to a religious school in a small town (granted 30+ years ago) I can vouch that my education (especially in science and math) was FAR worse than the public schools at the time and homeschooling quality varies wildly.
Edit: As far as
> More specifically the US currently spends more than the vast majority of the world per pupil
I also find this focus on spending per pupil very odd because it doesn't account for cost of living.
And if you dive into the fine print it says:
> Includes both government and private expenditures.
So what if (and this is a completely untested hypothesis) the reason we spend so much per pupil in that chart is being exasperated by the private school system.
Edit 2: after diving into it, that source provided is greatly inflated by private school spending including private colleges (which are insanely expensive). So that same data can also be used to argue the US is really spending too much on private schools not public ones.
Here [1] are the data on spending per student PPP adjusted. It doesn't really change it much at all. US is 6th in the world in spending per secondary pupil. They seem to lack data for primary, but it's not going to be some radically different story one way or the other. The initial link I gave (where US is 5th in the world) offers a breakdown of various spending - I was referencing the first table - which is elementary/secondary only. Also, religious schools in the US (Catholic at least) also substantially outperform public schools by a range that widens over time. [2]
In any case private schools will always perform better than public schools because they can be selective with who they admit. A handful of very bad students can easily derail the education of an entire class, and in public schools it can be somewhat difficult to get rid of these kids. And so I do think things like education vouchers, tax rebates, and other incentives to allow more middle and lower class families access to private education is a very good thing.
Lastly, on the woke stuff. Would you be happy if your child was taught creationism and intelligent design? Probably not. Why? Because it'd be ideologically motivated, rather than educationally motivated. If people want to teach their children that in their own time - more power to them, but it has no place in the classroom. And I'd feel exactly the same if my children were taught that e.g. math is racist, or the contemporary 'reimaginings' of history that mix critical theory and contemporary values, and retrofit them into the past in an antagonistic fashion. We went from a real problem of white washing history, to just inventing these sordid tales that are even further off base.
Thank you on presenting the research. I appreciate that.
To address you points though:
> A handful of very bad students can easily derail the education of an entire class
Private school had plenty of bad apples too. In fact, some kids I went to school with were explicitly there because they were trouble makers and their parents though the nuns would break them (they didn't). In contrast, I've found my daughter's public school to be pretty zero tolerance when it comes to disruptors.
But even if you are right, that is also the strength of public schools. The same thing that makes them unable to turn down the bad apple is also what makes sure kids with special needs or low family means don't get left behind.
> math is racist, or the contemporary 'reimaginings' of history that mix critical theory and contemporary values, and retrofit them into the past in an antagonistic fashion.
Except every time one of those stories come out and you dig deeper it is almost never actually what the media says. It's usually either extremely isolated or taken entirely out of context for sensationalism.
For example, there have been several documented cases of public school teachers teaching creationism, and also that the Civil war wasn't about slavery (despite slavery being specifically mentioned by multiple states when they joined the Confederacy), but I would never represent that as wide spread and try to tear down the whole system over it.
Private schools are, of course, not homogeneous. Some schools will accept bad apples, most won't. Public schools have no choice and you generally cannot expel a child except for extremely serious issues. If you've found a public school without major disruptive issues then you probably live in a high income and/or less urban area which immediately works as an invisible filter on the student body. I went to public school system in an urban low income area - I will never put my own children in such a system, under any circumstance.
As for 'no child left behind' and the woke stuff. I can actually tie both of these together in California. [1] In an effort to increase equity they've essentially hamstrung their own education. They're making Algebra 1 a grade later (meaning less normal path access to calculus), offering "alternatives" to Algebra 2, swapping from a focus on mastery to one on "big picture" understanding, keeping classes integrated regardless of student performance, and generally dumbing down the mathematical education across the board. They want to achieve equity in outcomes, and so they're taking the easy route - lower the ceiling, rather than raise the floor. It's near to certain that outcomes in California will decline significantly over the next decade, but I expect there will also be better grades on average - laying a nice layer of paint on a building that's collapsing.
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As for the Civil War, imagine the EU had a military and simply refused to accept Brexit, triggering a war. Would the cause of that war have been e.g. immigration (which was arguably the main factor leading to Brexit, and mentioned in numerous official documents relating to Brexit), or would it have been over the rights of EU member countries? Obviously without immigration you don't have Brexit and so you don't have a war. Yet similarly without our hypothetical effort of the EU to impose its will on member countries, you also don't have war. A key point to me is that one issue is variable, while one is fixed.
Depends on whether you see schools actually "inculcating the United States’ fundamental values of liberty, equality, fairness and the common good" or working to create a bunch of worker bees who can't think critically and blindly worship every institution (public and private) regardless of how hard they're getting fleeced.
Ironically, private schools are more likely to pitch anti-union and anti-worker ideas to kids. These places are all conservative think tanks and anyone who doesn't see that is an idiot. The liberation of the common man will never include a private school.
>Ironically, private schools are more likely to pitch anti-union and anti-worker ideas to kids. These places are all conservative think tanks and anyone who doesn't see that is an idiot. The liberation of the common man will never include a private school.
I was thinking more on the lines of the sort of how they never really teach critical thinking, gloss over any and every historical mistake and perhaps how to spot and avoid them and generally do their hardest to create what shortsighted small scope government silos see as model citizens at the expense of not creating people capable of sort of long term thinking and ability to connect disparate concepts that result in a more performant society.
This seems like a strange take to me. What's the alternative? Which schools inculcate critical thinking and distrust of institutions? (Surely not private religious schools with mandatory uniforms and other strict rules.) Or do you believe that ignorant children with no schooling will naturally develop critical thinking skills?
"We find that firefighting services have been essential for eliminating fires, saving people from fires, and getting cats out of trees. And charity calendar sales."
Ironically, I find that schools (due to voters and politicians) focusing on “equality” or “fairness” is what lead to the decline in public education in the first place.
Voters wanted better results from poorer performing students, but politicians had no cheap way to deliver them, since the poor performance is caused due to the environment at home.
The politically acceptable and cheap solution was capping the ceiling instead of raising the floor, which means parents who wanted their kids to excel sought school districts with similar parents, or sought private schools.
Obviously the current admin and their previous term did not help the situation, but the incentives had been set wrong long before they came to power.
Or, hear me out, it's because they've been underfunded from the start. PTA, Volunteer Coaching, Parent involvement in fundraisers, etc. all helped make the underfunded schools of the 1990's and 2000's run smoothly despite lack of funding. The reality is that there were never enough resources in the first place, and parents used to shoulder a lot more of the burden. Parents no longer have time for these things, which when combined with an even smaller budget results in very lackluster schools. Maybe, just MAYBE, if we took the 60k signing bonus and absurd salary away from ICE and started giving it to teachers, we'd see change in a meaningful way.
It's a huge mistake to continually use the frame about the work of teachers around pay -- rather it is a terrible job.
I know a high school music teacher who's been assaulted by students multiple times. The teacher who inspired me to learn physics took me to the school after hours to see what his classroom looked like after hours and it was so stuffed with chairs that I asked "Has the fire marshal been here?" Every teacher I've known in the public schools has had times when they came home crying because of the moral injury of knowing that they can't help many of their students.
That music teacher has five years to go to retirement with a full pension but with the stress he's under I don't know if he'll make it. Private schools can pay teachers less because it's a better job to teach in private schools not least that private schools can evict the bottom 20% of students (in terms of behavior) who consume 80% of the teacher's time.
I would bet the statistics suggest no matter how much a teacher is paid, no matter how small the class size, or how fancy the school, no one can make a kid care about learning if that isn’t reinforced from the beginning at home and amongst the kids’ peers.
Obviously, education should be properly funded, and many places do not pay competitively, especially considering many teachers these days have to baby sit mentally ill kids. But the bigger problem is that the kids who can and want to excel have been deprioritized in favor of the those who can’t or don’t want to learn.
>Or, hear me out, it's because they've been underfunded from the start.
Compare the funding per student to any other country in Europe... they've been hilariously overfunded for longer than either of us have been alive.
>The reality is that there were never enough resources in the first place, a
That's not reality. That's "spin". There were always enough resources for high achievement from those capable of high achievement... but then equal amounts of money wouldn't be wasted on low achievers.
>Maybe, just MAYBE, if we took the 60k signing bonus
This is just bad math. You need how many teachers nationwide? 1 million-ish? Go ahead and split those $60k bonuses over that many teachers (and over the next 20 years), and the few tens or hundreds of dollars that it ends up being, per teacher, is supposed to make a difference?
Yeah, "underfunded schools" is a talking point that bears no relation to reality but was great for pulling at people's heartstrings, because "think of the children!" But taxpayers have learned better, because they can look at their property tax bills and see how the bulk of it goes to schools. They can look up the per-pupil cost and see that it just keeps climbing faster than pretty much anything else but health care.
They can see that the corollary talking point (schools in disadvantaged areas get less funding) is a lie too. From an MIT study: "The distribution of spending experienced by children living in poverty (figure 1a) is nearly indistinguishable from that of children not living in poverty (figure 1b)."[1] People who make that claim usually only count state and local funding, ignoring federal Title I which makes up for it.
The "underfunded schools" dog just won't hunt anymore. People who are worried about their next paycheck don't want to hear it, especially when it often comes from school administrators who make more than they do.
> if we took the 60k signing bonus and absurd salary away from ICE and started giving it to teachers, we'd see change in a meaningful way.
Give the money to the people (parents) and let them choose whether to spend it on school fundraisers or anything else.
Garbage in, garbage out. Schools are shit because inputs are poor (literally and figuratively) and inputs are poor because most people in this country lose half their paycheck to the government and interests that are in bed with government[1]. As other commenters have pointed out, the actual level of funding per student is by no means the bottleneck here.
[1] E.g. a landlord who's rent price is a reflection of constrained supply which is constrained partly by law but partly by the supply of component parts (materials, labor, design work) of competing goods which themselves are subject to yet more artificial constraints, etc, repeat infinitely)
The decline in standards, and hence expectations of the quality of education from many public schools (those sequestered in wealthy enclaves notwithstanding). As I understand, for myriad reasons, there is no failing kids anymore. There isn’t even much punishment, as far as I can tell, such as detention, suspension, and expulsion. Everyone passes, and grades have little correlation with performance.
>An analysis by The Economist suggests that schools are lowering academic standards in order to enable more pupils to graduate. And the trend is hurting low-performing pupils the most.
Every kid is legally mandated to have access to a potentially expensive Individual Education Plan, but no extra money is given to the schools to provide this, so where do the funds come from?
> those not sequestered in wealthy enclaves notwithstanding
This seems to speak against the existence of a cap.
> As I understand, for myriad reasons, there is no failing kids anymore.
It's not clear to me whether this is true or whether it relates to high school graduation rates. Unfortunately, The Economist article has no analysis of why students don't graduate, whether they are forced out or simply drop out voluntarily, for whatever reason. The article says, "might not have made the grade," which is weasel wording.
I would put any data from 2020-2022 in its own special category due to the pandemic. The most severe drop in SAT scores was indeed during that period.
There's some irony here, though, because The Economist says, "The trend towards weakening standards can be blamed in part on No Child Left Behind, an education-reform law passed in 2002," but that was the policy of Republican George W. Bush (who actually introduced the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expecations").
> grades have little correlation with performance
Citation needed.
This claim is different from the claim of grade inflation.
> Every kid is legally mandated to have access to a potentially expensive Individual Education Plan
Every disabled kid
> no extra money is given to the schools to provide this
That's obviously a problem, but it would seem the obvious solution to unfunded mandates is to, you know, fund the mandates.
>This seems to speak against the existence of a cap.
The "cap" is not a national policy, it's incentivized by the anticipated performance of the student body, which varies greatly based on the home life of the students.
>grades have little correlation with performance
>Citation needed.
>This claim is different from the claim of grade inflation.
I do not understand how this is different from grade inflation. From my searches, and my experience having graduated in the early 2000s, keeping kids moving along and graduating is the goal, as opposed to evaluating their aptitude. Extra credit, dropped grades, make up work, etc.
>That's obviously a problem, but it would seem the obvious solution to unfunded mandates is to, you know, fund the mandates.
We all know this isn't going to happen. I would even go so far as to say that was the goal when passing laws such as IDEA 2004 and not providing funding. It's not irony below, it is doublespeak when they knew what the outcome of requiring something without providing the requisite funding would do.
>There's some irony here, though, because The Economist says, "The trend towards weakening standards can be blamed in part on No Child Left Behind, an education-reform law passed in 2002," but that was the policy of Republican George W. Bush (who actually introduced the phrase "the soft bigotry of low expecations").
> I do not understand how this is different from grade inflation.
Grade inflation would mean, for example, that work fomerly earning a B would now earn an A, and likewise C -> B, D -> C, F -> D.
Whereas little correlation with performance would mean, for example, that work formerly earning an A might earn a D (if we're ruling out F's), work formerly earning a D might earn an A, etc. In other words, essentially random grading.
If everyone got A's, that would be both grade inflation and little correlation with performance.
> I would even go so far as to say that was the goal when passing laws such as IDEA 2004 and not providing funding.
Perhaps so. But your original comment implied that politicians were doing what voters wanted, whereas now you're suggesting that politicians simply lied, or used Orwellian doublespeak, to do what the politicians wanted, which is practically the opposite of what the voters wanted.
>Perhaps so. But your original comment implied that politicians were doing what voters wanted, whereas now you're suggesting that politicians simply lied, or used Orwellian doublespeak, to do what the politicians wanted, which is practically the opposite of what the voters wanted.
Voters often want things, but simultaneously don’t want to pay for them (i.e. increase taxes). See also federally subsidized student loans and federally subsidized mortgages.
>for inculcating the United States’ fundamental values of
If I am honest, I do not have the same values as those who favor public education. Not only do our values have very little overlap, the values that are extolled by them are quite offensive and disgusting to me. Given that these values are now those of the public education system, I should be desperately worried about my own children and the children of people I care about. However, since the late 1990s a curious thing has happened, and none of those children are in danger. My children do not attend public school and yet aren't being hunted down for truancy as I would have been as a child.
We've already eliminated the danger of public education. This might be confusing to you, because some children still attend. Others are aware, you'll see it expressed in every reddit thread... someone will call for the end of homeschooling on the grounds that they're unable to indoctrinate every child, though they describe if much more charitably than that. None of those children will grow up caring about public education, none of them will ever vote in ways favorable to public education their entire lives. The shift has already begun, and in the coming years it will become ever more obvious.
There was never any danger of public education, so eliminating that danger was quite easy. What we are undermining, though, is the benefit of public education. Witness the last election, where tens of millions were indifferent to democratic governance if it meant cheap gasoline and eggs.
And, yes, the assault on democracy is real. On January 20, Trump signed an order in support of free speech. Within a week he barred the AP over the Gulf of America. Within a month he illegally disbanded USAID. Within 3 months he began suing law firms and defunding university research. Today colleges are receiving letters demanding curriculum in exchange for funding. And we have four years more, at least, to endure.
For those who have changed the world to what it is today, and want that but more, I'm sure public schools have always been something to celebrate. I am not one of those people, however.
>though, is the benefit of public education.
That benefit, even when I treat it with the most generous interpretation, is gone and has been for awhile. People whose children attend public school do not benefit from this, their children are being shut out of the economy in favor of bringing in workers from other countries. The political apparatus benefits, if those children are indoctrinated to vote correctly even as they grow up to only be fit to get a 20-hour part time job at Starbucks. Even now, you're worried about the politics in this very comment, you don't really care that those children won't grow up to earn a viable livelihood.
>Within a month he illegally disbanded USAID.
Oh noes! I too wish that the United States would spend millions and billions on foreigners in foreign countries. Won't anyone think of the CIA soft power we're losing?
To be fair, I don’t think anyone’s trying to eliminate public education. That’s a very unfair characterization.
They are just trying to cut down large education bureaucracies that don’t appear to be benefiting the students.
Generally very large or very small public school systems in America really underperform for the students. It’s not clear that the Federal resources in the Dept of Education are directly benefiting the students.
They are trying to give more control over education to parents and local communities especially those in underperforming areas.
There are absolutely actors who wish to privatize education.
And, depending on the district, those federal resources provide a significant chunk of the funding for schools.
In my local district in Kansas, it’s about 13% of public school funding, in the district next door it’s about 44%. Without that funding many public schools in the area would close with no alternative.
By cutting off those resources, there is no “choice” or “control” being given to local communities unless you mean a certain family in Wichita…
I mean that the republican party, the democrat party, the people in charge of the department of education don’t have an explicit goal of eliminating public schools. I’m sure there are some very extreme people who exist.
Federal funding is less than 10% of public school education funding and if it were reduced or went away, it doesn’t mean that a bunch of kids would just stop having any school.
> Federal funding is less than 10% of public school education funding
As I stated above, this greatly depends on your school district. Some schools receive <5% of their funding from the DoE, others receive as much as 75%.
Some of this funding is explicitly for general operations and other funding like that through IDEA is for assisting students with disabilities.
Some of these public schools are already hanging on by a thread and having trouble paying high enough wages to fill positions.
Again, we are just debating how to actually fund schools. These are just really extreme statements, where the state or local government would need to step up, because schools are a basic service provided by the government and these children aren’t going to be denied access to public education.
It’s not a mainstream view that we are privatizing the public education system in the United States. It’s just a choice being offered where schools are severely mismanaged that is essentially political because of teacher’s unions.
To be fair, the characterization is entirely accurate. Anyone who speaks of "government schools" advocates their demise. They want an entirely privatized system funded at taxpayer expense: a voucher for every child to be spent as each parent decides. If that means every public school closes, well, voila: the magic of the market.
Whoever "they" are in your assertion, they are not cutting down bureaucracy or promoting local control. The federal government has not issued new regulations to cap administrative overhead, for example. It simply abandoned its civil rights enforcement and slashed funding.
Agreed, public schools in America do a poor job. Something like 1/3 of graduating seniors are ready for college work, according to the "national report card". But that’s by design: elected school boards and administration determine salaries and standards. No principal wants to explain poor grades to a disappointed parent; no teacher wants to combat a parent’s prejudice by teaching real history or biology. So, the curriculum is mediocre and grades are high.
The situation isn’t much better at private schools by the way. Grade inflation is everywhere. Harvard just has the luxury of picking its students.
No Child Left Behind and civil-rights enforcement by the department of education did narrow the achievement gap, which has now begun to widen again. So it is clear the department directly benefits student. The complaint is not that; it is that it benefits the "wrong" students, if you get my drift.
> To be fair, I don’t think anyone’s trying to eliminate public education. That’s a very unfair characterization.
It's not unfair at all, that is what they're trying to do. It would be a political career ender to say that so they say things like "trying to cut down large education bureaucracies that don’t appear to be benefiting the students." But there is an influential contingent of republicans that wants to effectively end american universal public education and they're not meaningfully opposed within the party.
> It’s not clear that the Federal resources in the Dept of Education are directly benefiting the students.
What's your area of experience with education where this is how you've come to see it? Because for what I do, it's extremely obvious that these resources do benefit the students.
I agree, and given the current education metrics of America, I don't think a federalized education department has done much good. There's too much language and cultural differences in America to have one-size-fits-all from the federal government.
Perhaps I'm wearing rose tinted glasses, but I think schools should be governed on a state or local level. That way you can better match the needs of the students, all of the students, in that area.
90% of funding for K-12 public schools comes from state and local taxes. That’s hardly a one-size-fits-all national system.
Would you tell me though, please, what language and cultural differences should inflect science or math or literature or history? Are you suggesting evolution not be taught where there are parents who object, or that the civil war be taught differently in the former confederacy, so as not to hurt anyone’s feelings? Those things are happening, of course. I’m just innocent of any defense for them.
I can't tell if you're playing devils advocate, but in Texas, many students speak Spanish as their first language, we also have students and other parts of the country whose first language is not English. Some of those make up the majority, if not overwhelming majority, of some of these schools. I think it's naïve to assume that they can be taught the same as the rest of the country. There's also students with attention deficit, hyperactivity disorder, autism, disabilities, and all of that is best handled the local level so they can serve the local students. I get why some people prefer federalism and education, it allows for greater federal control. But clearly it's a disservice to students, or else the testing would show it.
Education is a provincial function in Canada and I think the system works great. Some provinces like Ontario struggle more than others but I think it works out well overall.
More specifically the US currently spends more than the vast majority of the world per pupil [1], yet our outcomes in e.g. math leave us somewhere between Malta and and Slovakia. [2] Clearly it does not seem that 'more money' is the solution.
[1] - https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd/education-exp...
[2] - https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/pisa-scor...