[HN Gopher] Schools for children of military achieve results rar...
___________________________________________________________________
Schools for children of military achieve results rarely seen in
public education
Author : LastNevadan
Score : 106 points
Date : 2023-10-12 16:47 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| dannyphantom wrote:
| https://archive.ph/PHFQ1
| Jtsummers wrote:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20231010091419/https://www.nytim...
|
| This one worked better for me.
| ericfrazier wrote:
| If that's the case then we really are up the creek as a nation.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| One counterexample:
|
| my grad school linguistics professor, an internationally
| recognized scholar across several languages, credited the DoD
| Language school at Monterrey CA as having been just amazing,
| and who went back to teach for decades in a top five ranked US
| university, not only linguists but engineering kids like me.
|
| He was the same age as my dad so had the avuncular thing going,
| was personable, but most of all inspiring to decades of
| students to look outside their curricula.
|
| Sometimes what sounds like up a creek turns out to be an
| unpredictable kick ass river, I guess.
| ericfrazier wrote:
| I'm talking about K-12 DoD education abroad.
| Afforess wrote:
| clickbait headline, the real answer is in the article:
|
| > _For starters, families have access to housing and health care
| through the military, and at least one parent has a job._
|
| > _" Having as many of those basic needs met does help set the
| scene for learning to occur," said Jessica Thorne, the principal
| at E.A. White Elementary, a school of about 350 students_
|
| Providing a stable home environment with access to at least one
| parent, proper nutrition, and safety - all commonly missing in
| the worst performing school districts.
| jowea wrote:
| That may be a bit simplistic since the article does mentions
| other possible explanations for the better results beyond the
| fact that essentially all students are above an economic floor.
|
| And I didn't get it from the article, but are those schools
| better than the schools in wealthy districts?
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| What's unfortunate about the article is that it is so light on
| data, and heavy on assumptions. So whatever your agenda is, there
| is something to latch onto, but ultimately nothing to support it.
|
| e.g. Prefer more rigour? "Defense officials attribute recent
| growth in test scores partly to the overhaul, which was meant to
| raise the level of rigor expected of students."
|
| Prefer more money? "the Defense Department estimates that it
| spends about $25,000 per student, on par with the highest-
| spending states"
|
| For all we can tell from the article, it is just self selection.
| joshhart wrote:
| The article suggests several causes: 1. Bias in population -
| these students all have families where at least one parent has a
| stable job, which isn't true elsewhere. There could also be other
| factors, for instance maybe people who enter the military are
| more motivated on average and that genetically or through
| parenting is passed on to their kids. 2. Better funding 3.
| Frequent feedback to teachers and more methodical planning 4.
| Excellent racial & socioeconomic integration
|
| Is there a way to tease out the contribution in each area through
| controlling for variables. I suspect #1 is the largest by far,
| but I think this could be statistically controlled for partially
| by looking at children of parents who attend non-military
| schools. Curious for thoughts from HN.
| aynyc wrote:
| No. #1 is your CO will chew your ass out in front of everyone
| (which is a big no-no in leadership, yet it's accepted
| regarding your children). I saw first hand my E6 got called to
| battalion CO to answer why his son was bullying other kids (I
| think some civilians from DoD). I still remember CO said, if
| you don't fix this, I march the whole damn battalion to your
| house and make you do push ups while your son watch.
|
| When your parents care, you will do.
| pram wrote:
| This is also the best reason to NOT use stuff on base! The
| day I got pulled into my squadron commanders office because
| my dorm "was a mess" was the same day I applied for BAH.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| All of those have multiplicative effects. Good home/parents
| make students more motivated, good teachers are able to work
| well with motivated students, capable classrooms are able to
| handle more demanding classes. I don't suspect socioeconomic
| integration matters here though if everyone is getting the same
| treatment. Standardization is also good when we see wildly
| different results in different classrooms. Harder to do in more
| fragmented and less well funded school districts.
|
| But these are all well known factors. Not much to learn drom
| here, but it's nice to see it confirm the theory.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| This. Mother and family spent careers in early childhood
| education.
|
| - In order for learning to happen, kids have to be non-
| disruptive.
|
| - In order for kids to be non-disruptive, they have to have
| their basic needs met: safety, food, stability, etc.
|
| - In order for a kid's basic needs to be met, there has to be
| a source of income and time to care for them.
|
| Absent that chain of dependencies, young children are in no
| state to learn anything, and distract the kids around them.
| And every minute of every week spent papering over
| deficiencies there is one less minute devoted to learning.
|
| F.ex. in Title I schools, it's not uncommon to have families
| where the only book in the house might be one a child is sent
| home with.
|
| If teachers received tabula rasa children, results would be
| much more even.
|
| But they don't, which results in kids at bad schools being
| unable to focus, which means they don't learn basic material,
| which perpetuates income disparities later in life, which
| continues the cycle through lack of time and money.
|
| The military has many bad aspects, but a parent with a steady
| job, housing, and benefits is a solid foundation for
| childhood academic success.
| zeroCalories wrote:
| Yeah I have family in education too and it's a sad reality
| that schools just can't help most students because they
| come from broken homes. There are marginal improvements you
| can make like providing free lunch and good after school
| activities, but an actual solution would require other
| fundamental problems to be solved in society, or a radical
| reimagining of public education.
|
| On a more nutty note, for the possible reforms I've heard
| of everything from public boarding schools so kid don't
| have to spend time in their bad home, to firing all
| teachers and paying children for testing well.
| joshhart wrote:
| I think these are good points, I am hugely in favor of
| expanding food stamps and child tax credits for this reason.
| One estimate is that every $1 spend on food stamps expands
| GDP by $1.50, so this is really good for the overall economy.
| I have heard of much higher estimates, but cannot easily find
| the source. We definitely need to help poor families break
| the poverty cycle. Schools should have free breakfast, lunch,
| dinner, and after school programs as well to deal with lack
| of food at home and 2 parents working full-time.
|
| https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-
| waves/2019/july/quantifying-t...
| rawgabbit wrote:
| I spent time in the US military many years ago. From my sample
| size of one:
|
| 1) This is population bias and self-selection. Everyone I met
| in the service was extremely patriotic and wanted to succeed in
| everything. Many came from desperately poor backgrounds and saw
| the service as their way to the middle class. Those who joined
| for other reasons were quickly forced out. At the time, when
| people asked me what my job was in the military, I joked that I
| was a "bullet stopper". I was joking but I honestly believed
| everyone in my team would take a bullet for each other.
|
| 2) Funding is questionable. Military pay is a joke. Many of the
| enlisted I knew received food stamps and WIC (women infant
| children supplement monies to feed themselves). The housing is
| old, probably contain asbestos and lead, mold etc. But at least
| its warm. Probably most important there was almost zero theft,
| burglaries, or crime you see in troubled cities. Healthcare is
| almost free.
|
| 3) Teaching. The military does things by the book. Many books.
| Thousands of pages. Most of which is bull shit. The military
| makes up for it through sheer determination.
|
| 4) Racial integration. Hmmmm. The US military at least has a
| huge problem with racism, sexism, all kinds of isms. Sexual
| assault is a taboo subject that happens under the surface and
| commanders at all levels are at their wit's end. If my daughter
| wanted to join the US military, I would actively encourage her
| and secretly worry that she would be sexually assaulted. I
| would try to warn her indirectly and tell her things like don't
| go to private parties. Drink only in a public setting with a
| designated person looking out for trouble. The service is an
| honor but also has its own problems.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| I think this can be misleading in the same way some charter
| school results are. The easiest way to improve a school's results
| isn't to improve the education provided, it's to get rid of the
| worst performing kids.
|
| Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and
| artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday. So the
| only kids who go there have two parents, one who probably is stay
| at home and can pick the kid up.
|
| The same type of thing is in play in military schools. There will
| be few-to-no kids of poor single moms. All the kids will be well
| fed and groomed and socialized. Is the education better, or have
| they just selected better performing kids? The article touches on
| this. But I don't think takes it nearly seriously enough.
| eYrKEC2 wrote:
| Another factor is that the military parents have cleared a bar
| of pre-enlistment testing (ASVAB?) that has strong correlations
| with IQ testing.
| stonogo wrote:
| The minimum ASVAB to enlist is 31, and there are waiver
| programs for that. This is not a good showing. I feel like
| people don't appreciate how little lower-enlisted people are
| paid, what terrible financial literacy abounds in the ranks,
| and how many kids live on base but are still very firmly
| living in poverty.
|
| There are a lot of advantages to living on base, but this
| thread is pretending that the military has its shit together
| in ways that it absolutely does not. "All the kids will be
| well-fed and socialized" is bizarrely out of touch,
| specifically. There are functioning gangs on some larger
| military installations. Troops PCS every few years, making it
| difficult for kids to establish social groups. Most bases
| have a unit of MPs basically acting as child services.
|
| I'd think a better place to look for filters would be entire
| schools -- BRAC has caused the closure of many schools, but I
| don't know how they select which schools to target for
| closure. I know of at least two larger bases which have no
| schools (students are bused to local civilian schools) but I
| know others who have kept their schools despite a lower
| overall population of families.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| maybe on the officer level, but you don't need a particularly
| high ASVAB score to drive a truck or be a cook.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Education is mostly about your peers. It's obviously true for
| prestigious universities but it's just as true for elementary
| schools. Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't
| some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can
| improve the education for those that remain.
|
| My district has a quarter of high schoolers in charter schools.
| Almost all of them under the poverty line. It's not like
| they're only accepting kids with two parents, in fact they're
| doing a much better job of helping poor families in my district
| than the public school system, which forces all the poor
| students into the same schools with literal murderers
| attending. Allowing poor students from families that value
| education to go to schools with like minded students is an
| unequivocally good thing compared to what the public schools
| currently do.
| colechristensen wrote:
| The question is: what do you do about children with
| discipline problems whose parents don't care?
|
| By all accounts, there are many of these kids. A portion of
| them are special needs and they at least have a path for what
| people want to do with them, even if special education
| doesn't have all the resources they need... there's at least
| an answer to "what should we do?".
|
| But what should we do with the rest?
| parineum wrote:
| > But what should we do with the rest?
|
| The answer to that question is _something_ but I think the
| real question is "who is 'we'?"
| colechristensen wrote:
| Children's public education is an _everybody_ problem.
| How these bulk problems are handled is something
| everybody should agree on instead of acting like it's
| somebody else's problem.
| black6 wrote:
| The parents. Offloading the responsibility of raising
| children is a large part of the problem.
| chowells wrote:
| Absolutely 100% incorrect. If the parents aren't willing
| or able to raise their children, _someone_ has to.
| "Throw them away" is not a moral, ethical, or utilitarian
| answer.
| 9530jh9054ven wrote:
| Why isn't it an answer?
|
| At least from a purely utilitarian point of view, cost of
| educating and raising a child is exorbitant (teachers,
| food, clothing, shelter, etc) compared to euthanizing
| them (1 to 5 bullets, executioner pay, and burial costs).
| Benefits are going to be somewhat iffy; yes they could
| turn out okay but it's just as likely they could turn
| into criminal offenders that will chew up resources of
| the criminal justice system which is quite a lot more
| expensive.
|
| I will emphasize that this is strictly from a utilitarian
| point of view. I make no comments on the moral, ethical,
| and legal issues.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I think you missed the "imprison them for 2 decades" part
| of euthanizing them in your consideration. It's fun to
| just make up how you think things should ideally work,
| but we're bounded by how things actually work.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| It's a very important question. I don't have the answer.
| What I do know is that forcing underprivileged students to
| attend schools that cause them to fear for their safety or
| even life is inhumane. Charter schools are solving that in
| my district.
| dwater wrote:
| Based on your previous comment, the remaining 3/4 of
| students are all murderers, criminals, deviants,
| disabled, or with parents who aren't concerned with their
| education; or some of those 3/4 of students are somewhere
| in the middle but had their educations diminished by the
| removal of the better behaved students.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Well no, most of them are in the wealthier areas and
| don't have to worry about the violence the poor schools
| experience. There certainly still are deserving students
| stuck in failing schools and I think that's a tragedy. I
| don't see why that means we should undo a program that
| has been helping though.
| chung8123 wrote:
| You don't let them hold the classroom and the rest of the
| kids that want to learn hostage. Not every problem has a
| 100% solution.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Maybe find something more effective than public schools at
| turning them around. Their track record certainly indicates
| a different approach is needed.
|
| Just because the kids happen to be in government run
| schools, that doesn't mean that an effective intervention
| into their lives can be performed there.
|
| Schools should be about education, not solving all of
| society's ills. It is intolerable that one child who
| disrupts the education environment should be able to
| prevent so many others from learning. Take the child out of
| the situation so the others can learn and then figure out
| what's going on.
| etempleton wrote:
| In the US it used to be more acceptable to put students in
| classes based on where they were academically and in terms
| of behavior. Truly disruptive kids were also usually
| suspended until eventually being expelled.
|
| Neither approach is considered appropriate anymore. It was
| a central thesis of No Child Left Behind, which is/was nice
| in theory, but not in practice.
|
| Now schools are data obsessed. Bad metrics like
| suspensions, expulsions, etc are avoided because
| suspensions are correlated to bad test scores and bad
| future outcomes for students. So schools now measure
| performance against that. The problem is obviously
| correlation vs causation, but if that is how you are graded
| as a principal that is what you are going to work towards
| to keep your job.
|
| The reality is that if you want good schools you need to
| cut your losses with the worst behaving kids. Slow learners
| really aren't much of an issue because they don't disrupt
| other kids learning beyond maybe needing more teacher
| attention.
| hospadar wrote:
| > The reality is that if you want good schools you need
| to cut your losses with the worst behaving kids.
|
| This kind of attitude is a wide-open door for racist and
| classist attitudes to penalize kids of color, kids from
| poor homes, kids with unsafe or unstable home situations.
| Suspending and expelling kids almost always makes things
| worse for those kids.
|
| There are HUGE racial and gender disparities in the rates
| of suspension and expulsion[1].
|
| Anecdotally, I know a lot of educators and child social
| workers who are strongly opposed to suspension &
| expulsion as a punishment or a "solution". None of them
| cite "metrics obsession" as their reason, but rather the
| fact that the kids who are getting kicked out of school
| need more support, not less.
|
| Maybe it seems fine to kick [other people's] kids out of
| school "for the good of the many", but happens next? What
| if parents loose their job because they have to stay home
| for childcare? What if folks end up homeless because they
| can't pay the bills? What if those kids end up in prisons
| (that our taxes pay for)? Just from a financial
| perspective, school is an EXTREMELY cost-effective early
| intervention compared to prisons, inpatient mental
| health, welfare systems, etc. Well educated folks often
| end up making money and paying into tax systems rather
| than drawing from them.
|
| [1] https://nces.ed.gov/programs/raceindicators/indicator
| _rda.as...
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| There are huge racial and gender disparities in all sorts
| of things. More than half of black children are in single
| parent households compared to 20% of white children. You
| can't just look at racial outcomes and determine
| discrimination without asking whether priorities and
| choices are also different between the groups.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > The question is: what do you do about children with
| discipline problems whose parents don't care?
|
| This is relevant point to the military thing. If you screw
| up at school, your military parents will be called -- and
| it may impact them directly. As in, Sgt. X, your kid keeps
| picking fights, and we're going to punish them, and you,
| for it.
|
| Which means the parents care -- a lot.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn't some
| loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can improve
| the education for those that remain.
|
| If you kick out the problematic students, the only students
| you have left are easy to teach non-problematic students.
|
| > and it absolutely can improve the education for those that
| remain.
|
| It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so your
| results will be the best. It is a direct application of
| selection bias. Public schools will be left with whatever
| students are not accepted into charter schools...those
| "problematic students", and will...again...due to selection
| bias have worse results.
|
| > It's not like they're only accepting kids with two parents,
| in fact they're doing a much better job of helping poor
| families in my district than the public school system
|
| That's great for your district, but parent pointed out ending
| school at noon on Wednesday are going to apply selection
| bias. Perhaps your district does it better.
| ameminator wrote:
| I don't understand why offering parents more choices in how
| their children are taught could be a bad thing. Maybe the
| public school system is failing its students. However, it
| always seemed unfair to trap parents who would otherwise
| have other options in a failing system. Yes, this does suck
| for the children of uncaring parents - but for the parents
| who DO care, shouldn't they have a means of meeting their
| obligation to their children?
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Simplistic arguments like this are one of the more
| annoying parts of the rhetoric of charter school
| advocates. It assumes that all charter schools are of
| high quality and that making education yet another thing
| that is economically stratified in the US is good. It's
| ok to say that things that sound nice like choice in
| education can have knock on effects that are bad for
| society.
|
| Very few things in this world are purely good.
| sokoloff wrote:
| It seems like a charter school that develops a reputation
| for low quality is a self-solving problem in a way that a
| public school which develops the same reputation is
| (currently) not.
|
| One goes out of business; the other goes along
| indefinitely, with perhaps the wealthiest parents nearby
| withdrawing their kids, but most families and children
| are forced to endure it or move away.
| linuxftw wrote:
| If public schools weren't awful, there would be no need
| for charter schools.
|
| The public school experiment has failed.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Tell me you only follow policy in the US without telling
| me: exhibit one.
|
| The public school "experiment" has been purposefully
| sabotaged is more like it.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The article is about US schools.... so?
|
| How can one sabotage a house of cards? Failure was
| inevitable.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| I don't believe that public schooling, an actually lindy
| institution _worldwide_ , an institution that was working
| quite well in the US up until about the 70s and 80s
| (wonder what happened then hmm) that has produced world
| renowned schools in the US in particular, is more of a
| house of cards than the Potemkin village that is charter
| and private schools.
| linuxftw wrote:
| You'll need to provide evidence that public schools were
| working well in the 70s and 80s. Graduation rates today
| are higher than those decades. High school was optional
| for many parts of the country.
|
| The reason for the outcry now, is that we measure
| everything, and even the wealthier areas of the country
| are unable to perform to any reasonable standard.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| My district spends $29k per student. More than almost any
| other in the world. Yet some of its schools are so bad
| that a quarter of high schoolers opted out. It's not
| about funding. It's an overwhelmingly blue area,
| politicians are not purposefully sabotaging the schools.
| The government is just utterly incompetent, and worse,
| corrupt. And unfortunately many of the students are from
| households that don't emphasize the importance of
| education.
| pharmakom wrote:
| > More than almost any other in the world.
|
| You should only compare to countries with a similar cost
| structure.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Replace world with almost any place you can think of and
| the statement remains true.
| econonut wrote:
| Your implication that conservative politicians are more
| likely to be sabotaging schools than democratic
| politicians is hilarious. I'm quite certain both sides
| are equally adept at throwing good money after bad so
| long as the present policy they pursue is fashionable and
| focus group tested. They're incompetent, as you say, or,
| perhaps, they just aren't willing to risk their own
| political future because the changes that might make a
| difference will be unpopular with voters.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| My reading of "purposefully sabotaged" is that whoever
| was in charge of the schools decided to make them worse
| for political reasons, like not believing in public
| education. I'm not aware of any dems doing this. I
| certainly agree that they have accidentally sabotaged
| schools through incompetence or corruption, but that's a
| much harder problem to fix than "just don't vote for
| people that don't believe in public education".
|
| My point was that elections here are almost always about
| improving public schools, but the government has not been
| able to over the course of decades. Call their
| stewardship what you will. Purposeful sabotage,
| accidental sabotage, whatever, doesn't really matter to
| me. What matter is that the government is not capable of
| enacting the voters will of having good public schools,
| which is why charters are so popular.
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| Spends 29k on what? School infrastructure is crumbling
| around the country. Teachers are paid so little most of
| them could get a raise working at Costco. This country
| has engendered in every sector that matters a fleet of
| middle managers and administrators whose purpose is to
| extract value and provide little. Maybe we can start by
| trimming that away, something teachers have been saying
| for years.
|
| And as for the overwhelmingly blue thing, that's another
| simplistic narrative. Substantive politics in the US has
| very little to do with the party that you vote for, as
| the parties agree on 99% of the particulars, if not the
| rhetoric. Illinois is one of the bluest states in America
| and Chicago one of the bluest cities, and yet Rahm
| Emmanuel ran under a dem regime one of the most infamous
| regimes of city-wide austerity in recent memory. The
| Daleys were out and out corrupt racists. I could go on.
| sgnelson wrote:
| I don't think anyone is going to say "offering parents
| more choices is bad." But the political reality is not
| simply "offering more choices." The political reality
| typically entails using funds set aside for public
| schools for charter schools. In reality, what happens all
| too often is that funding and resources are stripped away
| from the already resource poor schools and given to
| charter schools.
|
| And that's probably why people seem as if they're saying
| "Charter schools bad." I'd argue they're really saying
| "Taking funds away from public schools to give to charter
| schools bad." We're creating a system where the already
| struggling schools will then be put on a downward spiral,
| unable to recover.
|
| But I think our educations system is screwed up and we
| need to invest more resources into education at all
| levels, so what do I know.
|
| There's also the moral question of your whole "it sucks
| for children of uncaring parents" quote, which I
| personally think is quite a selfish and uncaring
| perspective, that is also probably grossly not the truth
| for the variety of parents in lower performing schools,
| but I'm not going to get into that.
| sokoloff wrote:
| > entails using funds set aside for public schools
|
| That's one framing.
|
| Another framing is "using funds set aside to educate the
| children of the district".
|
| If you frame the funding as being _for the schools_
| rather than _for the children's education_ , you
| naturally object to it being spent elsewhere.
|
| Are we trying to run public schools or trying to educate
| children in the district?
|
| (My kids attended public schools.)
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Segregationists tried using that framing back in the
| 1960s/70s, but it the argument was ruled invalid by the
| Warren-led Supreme Court. Who knows what would happen
| these days, however.
| sgnelson wrote:
| As to my earlier comment, I don't think anyone is saying
| "We shouldn't educate students" (except the parent
| comment that was like "only for kids whose parents
| care.") And for me, public schools are for the education
| of all the children in the district. In my head, I don't
| really separate the two. I believe in education for all,
| despite what resources their parents have. I'm going to
| reject the premise that I'm just for public schools just
| because. To me, it's one and the same.
|
| If public schools aren't for the education of students,
| what are they for? To follow your question, if not public
| schools, do we just change all schools to charter and
| private schools and have the state fund them? (Well, then
| don't they just become public schools with slightly
| different administrations, that over time will surely
| become just another public school system?)
|
| I should reiterate: I'm not saying that we shouldn't have
| school choice, but my very real concern is that school
| choice usually means that we take funding from one
| school, to send it to another school. And this is what
| happening* (* depending on the state/district you live
| in, maybe not. But it's happening in plenty of other
| locales.)
|
| I think for a lot of middle class parents, Charter
| schools are very appealing. But I'm also talking about
| the students who need the most help. So the real question
| becomes "funds set aside for the education of _which_
| students in the district."
|
| Well, let's go back to the original post. Why do people
| go on and on about how school choice is bad? It's not
| about school choice. It's about school resources. It's
| politics. Who gets what, where, when and how. If the
| education system in America was so rich in cash that we
| were paving the hallways of schools with gold bricks, we
| wouldn't even be having this conversation. But they are
| not. It's a question of resources and how to direct those
| resources for the most good. And guess what, everyone is
| going to have a slightly different opinion of what "good"
| is.
|
| But back to your question: Why aren't we trying to
| educate children in the district?
|
| Okay, if it helps students, and if your tax payer dollars
| are there to educate that student, what's the problem?
| The reality is, this typically leaves the schools that
| are already struggling to fall further behind.
|
| Teaching is hard. Teaching students who don't want to be
| there, don't care, have special needs, or a poor family
| life is even more so. This is especially the case because
| Teachers are asked to do a lot more than just teach
| English and Math, but rather provide some of the
| resources that may not be provided by their family or
| society at large.
|
| All schools and school systems have their own needs and
| issues. And largely what happens is that schools which
| have the least resources need the most resources to be
| successful. There's also a very real economy of scale
| that can occur at schools, and once resources start
| getting stripped, those economy of scales start falling
| apart, and now those dollars you do have, don't go as
| far.
|
| Getting teachers to work at Title 1 schools is hard. You
| need to pay them higher salaries. You need more
| resources, such as school psychologists, school resource
| officers, teacher aids, etc. Even things like having
| parents come in to volunteer is more of an issue, and if
| you don't have those volunteers, where do you get the
| replacement labor from?
|
| Not too many people are creating (good) Charter schools
| to serve these students needs (not to say there aren't,
| there are some good schools out there, but not enough of
| them.)
|
| I work in education (but you couldn't pay me enough to
| teach high school in America). I see the issues with the
| system everyday. The system is broken. Teachers are
| underpaid, overworked and leaving in droves. If you look
| at the statistics for number of students in education
| departments in colleges to become teachers, it has
| drastically fallen over the past 15 years. (I literally
| tell students of mine that are interested in education to
| stay away.) That's not likely to change in the
| foreseeable future.
|
| Students are not getting the education they deserve.
| There aren't enough teachers. There are bad teachers. All
| too often the bureaucracy is uncaring and unyielding, and
| that's not a great way to educate individuals. Students
| are getting passed through the system regardless if
| they're learning or not.
|
| The issue I have with your question is this: Are we
| trying to educate _all_ children in the district or are
| we trying to educate _your_ children in the district?
| Because if it's just your children, charter schools would
| be great. If it's all children, we can't just rely on
| Charter schools to solve all the inherent problems with
| the system (because they're not just going to magically
| fix things). We're going to have to reach deep down, work
| harder, and make a lot of even tougher decisions to fix
| the broken education system in America.
| throwaway101223 wrote:
| > In reality, what happens all too often is that funding
| and resources are stripped away from the already resource
| poor schools and given to charter schools.
|
| Where are you seeing this? D.C. has almost half of its
| students in charter schools, and it also has public
| schools that are funded more than almost anywhere else in
| the U.S.
|
| Worth pointing out that the charter school enrollment is
| highest in the poorest wards with the greatest percent of
| the black population. It's lowest in the richest wards
| with the greatest percent of the whtie population. See
| for yourself[1].
|
| Like with the claims of "underfunded public schools," a
| lot of these conversations seem to stem from people
| hearing talking points and assuming that they're true,
| while not bothering to look at the facts that show the
| opposite to be the case.
|
| https://dcpcsb.org/student-enrollment
| dfxm12 wrote:
| The philosophical issue is charter schools use public
| resources yet are not accountable to the public. Adding
| to that, having public education system that is available
| to the public is kind of the key part here. So, the
| practical issue is that if some students are being
| excluded, that misses the point of public education
| terribly (other practical issues involve profiteering by
| the charters, just like with private prisons).
| Additionally, having several overlapping choices with
| government funding is an inefficient use of the money.
|
| As far as choice, there's nothing wrong with that, and
| religious and other private schools (which didn't get
| public funds) have co-existed with public schools almost
| everywhere well before our lifetimes. So equating charter
| schools (or vouchers) with choice in this context is
| disingenuous.
| logicchains wrote:
| >The philosophical issue is charter schools use public
| resources yet are not accountable to the public.
|
| They absolutely are accountable to the public in their
| school district, who can choose to send their kids not to
| that school if they don't like the school, depriving the
| school of revenue.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| > I don't understand why offering parents more choices in
| how their children are taught could be a bad thing.
|
| I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of
| course. But...personal optimization != societal
| optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to
| succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society,
| things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income
| inequality).
|
| > Yes, this does suck for the children of uncaring
| parents - but for the parents who DO care, shouldn't they
| have a means of meeting their obligation to their
| children?
|
| Again, those kids left behind...they are going to be
| expensive in terms of prisons, homeless services, lost
| productivity, etc...You can see this happening already,
| it is just going to be much worse when our kids are
| adults. And really, this is the only time we (or society)
| will have much influence on these kids. It is much easier
| to set a kid straight than try to fix an adult.
| logicchains wrote:
| >I am going to give my kid all the advantages I can, of
| course. But...personal optimization != societal
| optimization. Yes, I can put my kid in a better spot to
| succeed, but we aren't making progress as a society,
| things are getting very much worse actually (e.g. income
| inequality).
|
| Good intentions but empirically it doesn't work; forcing
| troublesome kids to be in school with the kids who
| genuinely want to learn drags down the score of the kids
| who want to learn and doesn't improve outcomes for the
| troublesome kids. Countries with school choice like
| Sweden have much better educational outcomes than the US.
| ethanbond wrote:
| I suspect there are at least a few major confounding
| variables when comparing Swedish to US schools. You know,
| like... almost everything about how the society works?
| wnoise wrote:
| It's partially selection bias, yes.
|
| But that's not the entire story. It's also the fact that
| not having to deal with the terrible kids helps the
| remaining kids. Fewer class disruptions. Less slowing down
| the class to pretend to let the slowest and least motivated
| keep up. Etc.
|
| This comes at the cost of concentrating the troublemakers
| in other places, making them far worse for normal kids
| stuck there.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| > It isn't mysterious: you selected the best students, so
| your results will be the best.
|
| You're implying that individual results don't change by
| grouping the good students together. In your vision the
| good students stay good and the bad stay bad. I don't
| agree. The good students become great by surrounding them
| with other good students.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| If that's true then the converse is also true: bad
| students become bad by surrounding them with other bad
| students.
|
| And the charter school gets to take credit for the "good"
| outcome while the public school gets blamed for the bad
| outcome that is a direct result of the good outcome.
|
| Which, if we accept your premise, suggests that the
| charter schools aren't providing any net benefit, they're
| just taking credit. If this is really the way we want to
| operate things we could just do it in public schools.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I do think that the students who don't get accepted into
| the selective schools need better options. It's just when
| the options are keep all the students together or
| separate them and some will become better and some will
| become worse I think providing the students who want to
| succeed with a way to accomplish their goals is the
| correct choice. Hopefully there will be another option
| that isn't so exclusionary in the future.
|
| I'm not super interested in who gets the credit here. If
| the public schools were able or willing to kick out
| problematic students like the charter schools then I
| think we should be doing that instead of charters. But
| that's not the reality. So yes, I do think that outcomes
| overall are better, at least in my district, because of
| charters.
| lukeschlather wrote:
| You sidestepped my point. Segregating all the
| underperformers into one place causes harm and you're
| ignoring that harm, assuming that the benefit of
| segregating the high performers is more important.
|
| And you are in fact crediting the charter school with the
| benefit while ensuring that public schools receive blame
| for any harm that results.
|
| I think you're actually arguing against universal
| instruction, that we shouldn't educate all students.
| Which we could do in public schools also! But you're not
| suggesting that at all.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| I don't think I'm ignoring the harm. I am accepting it.
| We can get into the utilitarian calculus, but before even
| considering that I don't think it's acceptable to force
| students who want to succeed into classrooms with those
| that don't. And really that's the end of the story for
| me. Maybe the total outcome is worse because the kicked
| out students cause much bigger problems than they would
| otherwise but that doesn't mean we should force the other
| students to suffer. I don't feel right dooming those kids
| to a poor education.
|
| The public schools do deserve blame for putting all the
| under privileged kids together. The charters deserve
| credit for allowing them to separate themselves. I don't
| think that's intrinsic to public schooling, it's just the
| circumstance we are in.
| SaintGhurka wrote:
| > ending school at noon on Wednesday are going to apply
| selection bias.
|
| That's not unique to charter schools. My daughter's public
| elementary school in CA let out at 12:50 on Wednesday.
|
| https://wagonwheel.capousd.org/School-Info/Bell-
| Schedule/ind...
| ecshafer wrote:
| > If you kick out the problematic students, the only
| students you have left are easy to teach non-problematic
| students.
|
| Maybe the negative effects of having problematic students
| is enough that its a worthwhile endeavor? By Middle school
| or high school "problematic students" involves people that
| not only are noisy and disruptive in class, but people that
| deal drugs, rob people, steal, join gangs, bring weapons to
| school. Just calling them problematic is really
| underselling the situation. And the effects of a student
| that routinely swears at a teacher and causes fights
| disrupts a large number of students preventing them from
| learning things.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| Wow they sound really undesirable. I wonder if there's
| some place you could concentrate such people to reduce
| their impact? Maybe some sort of camp, idk.
|
| In all seriousness once you start thinking of huge
| swathes of _children_ as a problem in this way, the
| "solutions" become clear and atrocious. You have to find
| another path sorry.
| ls612 wrote:
| I'm happy to hear that you've agreed to teach them all as
| the alternative path. Have fun!
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| When the actual fix (improving the lives, discipline, and
| care provided by their parents) is untenable, other lower
| effort solutions start to become more attractive. It's
| unreasonable to expect schools to correct for a poor
| upbringing.
| pharmakom wrote:
| > Education is mostly about your peers. It's obviously true
| for prestigious universities but it's just as true for
| elementary schools.
|
| This is going to require some backing.
| jimhefferon wrote:
| Serious question: you don't see a dilemma in kicking out
| those who seem problematic? I absolutely hear you that a
| parent wants the best for their kid. But historically
| declaring that some students are an issue has been a frought
| road.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Of course I see the dilemma. To be honest I just care more
| about the students who want to succeed than the ones that
| don't. Every student deserves a high quality education, and
| that just isn't possible to provide when you're distracted
| by other students. I care about the other kids too, for
| ethical as well as utilitarian reason, and I do think we
| need to think hard about how they can be best served. But
| the status quo is not working, I don't think it's fair to
| continue to deprive underprivileged students of the
| opportunities they deserve.
| SomethingNew2 wrote:
| Let's assume there will be some % of kids that lack
| interest in learning, have no parental or community
| support, and despite schools providing them additional
| support for years they show no improvement or desire to
| improve. I think it's reasonable some % of these people
| will always be in the population pool. What is the solution
| for these individuals?
| amalcon wrote:
| _> Charter schools kicking out problematic students isn 't
| some loophole, it's the main point, and it absolutely can
| improve the education for those that remain._
|
| I'm provisionally accepting this as true, partly because
| there's some truth in it and partly because I think it leads
| to an interesting discussion. This is great for the remaining
| students at the charter school.
|
| That problem student goes somewhere, though. That problematic
| student still exist. They are now in another class, with
| other students. Some of those students are problematic and
| some are not, but per your premise -- that other class is now
| worse than it was. You haven't improved anything, you've just
| taken a disadvantage from one place and given it to another.
|
| One might consider a scenario where this happens repeatedly,
| and you just get a class full of problematic kids. Those kids
| don't learn anything, but at least the non-problematic kids
| do.
|
| There are several problems with that scenario, but one such
| problem is independent of ethical concerns: You just aren't
| going to find the people to run that school or teach that
| class for the amount society is willing to pay. Schools for
| behaviorally problematic students exist. They tend to be
| private, expensive, and full. They also tend to focus on
| students who e.g. assault other students in the middle of
| class, rather than on students who e.g. won't stop talking in
| class even if repeatedly removed from class, or even students
| with out-of-school criminal records.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and
| artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday. So the
| only kids who go there have two parents, one who probably is
| stay at home and can pick the kid up
|
| This would be a more effective filtering technique if
| inconvenient minimum days weren't common in regular public
| schools.
|
| The most effective filtering technique used by charter schools
| is... being a charter school.
|
| Because it isn't the default option public school based on
| residency and requires an active choice, it automatically
| filters for active parents.
|
| And because for most of the potential student base its farther
| from their default public school, it selects for logistical
| flexibility (loosely correlating to wealth and/or having a
| parent at home) as well.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| From the article,
|
| >> _But there are key differences. For starters, families have
| access to housing and health care through the military, and at
| least one parent has a job._
|
| >> _"Having as many of those basic needs met does help set the
| scene for learning to occur," said Jessica Thorne, the
| principal at E.A. White Elementary, a school of about 350
| students._
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| From my comment,
|
| >> don't take it seriously enough.
|
| A serious comparison would be to schools in fairly well off
| neighbourhoods in the suburbs. But they don't do that.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| So, you think it's worth dismissing an article that clearly
| calls out its measures, because they didn't "take it
| seriously enough" to renormalize their data against
| categories they likely don't have access to?
|
| They're fully transparent about the measures of achievement
| they're looking at:
|
| >> _Their schools had the highest outcomes in the country
| for Black and Hispanic students, whose eighth-grade reading
| scores outpaced national averages for white students._
|
| >> _Eighth graders whose parents only graduated from high
| school -- suggesting lower family incomes, on average --
| performed as well in reading as students nationally whose
| parents were college graduates._
|
| >> _the military's schools have made gains on the national
| test since 2013. And even as the country's lowest-
| performing students -- in the bottom 25th percentile --
| have slipped further behind, the Defense Department's
| lowest-performing students have improved in fourth-grade
| math and eighth-grade reading._
|
| >> _Despite their high performance, Black and Hispanic
| students, on average, still trail their white peers at
| Defense Department schools, though the gap is smaller than
| in many states. The Pentagon has also faced scrutiny for
| its handling of student misconduct at its schools,
| including reports of sexual assault._
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| so is it because military folks are better, or that society
| is skewing to unemployed single parents?
| willcipriano wrote:
| Military households and the dependas that inhabit them aren't
| the stable footing you are imagining. The worst marriage
| stories I've heard happen under those circumstances.
| Spinnaker_ wrote:
| There are many schools where over 70% of kids live in single
| parents households. I'm sure you have bad stories, but it's
| not comparable overall.
| abtinf wrote:
| > Charter schools do this by various selection effects, and
| artificial barriers, like ending at noon on a Wednesday.
|
| You clearly have not had the pleasure of experiencing typical
| public schools in Washington state.
|
| The schedules seemed designed to maximize hostility toward
| working parents. Inconsistent start and end times through the
| week, weird half days every week or every other week, and
| numerous random non-holiday off days throughout the year.
| exabrial wrote:
| Your point is spot on, except here:
|
| > There will be few-to-no kids of poor single moms
|
| Plenty of poor single moms with well behaved kids. The eternal
| problem is the lack of discipline at home. Successful kids grow
| up with structure, not being told yes all the time, are held
| accountable, and have a soft place to land when they make
| mistakes.
|
| That is certainly harder to do with a single parent home, but
| it happens all the time in multi-parent homes as well.
| oatmeal1 wrote:
| Even if that is the case, it's better to have charter schools
| than none. Then at least the disruptive and/or violent kids
| that are unmotivated cannot disrupt the learning of kids that
| are motivated.
|
| That being said, the existence of competition will raise the
| performance of all schools.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> the Pentagon's schools for children of military members and
| civilian employees.
|
| >> There will be few-to-no kids of poor single moms. All the
| kids will be well fed and groomed and socialized.
|
| Have you looked at what US Army privates are actually paid? And
| I can tell you that there will be LOTS of single-parent
| households too. Lots of drug addicted parents/kids. The army
| isn't what it seen in the recruiting posters. it is a large
| community of young people with basically the same problems as
| any other group. There are some differences, parents are
| generally "employed", but there are also specific difficulties
| like absent mother/fathers and near-constant movements to new
| schools as young parents bounce between postings.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Even a very basic filter has an extreme effect.
|
| I used to take both public transport and a work shuttle. The
| difference was night and day. The filter of being able to
| hold a job eliminated all the problems you saw on the public
| transportation, excepting listening to music too loud.
| ryan93 wrote:
| You are purposefully avoiding the well known fact the military
| only draws from the top 70% of the intelligence distribution
| according to the AFQT.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Related, USAA was originally formed to offer insurance and
| later banking to military officers and their families. (They
| since expanded some offerings to enlisted and to civilians.)
|
| It turns out that selecting for military officers has a
| beneficial impact on auto losses, putting USAA in a good
| position to offer competitive rates and outstanding service.
| stonogo wrote:
| USAA also isn't a typical insurance underwriter. It's
| essentially a giant self-insurance co-op, and for decades
| they would just terminate service if they decided you were
| outside their risk window, whether you otherwise qualified or
| not.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| not impressive pay, but decent, and regularly on the 1st and
| 15th. also adjusted for inflation, and has some other unique
| market facets, like having younger folks being generally fit
| and healthy, and older, retired military folks getting
| pensions.
|
| compare that with your average career bartender or
| construction worker
| gustavus wrote:
| > The same type of thing is in play in military schools. There
| will be few-to-no kids of poor single moms. All the kids will
| be well fed and groomed and socialized.
|
| I grew up near a military base, and that describes very very
| few people.
|
| > no kids of poor single moms
|
| I'd suggest taking a look at what the military pays before you
| make the claim no poor. As for single moms it turns out that
| divorce is a big problem and if your dad is stationed overseas
| for months at a time it's a lot like being a single parent,
| except with the constant wondering if you are going to get a
| letter saying your spouse has died.
|
| > All the kids will be well fed
|
| I'll give you that can be the case, if the MLM and the 30%
| interest on the new Dodge Charger didn't take all the money.
|
| > groomed and socialized
|
| It turns out that sending parents out of a child's life for
| long periods of time can cause lots of behavior issues, beyond
| often times people that make their way to the military come
| with a lot of baggage usually and although the military can be
| good at reforming people's lives into productive members of
| society it doesn't always translate to being a great parent.
|
| It sounds like the kind of thing postulated by someone who
| didn't spend a lot of time around the military culture.
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| > I'd suggest taking a look at what the military pays before
| you make the claim no poor....All the kids will be well fed
|
| to this point, there are a lot of military families on food
| stamps.
|
| plenty of hillbillys and hoodrats. plenty of bad areas near
| military bases, too.
|
| but living on base or around base leads to a pretty strong
| monoculture. you also have a motivated cadre of military
| spouses -- who are often nurses and teachers -- and who often
| have to work hard to get jobs at a local school or hospital.
| you often get qualified teachers and nurses far exceeding the
| level you'd normally find in the rural areas near bases.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| Yes, in my experience rural areas around bases tend to be
| more well-off than rural areas not around bases -- the base
| stimulates the local economy quite a bit, if nothing else.
| (Otoh, the revolving door population is not great for
| stability.)
|
| But FWIW I do not think the effect is even close to strong
| enough to explain the results in the article.
| relaxing wrote:
| Now do the same for the underperforming kids in an
| underperforming school.
|
| > I'd suggest taking a look at what the military pays before
| you make the claim no poor.
|
| Less than public assistance?
|
| > As for single moms it turns out that divorce is a big
| problem
|
| At least your divorced military ex-wife has a better chance
| of actually collecting alimony and child support.
|
| > I'll give you that can be the case, if the MLM and the 30%
| interest on the new Dodge Charger didn't take all the money.
|
| Think predatory finance and scams doesn't exist off-base?
|
| > It turns out that sending parents out of a child's life for
| long periods of time can cause lots of behavior issues
|
| More than experiencing housing insecurity, food insecurity,
| and never having that second parental figure in the first
| place?
| barryrandall wrote:
| Enlisted military families with 2 dependents usually
| qualify for public assistance programs. It's less of a
| problem stateside, because jobs open to military spouses
| are fairly easy to find. Families stationed overseas often
| don't have this option, though.
| HonestOp001 wrote:
| Most schools have one day a week with early release. That is
| not a feature of charter schools.
|
| Additionally, kid's are only as good as their parents can
| enable. Some parents see the schools as a babysitting service.
| Others see it as a reprieve from having their kids in the
| house.
|
| If you have never been to a school to volunteer, go do it. You
| will see quite quickly that there are students who disrupt the
| classroom beyond teaching. The teacher must devolve the class
| to the lowest common denominator and thus the group suffers
| jeffbee wrote:
| If your kid is absent at a DoD school your CO will hound you.
| This makes a difference. There's also the slight difference that
| the military has socialized health care. When your kid is sick
| you take them to the doctor and that's that, while in civilian
| life small medical and especially dental issues go untreated and
| snowball into chronic absenteeism. Base life is really civilized
| in so many various ways. People violating the speed limit (20 MPH
| in housing areas) will be apprehended by armed MPs, so your kid
| can walk to school. Housing is often provided, even if it sucks,
| or subsidized, even if the allowance is below local market
| prices, so homelessness among active-duty families with children
| is practically nonexistent.
| Kon-Peki wrote:
| > There's also the slight difference that the military has
| socialized health care. When your kid is sick you take them to
| the doctor and that's that
|
| Reminds me of a past vacation. Had a friend that was a
| pediatrician in the Army, based in Hawaii. We were all hanging
| out at the beach, and a kid cuts his hand on something. The
| friend walks over, says he's a doctor, asks if he can help out.
| The kid has a very apprehensive look on his face, so the friend
| smiles and says "I know, you're not sure I'm a doctor because I
| haven't asked your parents for their insurance"
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > so homelessness among active-duty families with children is
| practically nonexistent
|
| A Commanding Officer will make sure the kids get food & housing
| for sure even if they have to force through allotments
| adversarially.
| Scubabear68 wrote:
| It's not a high bar to beat, at least here in New Jersey. Nearly
| all of our school boards are non-professional, non-compensated
| elected officials, and a large percentage of Superintendents
| started their career as gym teachers.
|
| The net result is schools that hire hoards of consultants to try
| to meet professional standards, but fail anyway, while spending
| vast sums of tax payer dollars. Covid funds earmarked towards
| bridging the learning gap from closed schools during the pandemic
| are spent on fancy laptops, new athletic facilities, sound
| systems for auditoriums. Absenteeism is skyrocketing, and
| teachers are not only not encouraged to enforce discipline,
| they're actively told to let out of control students slide.
| Social promotion is on the rise, and standardized test scores are
| tanking.
|
| We finally gave up in my local district and ended up paying a
| fortune to send both our kids to private schools. After an
| initial many-months-long struggle to catch up with their new
| private school classmates (because of the public school
| deficits), they are both doing much better. Money well spent, but
| I still send taxes to an ineffective district that spends money
| like water, and where educational value is dead last in their
| priorities.
|
| They even introduced a course in Graphic Novels at the high
| school this year, while 75% of kids fail standardized science
| testing, and 60% fail in math.
| ecshafer wrote:
| New Jersey also has the system of Magnet schools at the county
| level, which have some of the best high schools in the country
| (high technology highschool, middlesex academy for math and
| science, union county magnet school, etc). They reasonably
| require tests and maintaining of discipline. Discipline is key
| to having effective schools, and if either students or parents
| are undermining it, schools can't be effective.
| nameless912 wrote:
| It remains extremely strange to me that we have our school
| boards be largely totally non-professional laypeople in the US.
| Obviously there's no absolute requirement that you be a
| "professional" for almost any elected position in the US, but
| school boards are one of those situations, like judges and
| comptrollers, where it seems like there should be some basic
| qualifications for running. Especially because many of the
| folks elected to school boards are either 1) crazies with a
| bone to pick with a specific teacher/administrator/school or 2)
| moderately ambitious ladder climbers hoping to launch their
| political careers without having to work too hard.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| Are you voting out the bad and ineffective actors in your local
| school system?
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| My feeling is that school performance is denominated by the
| students and parents.
|
| If for example, you took the best performing school district and
| the worst performing school district and swapped just the parents
| and students keeping the school staff, administration, and
| facilities the same, the previously best school district would
| end up near the bottom and the previously worst school district
| would end up near the top.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| > "The military isn't perfect -- there is still racism in the
| military," said Leslie Hinkson, a former Georgetown University
| sociologist who studied integration in Defense Department
| schools. But what is distinctive, she said, "is this access to
| resources in a way that isn't racialized."
|
| Racism in the military is a career ender for officers and
| enlisted kind of like getting a DUI but worse. What is more in
| the system is a "good ole buddy system", where high performers
| often do favors for each other across racial, preference, and
| gender lines.
|
| My parents both taught in California and I've been friends with
| many from DoDEA and here is a TLDR;
|
| Please hold the downvoting for political reasons
|
| -Engaged parents, most are NCOs, officers and civil servants
|
| -Well Funded, like, $1M+ housing area school districts
|
| -Low ratios of teachers to students
|
| -All students are US citizens or foreign nationals from partner
| nations
|
| -Great teachers, some overseas location have insane competition
| for teacher slots, some professors jump to DoDEA slots
|
| -bilingual students that are smart seems the norm
|
| -no problems with illegal aliens, or ESL brand new to English
| swamping 20% of the class particularly at higher grades like what
| happens in some parts of CA
|
| -Some locations have DoDEA are the very choicest in the US
| military, so they attract the creme de la creme of overachievers
| competing for very limited slots
|
| I'd describe the DoDEA schools as similar to the very best public
| schools in the US, but you can find other government schools that
| run similar programs to DoDEA
|
| You can find eligibility for DoDEA at
| https://dodea.widen.net/content/rlhgfasqfx/original/ai-1344-...
| ryan93 wrote:
| Are you purposefully not mentioning the IQ cutoffs the military
| uses for soldiers. it has been as high as the 50th percentile
| for the air force.
| the_bookmaker wrote:
| Steve Sailer makes a very good point about that [1]:
|
| > Because it's illegal by an early 1950s act of Congress for the
| bottom 10% of IQ test scores to join the military and because
| most times, the military bans the bottom 30% on the highly
| g-loaded AFQT. For some years after the 2008 crash, the Air Force
| and Navy only took top 50%.
|
| [1]: https://twitter.com/Steve_Sailer/status/1711759455283712281
| rat87 wrote:
| Steve Sailer the white supremacist? Yeah, I wouldn't trust his
| claims on anything related to education especially on IQ.
| crackercrews wrote:
| Ad hominem. He's making a simple claim about the world that
| is easily verifiable. This site has information about the
| testing requirements and current cutoff. [1]
|
| 1: https://www.sbe.wa.gov/our-work/graduation-pathway-
| options/a...
| Eumenes wrote:
| The NYT is an apparatus of the intelligence agencies, and
| coincidentally military recruitment is down ... this is
| subliminal advertisement for recruitment. Coupled with war in
| Ukraine and incoming war in the Middle east, in addition to new
| recruiting tactics (https://www.military.com/daily-
| news/2023/10/03/army-unveils-...), expect to see alot more praise
| of the DoD/Military in MSM outlets like the NYT.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It wouldn't be subliminal. It would be a blatant advertisement.
|
| Are you suggesting the NYT and/or military school system are
| fabricating achievement results?
| morkalork wrote:
| When I think of 18 kids looking at their options in life and
| weighing how tf they're going to pay for college and is
| considering the military, I'm not imagining someone who
| casually reads the New York Times.
| genghisjahn wrote:
| Seems like maybe the US Department of Defense is better at
| socialism than the rest of the country.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| agreed; see also https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37860853
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| easy to be good at it when you literally own the
| servicemembers, can dictate every facet of their life, and have
| a never-ending cashflow
|
| i had a decent time in the service, given when i joined (2003),
| but i did my 5 years and have 0 interest in living like that
| again
| anarticle wrote:
| DoD schools person here, a major point left out of this article
| is that if you do something bad enough in school your parent's CO
| will be notified and this can have real career results. In a
| foreign country you can get deported if you do something stupid
| enough to warrant it.
|
| I went to several DoD and civilian schools, NC (dod), NJ (civ),
| Erie PA (civ), Okinawa (dod), NJ (civ). I would say the standards
| are higher in DoD, mostly because of standardized curriculum. In
| civilian world, the variance is very high. In South NJ things
| were more rigid, in Erie more lax.
|
| As for "not having social groups" this can be a plus, looking at
| my civilian counterparts in high school. It has pluses and
| minuses, but being an outgroup in high school let me leave that
| stuff behind much easier on my way to college. It makes me an
| alien to most of civilian world, but many benefits.
|
| Housing is provided in the military.
|
| AMA. I am anecdotal, but I have seen both sides at all three
| levels split down the middle.
|
| Edit: I definitely received an education way above my parents
| earning level, I am first to go to college in my family. I went
| to a very good engineering school.
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Do you feel you faced any detrimental challenges your non-
| military family peers didn't, as you made the transition from
| high school to college? If so, what?
|
| Have a child soon to be in a similar situation, so any thoughts
| helpful.
| anarticle wrote:
| The major benefit/challenge of being a military kid that
| moved every 2-3y is that you make friends really fast and
| resocialize very easily. This also means you don't have any
| roots. My example is often that my friends in high school
| were friends since kindergarten, something I have no frame of
| reference for. It probably only hurt in high school for
| sports and clique based activities.
|
| For going from highschool to college there is almost zero
| negative, since it's the nth time you've moved and had to
| rebuild a social structure.
|
| Consider the number of total school changes for an average
| domestic student is 3. K-5, 6-8, 9-12, and in those cases
| they keep their friend groups.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| Yeah, I had a similar upbringing, and this is my feeling as
| well. There's a massive trade-off here, but I do feel like
| the military kids I knew (and run into now) are radically
| more adaptable and sociable.
|
| Another upside, in retrospect: you end up getting to see,
| up-close, a huge range of the social/cultural/political
| landscape.
|
| It's hard to demonize an outgroup much when you at times
| were that outgroup -- or were at least, in the abstract,
| some outgroup. You end up forced to confront (deep-down,
| maybe mostly unconsciously) the arbitrariness
| and...malleability of a lot of things. You end up with a
| lot of tolerance. I'm thankful I had that experience, even
| if it was at times not particularly fun.
| alistairSH wrote:
| According to the article, the Dod educates 66k students. That's
| less than half the size of my county. Yet, the comparison is DoD
| vs states, not the more useful DoD vs counties (or some unit
| closer in size).
|
| I'd love to see how DoD schools compare against top-notch school
| systems. And average school systems (in case the quality of
| country school districts isn't a bell curve for some reason).
| red-iron-pine wrote:
| The #1 public school in the US is Thomas Jefferson in Fairfax
| County Public Schools (FCPS). FCPS is a suburb of DC, and a
| fantastic amount of the kids there are children of military
| servicemembers and FedGov civilians.
|
| A lot of those well paid contractors are former military as
| well.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| Yeah, this is along the lines of my comment. (Am a military
| brat, attended some DoD schools, also attended a school in
| FCPS.)
|
| The educational rigor across different districts is massive.
| Many military kids get to sample from it a lot of times
| (possibly even with a bias for FCPS in particular!); other
| kids get to sample it ~once. There is probably some huge
| reversion to the mean at play here.
| loughnane wrote:
| I spent Kindergarten to 4th grade on Hanscom A.F.B. near
| Lexington, MA. I didn't appreciate it at the time, but it
| hindsight it had lots going for it:
|
| - No such thing as unemployment
|
| - A strong community (Hanscom was also a small, walk-to-school)
| neighborhood
|
| - The schools were indeed good (had several computers in the 2nd
| grade classroom in 1992).
|
| There is a self-selecting element to it though; if you lose your
| job you're out of the community. The line between personal
| problems and professional problems---I came to find out later---
| is much blurrier than in the "real world". Also health care is
| crazy cheap.
|
| I don't know if it could, or should, scale society wide. The
| social benefits are nice, but the authoritarian bent isn't.
|
| Neat article though, gets you thinking.
| nosequel wrote:
| This got touched on by a few replies, happy to see there are some
| others here with actual military experience chiming in.
|
| I grew up on military bases, and went to schools both on and off
| base for 18 years. All continental US bases typically have
| elementary-level (K-5) school, but you typically go to an off-
| base school for middle and high school. When you are overseas,
| this isn't the case, you would most likely go to school on base
| K-12.
|
| I think the article gets right a lot of things, but as some
| other's mentioned there are also things it doesn't catch. There
| are still bad kids on base, who do tons of drugs, commit crimes,
| cheat, steal, whatever. These kids are in every population. One
| huge difference between on base schools and off, is if you got in
| trouble at school, your sponsor's (Mom/Dad whoever is the active
| duty in the family) CO (commanding officer) gets informed. This
| can lead to a tongue lashing at the least, and at the most your
| sponsor can get passed up on the next promotion list or demoted.
| Kids would get caught selling drugs, they would get suspended and
| then their Dad or Mom would usually make their life a living hell
| for a while. It would turn most kids around pretty quickly.
|
| The worst one I know about first hand was a group of kids on base
| in California (a very remote base btw) had a little theft ring of
| the base exchange (BX, like target/walmart on base). The MP's
| found out about it, watched them work for a while, then arrested
| all of the kids. They were high schoolers, probably 15-17. I
| think 4 got caught. The result was each of their families were
| kicked off base, no longer able to live in free base housing. As
| stated elsewhere, military families aren't paid well at all, so
| now these families had to move off base and rent a house. Once
| again, this was a super remote base, and it was easily a 35 min
| drive from main base to the nearest housing off base. I will tell
| you the rest of our school suddenly got really well behaved for
| the rest of the year.
|
| Once again, I think the NYT touched on most of the reasons
| schools were generally better, but to me discipline was a huge
| factor. You typically didn't have that one shithead in your class
| ruining it for everyone else.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| This sounds familiar -- I wonder if we were there at the same
| time.
| nosequel wrote:
| I was there '94->'98
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| The DoD is progressive in more than one way: unlike much of the
| rest of the country they also started desegregating during the
| 1948-1954 time period...
| ForOldHack wrote:
| Most very unfortunately, I have to reluctantly agree, but for
| reasons that are completely hidden: My CS program design teacher,
| would do three things: He would write the subjects he would cover
| on the board, and then cover them, and secondly he would check
| them off. When ever a question would come up from a past lecture,
| he would ask if someone else had the notes to answer the
| question, well. Guess who kept the best notes? I also ran the
| study hall after class. Aced all classes. I finally got up the
| nerve to ask him directly: "Where did you learn those three
| things?" "Oh! The Military." Turns out that those three exact
| things are used to 1) Write English essays, 2) Critique plays, 3)
| and organize client therapeutic meetings. etc. etc. etc. 4)
| organize code walk throughs and 5) multi team debugging sessions.
|
| Yes, Jeff Withe. Diablo Valley College.
| relaxing wrote:
| It would be great if you wrote some more on that 3 step process
| and how it worked - sounds really interesting.
| jmoss20 wrote:
| I grew up on military installations and attended some DoD
| schools. Some things unmentioned/underemphasized:
|
| Families PCS (move) extremely often -- sometimes every school
| year, frequently every few years. Some places have DoD schools
| "on base", some do not, with students instead attend the local
| public schools. Some of those public schools are majority
| military kids, some are not.
|
| DoD schools may have a consistent curriculum (not sure), but
| public schools across states/countries certainly do not. Constant
| moves mean students get a fractured, redundant curriculum.
| (Comically, I recall learning about the "Explorer" in History
| class no less than three times.)
|
| Some bases are located in well-off areas with great public
| education, many others are not. Students might find themselves
| one year learning algebra, the next back to basic multiplication.
| Schools tend to be stubbornly inflexible and will not make
| accommodations on their own. Extremely attentive and pushy
| parents may get weak accommodations (e.g., letting students
| moving full grade levels up/down; something difficult to explain
| later), but it's rare.
|
| Added to this is impact of constant social upheaval + stress of
| parents deployment, lack of lasting friendships, etc.
|
| This is all to say -- you would not expect this population of
| kids to do well academically! The fact that they seem to (as
| measured in these tests at DoD schools) should be really
| surprising, and probably has little to do with the DoD schools
| themselves. They're after all only responsible for part (often a
| small part) of these kids' education.
|
| ---
|
| My main guesses at the real drivers here are:
|
| 1. (As mentioned in the article) It's a different world on base.
| Parents have a massive stake in their children's behavior -- and
| the students know this. No one wants their parent to get an
| earful from their CO, and it does happen. (This is most
| pronounced at DoD schools, but also extends off base.)
|
| Drug and alcohol use is exceedingly rare, due to the above + how
| serious an offense it is on base.
|
| It's true also that there's a modest baseline of economic +
| social support. Maybe not as much as the article suggests, but
| it's not nothing.
|
| 2. Simple reversion to the mean. The DoD schools are full of kids
| with a really diverse set of educational experience. Maybe some
| of the good experiences are even a bit "sticky" -- habits and
| skill learned transferring over to new environments, maybe even
| bad ones. Maybe it's not surprising that that population wins vs.
| the baseline (where kids only get a homogenous, mostly-good or
| mostly-bad experience). - If the good skills and habits are
| "contagious", maybe DoD schools even help spread them across this
| population.
|
| 3. The tests are mostly measuring the lower portion of the
| distribution. Well-off schools will have most students clipping
| the top end of the measurement. Many DoD students attend those
| schools! (At least for a time.)
|
| This is going to seriously amplify (2), but also (1) and other
| things to the extent that they improve (or remove from the
| sample) the worst-off students.
| Simulacra wrote:
| I went to school at Fort Gordon for two years, and the impression
| I got was that if I got in trouble, my parents got in trouble,
| and that would have been way worse. In public schools however, it
| never crossed my mind that my parents could get in trouble for
| something I did in school.
|
| With the military schools, there is a huge element of parental
| responsibility and that's why I think it made them great.
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