[ianai]

You know what would be great? A society where people can knowingly disagree on fundamental concepts with one another and remain mutually respectful and cooperative. And studying philosophy is a gateway to that. Students have very few things in common with most philosophers because most philosophers lived hundreds and thousands of years ago. But reading philosophers will show them their points in common, to various extents. I mean the contrast and comparison is against classes where students memorize the exact order of the US presidents and force read books to the point of hating them.

[Matticus_Rex]

> You know what would be great? A society where people can knowingly disagree on fundamental concepts with one another and remain mutually respectful and cooperative.

I agree.

> And studying philosophy is a gateway to that.

For a very, very small number of students. Forcing every student to go through philosophy education because we can't figure out a better way to select out the students that will care about it is at best waste, and at worst torture. The fact that you and I both actually enjoyed philosophy (and at least for me, school in general) doesn't change that; it means that we have a privilege that needs to be checked.

[ianai]

Or maybe experiment with non cruddy ways of teaching people. Weighting a lot of a grade on a test is an excellent way to freak someone out and build resentment. Maximize teacher/student ratios, fund schools better, etc.

[Matticus_Rex]

There's a lot of experimentation with pedagogy, and the gains are marginal. Student/teacher ratios have a mild effect on academic outcomes, but academic outcomes have very little effect on anything measurable in terms of building human capital or long-term retention.

School funding is similar to the ratio question. Most increases in school funding over the last 50 years get captured by the state and local administrations, which provides even less for outcomes than teacher pay, ratios, or increased resources. Pouring more money into them doesn't usually chance that allocation -- it's like giving money to a homeless family and having one of the parents take the money to buy non-essentials.

In the mean time, kids are wasting away, bored out of their minds. The opportunity costs are massive, and the social returns are negative. We can talk all we want about how we can make the system better, but until it actually gets better, the waste continue and victimizes more kids.